Ain't Nobody Ever Happy

Did you ever notice, no matter what the weather is, someone's not happy? I think weather is probably the single most volatile conversation topic. You could be discussing the merits of summer and make an innocent comment about liking the warm weather and BAM! Someone's complaining about bugs the size of Texas chewing on them.

No season is safe from these cud chewing crones. In the winter, no one's happy. Everyone's too damn cold to be happy. You're frostbitten, half numb, and why does your skin seem like it's got a bluish hue? You never leave the house with less than 3 layers of clothing and cringe if you have to leave your toasty house in the evening to get milk. Winter is probably the crankiest, crabbiest, complaining-est season. It's dark early, everything is white, brown or dirty gray, and you begin to hate cloudy days. Just when we think spring might come and save our sanity, we get 2 feet of that white shit dumped on us, followed by an ice storm and the coldest temperatures of the entire winter. Super! Because what I was really hoping to do was to waste more of my life shoveling and sanding and salting. So it's really not surprising that everyone seems miserable in the winter.

But then spring comes. It's time to shed those winter coats and find the galoshes because spring has brought buckets of rain and mud puddles. Shoes aren't safe and rainjackets and umbrellas are in every closet, coat rack and car. As the season goes on, grass grows, flowers bloom, birds sing........and pollen season starts. Now everything is that weird yellowy-green color and people with allergies are complaining "Dat dey can't breeve." Compulsive clean freaks are lamenting not being able to open the windows because of the constant yellow coating and  it's not quite warm enough to start planting in the garden lest a freak frost hit and decimate your sprouts. (In New York that could happen in June believe it or not. We had 3 feet of snow near Whiteface Mountain this past Memorial Day weekend.) If it's not the rain or the pollen, it's the wind. March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. If by lamb they really mean pissed off lion with a stomach ache and a thorn in its paw. But finally it seems like the weather is starting to change and ahhhhh......summer.

Once summer hits people start pissing and moaning about it being "too hot". These words should never come out of your mouth unless you're in hell. Or an oven set to 400 degrees. Then I will allow it. Since we live in a state with 6 months of winter, there is no such setting as too hot. If you think 88 is hot, visit Death Valley, California. In July. They have a record high of 134 degrees Fahrenheit. One hundred thirty four degrees. Now, that's hot. Until then, please don't tell me "It's too humid." or "It's so hot and sticky outside." Especially since you're the same person who bitched about it being too cold in the winter. You cannot have it all people. That's life. Buy a helmet and get over it. Instead of hating the heat, embrace it! It's only a few short weeks before Mother Nature snatches it away from us like a mean sibling stealing our favorite toy, only to replace it with a crappier, less liked toy like Autumn frosts or colder temperatures.

Last, but certainly not least, is fall. I think that this season is probably the least hated. It's hard to hate a season that brings apple picking, getting those kids back to school, football, pumpkin pie, crunchy leaves, and did I mention getting the kids back in school after a very, looooong summer? Of course, someone has to ruin the bliss with a litany of complaints about their neighbor's leaf burning wreaking havoc with their sinuses or the chilly autumn nights being a sign of an early winter. For cripes sake people, can we just enjoy hot apple cider and leaves changing colors and visions of fat, plump turkey dinners? Must you rush us back into that white, wintry spiral of gloom?

So for now, I'm living in the "weather moment". I'm going to enjoy the steamy, humid 90 degree weather heading our way. Because six months from now, memories of summer will be the only thing keeping me from hunting down Mother Nature and choking her for all the snow we're getting.

I Think I Sprained My Zumba Bone

So it's been a few months since I started doing the Zumba thing. I've been feeling all high and mighty because not only have I not fallen flat on my face because I can't keep up, but not once have I fallen on my ass either. (If you've ever seen my klutz factor, you'd know this is a coup for me.) So once a week I go for my weekly dose of confident woman A.K.A. Zumba and everything's good, fine, great....until today.

Because of the holiday, there were only two classes: 8:30 and 5:30. Since I was planning on making up for lost calories in the afternoon at the Memorial Day picnic with our family, I figured I'd better do the 8:30 class. Even if it did mean I had to get up at the crack of early on a holiday that I could have slept in on just so that I can get the amount of coffee I require to be pleasant to people before 9 AM.  Sure, I could have slept in and skipped the coffee until after Zumba, but I don't think murder was on my agenda today. (Nope, I checked, my day planner definitely doesn't have that scheduled.)

So we get there and we're waiting for the instructor and there are a few notices on the door that we're reading and my daughter says, "This is a Zumba toning class." Um, okay. A what now? Zumba, that's dancing slash exercise moves plus toning, that's with weights? Okay now, just wait a damn minute. Like regular Zumba wasn't had enough now I have to do it with weights? Did I mention that I've got no rhythm and two left feet and that it took a month to get basic steps down? Okay, THIS should be fun.

So I ask the instructor which weights I should use: green, purple, or purple-er? She tells me green is 1.5 pounds, the purple is 2, and the purple-er is 2.5. At least I think that's what the purple duo was, I wasn't really paying that close of attention because now this inner monologue is going on: "Okay, 1.5 seems really light. I don't want to seem like a wuss but she just said there's some songs that 1.5 feels like a ton. If I get a heavy weight and I'm flat on the floor because all my unused muscles seize, I'll feel even dopier. Ok, look like a wuss or be the one who thinks she's tough?" In the end I went with the 1.5'ers. I didn't know what I was in for but I figured I'd err on the side of caution.

So, we warm up a few songs without the sticks (I learned they have actual names instead of colors!) and then we add the toning part. "Ok. I can do this. I know these steps. It's Zumba with sticks! Wow, this is easier than I thought. Ohmygod I'm a wimp! Why didn't I get the heavier weights? I should have gotten the heavier weights. I'm probably not even toning anything with this puny thing. One and a half pounds? I think my purse is heavier than this and I haul that thing around all day. I'm such an idiot." The hour ends, we all go sweatily on our way and life is good.

Until tonight comes. And my shoulders are killing me. I have muscles up there? Huh, well I'll be. I'm glad to know they're there, in case I ever need them. What? Use them now? Oh no! No, thanks. I think I'll wait until the feeling comes back in my arms. But when I do, watch out! They're gonna be some slightly better toned mom arms!

Karma's Punch In The Forehead

I don't know whose cosmic cornflakes I pissed in this week but karma has come and punched me straight in the forehead. Think I'm exaggerating? Well, let's break this weekend down, shall we?

This is Memorial Day weekend. Hoorah! A three day weekend! I'll have an extra day to get crap done! Oh, except that it's going to pour for 2 of the 3 days. What does two straight days of rain mean? How about baby boy's t-ball game being cancelled? There goes an outlet for him to run around and get rid of his excess energy. Or the fact that no one gets to go outside and burn energy? We're all going to sit and grow mold and corrode in here. If I wasn't with them all morning, I'd suspect someone came and gave the youngest two 5 pounds of pixie stix. Each. Because they are seriously hyped up. How many times can I tell these damn kids not to run in the house? 38 1/2 times. Is it bed time yet? What do you mean it's only 4:30? Is that clock broken? All the damn clocks in this house are broken! What the ?!?!

Or that all of us are stuck in this tiny house breathing each other's air and getting on each other's nerves? I turn around and bam! There's the youngest, or the dog, or hubby. Listen people, haven't you seen Dirty Dancing? This is my space. That is your space. Let's respect the space. Why can't you be like your older brother? I haven't seen him in hours. Go corrode in your room like he does. No, not all the time. Just today. It's a special occasion. We're gong to celebrate "Happy Give Each Other Space Day But Most Especially Mom So She Doesn't Lose Her Shit And Spend The Rest Of The Weekend In A Bottle Of Wine" Day. Doesn't that sound like fun? Now go to your rooms and let the celebrating begin.

Then there's the fact that Saturday was supposed to be the day we went to the amusement park. The one that's less than 10 minutes away that baby boy, who's a worldly six years of age now, has never been to and if he was any more excited about it, he'd be twins. Until it's raining so hard you can barely see out the rain spattered windows and we have to tell him that it's closed because of the rain (Total parent lie. They could have been open but we were not going to traipse around in a downpour in 47 degree weather.) and he's super bummed. Probably not as bummed as his parents because walking around an amusement park for 6 or 7 hours is a great way to manage a 7:30 bedtime for your completely exhausted kids. Now they're bouncing around at 9:30 being told 14 times to "Go to sleep!!". Except for the oldest. He's still conducting his experiment to see if he can become one with his bed if he stays in it long enough.

Then there's the fact that Friday was my daughter's medication management check up for her ADHD and they changed her medication. And when we go to fill her prescription they don't have it. So we check all the area pharmacies and they don't have it either. So we bring it back to our regular pharmacy, who's going to order it, but because of the f'n holiday (They probably didn't add the f'n. That might have been me.) it's not going to be in until Wednesday. WEDNESDAY? Today is Friday. She has school Tuesday. So let me get this straight. She has one more pill and I am supposed to NOT kill her over this long weekend so I can send her back to school Tuesday, still unmedicated, and pray her teachers don't kill her, just because it takes five days to send some pills? Have some sympathy people. Overnight it. Next day shipping. Something. Have you ever lived with a pre-teen girl with ADHD?

So to summarize: Two days, inside, with three children. Baby boy needs some sport to play that doesn't involve bouncing off walls and can't due to weather. Middle girl needs medication to save her life from her mother who ran out of hair to pull out and wine to medicate herself. Oldest needs a shower and clean sheets because his science experiment to see if he can grow mold worked. Dad, who is the sole sane one in the great Memorial Day Debacle of 2013, owes his life to ESPN.

The one nice day of the weekend, Monday, will be sunny and 68. Which is great since the oldest will have to actually leave his bed to play his clarinet at the parade in town. And we're having a cook out with family, the first people to see us in public after the great Memorial Day Debacle of 2013. Hopefully Mr. Meteorologist is on our side this time and doesn't decide to change the forecast. Although I do think it's a little cruel to rub in that the nice weather IS coming.....just in time to go back to work.

It's Gonna Be Pun-tacular Up In Here

So the oldest boy is a complete drama nut. He's been involved in drama club since fifth grade and grows more and more enamored of the arts every year. Personally I'm thrilled because I would have loved to have done drama myself in school but alas, this nerdling was much too shy. (I know, what happened there, right?)

His school does a yearly production of one musical or another from January through March. Which to the boy is like giving a fun size snickers to a starving person. Especially since the school likes to save the bigger, juicier roles for juniors and seniors and his sophomoric status didn't make the grade. (Har de har har!) He needed more lines! More musical cues! More drama! So he found a group that does a summer production and went to auditions.

I admit that the auditions part freaked me out a little. I mean, the school will always find a place for the students to include them in the new and improved "Life is peachy and everything is fair" world they create for our kids. This was an actual theater group. They had callbacks and everything. (Which basically prolonged my nail biting for two nights instead of one.) Then they posted the roles online. (Like a virtual cork board I guess.) The production they're doing is Shrek: The Musical. The boy was certain that he'd landed a prime role, namely Shrek or donkey. I was proud of his confidence and hoped I didn't have to give the "Maybe next year" speech. (Although I did pull it out and dust it off a little, just in case.)

Outwardly I'm super supportive Mom. I'm handing out smiles and saying things like "Good job!" and "I know you'll get a good part." Mentally I'm praying I'm not jinxing it. Maybe they didn't like his audition? Maybe there was the most fabulous student actors the troupe had ever met and they completely swept them off their theatrical feet and landed all the good roles. How dare they crush my baby's spirit? His enthusiasm is unequaled! His love of acting is unparalleled by any other! (Can you see how he might come by a (teensy bit) of his drama honestly?) And don't you know he DID get the part of donkey. Well I'll be a monkey's uncle. Or at least a donkey's mother.

Are you freaking kidding me??? This is fantastic. I have a plethora of pun-tastic ass jokes. I've got material for weeks! The very first thing I did was post to FaceBook: My oldest son is an ass. No, really! He got the part of donkey in Shrek the musical. It's probably the only time I can be proud of my son making an ass of himself!" And that's just the beginning. (Cue evil genius laugh) This poor kid is going to be haunted by some of the punniest, most terrible humor I can think of for the next two months. It's going to be asinine how quickly I will ASSemble an artillery of ASSorted plays on words and mASSively mangled wisecracks, quips, taunts, and outright buffoonery.  Sadly, he'll probably be the only one who really appreciates it because he's got the same sense of humor I do.

But then again, he's an ass so what does he know?

The Horribly Bad, No Good, Rainy Sunday

When you're stuck in an office all week, you pray that the weekends are nice so that you can possibly get outside and remind yourself what something other than the 4 walls of your office look like. (Hey! What's the big yellow thing in the sky? Is that a really big fluorescent light?) This past weekend we had a gorgeous, sunny Saturday (which was great because we had an outside picnic to go to) but Sunday was chilly, damp, and rainy. It was fabulous.

Now I know I just told you that the primary goal is nice weather. It's great when you can score a warm, sunny weekend, especially if you have no plans and can really enjoy it. Who wouldn't enjoy a lazy Saturday spent tooling in the garden or re-landscaping the backyard with the smell of fresh cut grass and tilled earth in the background. (Because I want to do it, not because I have to!) But sometimes, I just need a rainy day. A day where I can snuggle down with a blanket and a good book or even my DVR. A day I can do this without guilt.

I'm not sure if it's Mom guilt or guilt guilt, but I can't seem to just give myself a day to enjoy myself without feeling like I'm slacking. Especially once the nice weather comes. There's flower planting, garden weeding, sun shining fun to be had outside and admitting that you took a "down day" and watched tv and vegged out all day? Sacrilege! You mean to tell me that it was 75 and sunny and you watched DVR'ed episodes of Celebrity Apprentice? (Okay, if we're talking about me, it's probably Warehouse 13 or Body of Proof.)

But if it rains? No one expects you to do yard work when it's 60 and chilly outside. It's a free pass from outside judgement AND your guilty self. I can give myself a break from the endless weekends of running errands, children's birthdays, baking for parties and gatherings, and infinite home improvement projects. Cooking dinners, washing unending loads of laundry, and packing school lunches. I feel like I never see the bottom of my to-do list anymore. But taking a day off is slightly akin to playing hooky from school. I might enjoy it at the time but tomorrow is going to be filled with guilt and remorse for all the floors that could have been scrubbed or the awesome parenting moments I missed. All because I was being selfish and having a lazy day.

Why do women feel like they have to neglect themselves to the point of exhaustion? Personally, I think it's probably unintentional. We're so busy taking care of everyone and everything else, we leave ourselves off that list. (Which is probably why we like our wine and/or chocolate. It doesn't talk back, have expectations of us, and it makes us happy.) Or maybe years of being the "weaker" sex has made us more determined than ever to prove we can be Supermom: able to leap tall piles of legos while cooking dinner and helping our kids with their homework at the same time!

Perhaps the real culprit is the post weekend water cooler talk. You need something that will impress on Monday when the rounds of "How was your weekend?" and "Did you do anything exciting?" make their way to you. You don't want to be the schlep who says, "Well, I spent 8 hours scratching my ass and watching Love It or List It on HGTV. I showered at 3 in the afternoon and then got back into my pajamas. We ate stale chips and bologna sandwiches for dinner. My family thinks I'm a failure, the kids have I-don't-like-bologna-itis, and I think the dog ate one of my slippers out of spite. But boy did I relax!"

So yes, it was a Horribly Bad, No Good, Rainy Sunday. To some people. To me it was a bubble bath, a chocolate chip cookie, and a cup of coffee wrapped in a fleece blanket and tied with a ribbon. (Forget brown paper packages and rainbows, these are a few of my favorite things!)

I Wanna Be One Of The Cool Nerds

So the other day I was reminded of my terrible "Foot In Mouth Syndrome" and why I rarely speak to anyone who hasn't known me for at least a year. I don't know why I can put something down on paper (or computer) and sound like an intelligent modern woman but when I speak to people in real life I get tongue tied and awkward and sound a lot like Urkel at a modeling convention. I think there's a loose wire somewhere between my brain and my mouth because stuff is definitely getting lost in translation.

I'm truly convinced that I was being raised by a pack of wild hyenas during the age where I was supposed to be learning social graces and by the time my real mother found me, it was too late: I was interactionally (You wouldn't believe how much spell check wants me to fix that word.) helpless. I've managed, over the years, to emulate other socially acceptable practices enough to be moderately human in small gatherings. That (and 34 years) will pretty much smooth the rough edges out of anyone's awkwardness, right? Um, wrong. (You know I'm leading up to an example, right?)

It all started with an acquaintance that I'd heard had lost her husband within the past year. And she has kids. Now this pings both my Sympathetic Mom Radar as well as my Compulsive Helper Gene. Instantly I want to hug this woman and offer her help in some way: pizza money, a baby sitter, a kidney. But this is a woman I've known for an equivalent of eight hours over a period of 2 months. Cumulatively, I've known her less than a single day. It's probably not socially acceptable to offer internal organs and such at such a tender age in a relationship with someone. So I keep my sympathy internal and manage not to accost this woman with any well meaning, but probably creepy, intentions.

This restraint is really unlike me, however, and destined not to last that long. Unfortunately, my brain has never outgrown my nerdling tendencies because, well, I am nerd, hear me roar. This means any new public interactions with actual people throw me right back to high school. So despite my being a well read, well spoken woman who wanted to say, "I'm terribly sorry for your loss and can't imagine the strength of character and fortitude you must possess. If you ever need an extra hand, or a shoulder, or an ear, please let me know if I can help." turns into, "If you ever get stuck in a pinch and need a place for the kids to get off the bus...." (Our children are in the same school system.) Great. I sound like a creepy pedophile stalker with delusions of helpfulness. There's a restraining order in the making right there! And to compound matters, I can't help but replay this awful conversational nightmare over and over in my head. She's probably written the entire encounter off as just a chat with a nut job and here I am obsessing over it.

When I relayed this entire debacle to my husband (who I swear was trying his hardest not to laugh at me) he said only, "You're not a creeper babe, you're just trying to be a nice person." (See, this is why I keep him around. He actually thinks I'm normal.) Although I'm pretty sure that I did see him smirk from the corner of my eye, he gets points not only for managing this conversation with a straight face, but for making me feel like maybe I was just blowing it out of proportion. Or he did until 7 cop cars pulled up in front of the house. Kidding, kidding! No police were involved in the making of this blog.

So while I appreciate and embrace my dorkiness, I don't understand why I couldn't have grown up to be one of the cool nerds. And by cool nerds, I mean the ones that are currently worth a couple billion dollars. I'd probably still be one hot social mess but at least I could make amends with diamond watches or something.

What The Hell Is All This CRAP?

The one thing that seems to cause me the most Mom guilt is the amount of work that I am (or am not) saving from my children. My cousin once told me she saves EVERYTHING that her (only) son brings home. Two children ago this would have sent me into a Mom guilt spazz attack. Now, on the third kid, it just a provides a slight twinge.

I wonder why there isn't a guide book to help ascertain what we are supposed to treasure from our children's school efforts and what we can throw out without causing too much emotional trauma? That is a trick question! The answer is we cannot throw anything out without causing emotional trauma to our children who look at us like we are evil incarnate for chucking something their own precious two hands made. Even if it is sixteen sheets of illegibly printed A's. We are supposed to record every single painstaking step of learning to print actual letters, at least in the eyes of our children. Which is why Moms resort to throwing things out when their kids aren't there to see it and why it's buried under the coffee filters, empty cereal boxes, and anything else we could pile on top of it to ensure it will remain unseen by our precocious progeny.

So the rule is this: I only save things that are really adorable, special (I love Mom because....), or funny. Like the Thanksgiving Turkey cooking instructions that my daughter did. (She was in Kindergarten? First grade?) I don't remember exactly what it says but something ridiculous like: "Put the turkey in the oven at 40 degrees for an hour."

And I don't even know why I'm saving all this stuff. Eventually it just gets put in a box and shoved in the back of a closet somewhere or on a shelf in the garage because I lack space to keep it hanging around our puny 1,200 square feet of house. So it's not as if we're pulling it out and reminiscing on a yearly basis. It's basically being put away, never to see the light of day again.

Or am I saving it to eventually give back to them someday? When they buy their first house I give them a housewarming gift with a "Congratulations! You now have room to take this box of stuff I've been saving and I don't want anymore because I'm getting old and someone will just have to clean out the house when Dad and I are gone anyway." I know my daughter, who has shown slight hoarding tendencies, will probably welcome it. But (and I don't mean to sound sexist here) my two boys? Sorry, I just can't see them getting gooey eyed over a teddy bear they drew when they were 6. At best, they're just going to shove it in a closet somewhere themselves. At worst, they're just going to throw it out which will make me say, "WTF dude? I saved that for like 15 years. At least hold on to it for a year until I forget about it. I'm old, it'll happen."

 Maybe when they're older I can get bonus Mom points? "Look at how dedicated and caring I was! I saved all this crap uh, crafty stuff that you made. Yes, it's a dog! No, no, you're right. An owl. That you made in first....the first week of second....third grade. Good job back then buddy!" I guess I'll just keep on doing what generations of mothers have done before me and ooh and ahh over paper mache turtles and all their "skool wurk".

Until then, I need a new damn box. The old one is full.

A Shout Out To Mothers

Today is a very special day of the year for all of us Mothers. It's a time for breakfasts in bed, hand print art poems, and a special feeling of accomplishment that your child is still breathing and you don't think you caused them to need (much) therapy this past year. In honor of this day, Modern Mom Mayhem presents:

How You Know You're A Mom

• If you've ever had to choke down soggy cereal and burnt toast for your Mother's Day breakfasts.
• If you've ever been peed on during a diaper change or had a poop blowout so bad that you decided to just throw the onesie out than try to clean it.
• If you've ever felt that the pacifier was your best friend sometimes if it meant you had five minutes to think without a screaming baby.
• If you've ever received flak for using a pacifier because Mrs. X's perfect children never needed one.
• If you ever realized that the bouncy seat was your savior because it meant you could shower with a newborn in the house. Of course, the baby was IN the bathroom with you because you were too paranoid to be separated five feet.
• If you learned to take 7 minute showers because of it.
• If you've ever ad a child tell you at 7 PM that they have an art project/report/bake sale the next day and need (fill in the blank) and you do a flight of the bumblebee store run.
• If you've ever had a picky eater and taken turns between frustration that the damn kid won't just eat new foods for cripes sake and acceptance that your kid will forever eat PB&J instead of meat.
• If you've ever had the creepy feeling that someone was staring at you at 2 AM and wake up to find a child next to your bed.
• If you have had so many experiences with pink eye that you can tell to the second they start coming down with it.
• If you know all the words to at least one kids show theme song or have ever had to sit through the same movie 73 times because it was your child's favorite.
• If you've ever caught yourself singing these damn annoying songs even while your kid isn't around because they're so good at getting stuck in your head. "Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere."
• If it's been a few years since you've had a hot meal, a private phone conversation, or a bathroom break without either company or a knock (or 12) on the door.
• If someone asks what the last movie you saw or book you read and it's animated or has more pictures than words.
• If you've ever had the parental embarrassment of a toddler in melt down mode in public because you were foolish enough to venture to the store too close to nap time.
• If you've ever been so tired during a toddler meltdown that you've contemplated just sitting down and crying with them.
• If you've ever been up all night with a sick child and would give anything just to be able to make them well.
• If they bounce back from being sick with 22 times as much energy and you feel guilty for thinking it was nice and calm when they were sick.
• If your purse starts to resemble a diaper bag, after you've given the diaper bag up.
• If you can't leave the house for a few hours without planning for every single contingency that might require a change of clothes, a sweater, sun screen, bug repellent, a ball cap or a snack. "Just in case."
• If you can get nostalgic over the smell of Desitin.
• If you've ever realized that baby wipes were handy for sticky hands and dirty faces, and you miss them once you stop carrying them.
• If the best part of your day was snuggling up with a freshly bathed baby/toddler/preschooler. (Or however long they let you before they were "too big".)
• If you beg to hold other people's babies so you can get your fix of sweet baby head smell because your "baby" is long past that age.
• If you appreciate your own Mother more for what your own kids put you through.
• If you look forward to Mother's Day hand made gifts made with hand prints or your child's picture. (Of course the picture is taken on a day that they wore their ugliest shirt or had sloppy joes for lunch) 
• If you can admit that the perfect Mother's Day gift would be if Dad took them to the park for a few hours so Mom could let Calgon take her away.
• If you feel guilty about admitting that BEFORE you even finish admitting it and give yourself the world's sternest mental lecture.
• If you are intimately acquainted with Mom Guilt and how often you will feel its sting.
• If you've ever had a child ask 28 times for something in the grocery store and stuck to your guns when you said NO. (And felt like a parenting genius the whole day! You can do this, you got it licked! You....have a toddler running around the house pant less and the other one is eating dog food. Sigh.)
• If you have ever had that one relative/friend/neighbor who always has the "best parenting advice" because they had the perfect children who are perfectly perfect in every single way.
• If you ever had that one person who actually did have the best parenting advice...or at least advice on how to keep your sanity while raising them.
• If you survived the toddler "Why?" stage.
• If you have ever uttered the words, "Because I said so." even though you vowed that it would never happen.
• If you learned the importance of picking your battles.
• If a hug from your child can make any day better.

And most importantly, if you read any of those and nodded your head because you have been/are going through it. Happy Mother's Day! 

Is That A Parachute On The Clothesline?

Remember when you were younger and found out that the term "Granny Panties" was because your Granny actually wore underwear like that? As a young girl I remember finding it hilarious that my grandmother wore underwear "that huge". (Of course, I was much, much smaller myself so I'm sure that added to the largeness.)

Well guess what? I have figured out that this is a gradual transition. The older I get, the bigger my underwear get. It's like the little old ladies with the 20 feet long Cadillacs.  Maybe we want things big enough to find them once our eyesight starts going? Regardless, it's not an overnight decision. It starts small.

When you're a young hot thing, that's when you wear the bikini briefs, the v strings, the thongs, or as I call them, the permanent wedgie. I used to revel in my small size 5/6 string bikinis (which sound cooler than what they are: bikini briefs with strings holding the front and back together instead of boring old fabric). I used to get the satiny material and feel all cute. After having my second child I found out that the strings cut into my "Mom fluff". (This is where Mother Nature helps fluff you up to make you a comfy cuddler. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it dammit.) They had to go.

Next were the satiny bikinis. Still cute but without the circulation strangling strings. But I felt all Mom-ish. I'm too young to wear ugly underwear! Luckily, at this point, some savvy marketing genius with ESP at Victoria's Secret solved my plight by coming up with the "hipster". (I don't know if they actually came up with it or just jumped on the bandwagon but just go with me.) What's a hipster? It's what you would get if boy shorts and bikini briefs had a baby. They were great! Cute AND enough coverage. Best of all: no strings to remind me about the Mom Fluff.

So life is good, good, good, and then BAM. I'm wearing the hipsters one day and I keep doing the butt pick of shame. What's the butt pick of shame? It's when your underwear are being uncooperative and ride up, hiding in the crack of your ass. Since it's apparently uncool to let the world know you have a "wedgie", you find a bathroom or a dark corner in which to dislodge the offending fabric from between your cheeks. Which lasts for all of 3 minutes before you move the wrong way and find them climbing back to their pre-pick spot.

It's at this point that I start pondering the need for those Hanes underwear that I saw on that commercial. They move with you and don't cause wedgies and are supposed to be super comfortable. And it hits me: This is how my grandmother ended up with Granny Panties. She just kept "upping" her underwear to be comfortable until she eventually ended up with the kind that were so large they doubled as her underwear AND bra. Functional and money saving! Bonus! But what the hell, right? By the time I'm 70, no one wants to see me in my underwear anyway. My secret's safe unless you visit me on laundry day. And if you do, relax. It's not a parachute on the clothes line, it's just my undies.

The Things I Miss The Most

When you're 17, mostly you can't wait to be "grown up". You look forward to all of things that you'll be able to do, not realizing that 15 years from now, THESE are your glory days. Here are what I miss the most about being 17:

Eating whatever I wanted (even fast food) and not gaining a single ounce. Ah, the good old days. When my metabolism worked as hard as Rocky Balboa training for a fight. When counting calories didn't exist and I could literally have my cake and eat it too. Even at 10:30 at night. Without consequences. When you're 17, you don't think about trans fat and cholesterol and other scary old people afflictions because you're invincible. You're hot stuff! You're almost 18 baby!

And speaking about 17 year old bodies.... Remember how nice it was to have all your parts where they're supposed to be? Of course, by parts, I mean my ladies, my tatas, my girl bumps. Yes, back before gravity and years of nursing children took their toll. Or the smooth, unmarred, supple skin that was my stomach? Before it got married to stretch marks and had twins: varicose veins and stretch marks jr. If I had known what 3 kids would have done to my perfectly good body, I might have appreciated it more when I had it. (Oh who am I kidding? When are 17 year old girls ever appreciative of their bodies?)

Being able to go to the bathroom or have a phone conversation in peace. I can go hours at a time in separate rooms with my children and I being busy. Until I have to go to the bathroom or use the phone. It's only then that they remember all the questions that they've been dying to ask me all day. Such as, "Why is the sky blue? or Can I have a snack?" They like to save arguments for when I'm on the phone so that I have to excuse myself from the conversation, hold my hand over the mouthpiece, and yell like a rabid lunatic for them to "Knock it off, I'm on the phone!!" I think the reason some animals eat their young is that they get tired of trying to have conversations over the sound of the squabbling.

Staying up as late as I wanted and not needing a caffeine IV the next day. Remember sleepovers or parties with your friends where you stayed up all night and still managed to function the next day? You just needed an extra soda or cup of coffee to help fuel you along. And it only took one night of regular sleep and you were back on schedule. Nowadays I'm wrecked if I stay up past 12 and my schedule is out of whack for a week. Every night I get into bed and am supremely blissful to be there. If there's anything to make you feel like an old fart, it's watching your bedtime get earlier and earlier every year. 

Walking into a room and remembering why I'm there. I used to laugh at my own mother and her constant ability to space out. I always attributed it to growing up in the 60's and 70's and all the peace, love, and drugs that was all the rage. Now I know it was just Mom Brain. I'm not even all the way through my 30's yet and I can walk into a room to do something and not remember by the time I've walked the 8 steps to get there. Now I get to play "mental mind reverse walk through" where I try to rewind my thought process to see if I can figure out where the light bulb went on and prompted me to leave the room in the first place.

Although there are quite a few things I'll miss about being 17, there are a few perks to being the age I am now. Like being able to drive after 9 (If I'm not already in bed for the night) and being old enough to have a cocktail (or 4) after a hard day. I guess I'll have to be content to lecture my own children and drive them crazy. After all, how many times did we roll our eyes when our parents said, "Someday you'll look back at these days and wish you could go back. Don't be in such a hurry to grow up!"

Mad Musings From Modern Mom Mayhem

So spring has finally sprung. Since spring is my favorite season, I usually get annoyed at anyone who tries to bring me down from my cloud. This year there are quite a few things raining on my parade.

First and foremost: Shaving. Ah yes, the joys of being a modern woman in America. In America, women are allergic to 50% of their body hair and thus remove it by plucking, waxing, shaping, or shaving. Once the weather warms up and we shed layers, we showcase our paper white legs again with capris and shorts. Since the Sasquatch look is so 1980's, shaving is a necessary evil. In the winter, however, we get spoiled by not having to haul out the razor as often because no one sees our legs anyway. Now that we're showing off the gams, we have to shave more often. Which sucks. Whose idea was it to take a sharp, potentially lethal object and scrape off layers of hair and skin from our body? I'm pretty sure this could be a form of torture in some countries. And yet we blithely accept this as the norm and buy stock in shaving cream and pink razors.

Second on my list: Fair weather walkers/boarders/bicyclists. Once it's sunny and warm and 70, people want to be outside more. This results in more walking or bike riding or jogging. Why does it always seems like they're right in your way when you're trying to get somewhere? And pedestrians always have the right of way, so you're stuck there waiting for them to saunter across the street at their own pace. What I really want to say to them is, "Yes, it's fabulous that YOU get to leisurely stroll the city on a gorgeous spring day. But some of us are trying to get back to work because their lunch hour is up. It was probably foolish of us thinking we could get that errand done and get back in time, but again, we don't have the luxury of being able to traipse around town in magenta walking shorts that just happen to accent the jogging stroller that holds a perfectly behaved pod person three year old child."

Third on the list: Maniac drivers. I'm not sure what it is lately, but people seem to have an aversion to using their directional signals.  This makes me insane. You see it everywhere: On the highway, merging from one lane to another and back again. On the city streets, turning in residential areas. With the car that likes to cut everyone off. What the hell people? Did we somehow forget about the plastic stick on the side of the steering wheel that turns on a light to tell people which way our 2 tons of machinery is going? The one that causes a lot of damage if smacked into something because no one knew you were turning? Was it too difficult to figure out the flipping it down indicates one direction, but flipping it up was a different direction? I think people need to go back to driving school. Or maybe they should have stricter standards and stop passing everyone with 2 eyes and working limbs.

And if it's not those idiots, it's the ones who do almost hit you and when you pass them, they're chatting it up with the cell phone up to their ear. Hello?! Is your conversation worth more than my life? Because I'm pretty sure my kids would miss me more than your great Aunt Myrtle would miss that conversation you're having that's taking your attention away from your driving. Priorities people!

Last, but not least, on the list: Yard Overachievers. Every neighborhood has at least one of them. These are the people who have perfect lawns all year round. If a single blade of grass is missing, they plant a single seed to replace it. And they're starting now. It doesn't matter that we're only 48 seconds into spring. They are determined to get started on achieving the perfect lawn status for the 7th consecutive year. Meanwhile, my lawn looks like a traveling circus wandered through and left its mark. There are patches where there isn't even one single speck of grass, just a big circle of dirt. We have something mimicking grass over in that section of the yard. We aren't sure what it is but so long as it's green, even if it's not the right shade, we're not complaining. Five minutes ago we were just happy that our grass to dirt ratio was 3 to 1. Now we have to be envious that the lawn gestapo has come to town. Knock it off! You're making the rest of the neighborhood think we actually have to put time and attention on our lawns. Personally, I don't have time for that! My lawn will just have to have grass envy.

I guess the moral of the story is this: The next time you're shaving and driving, make sure you use the directional on your cell phone to let people know how much better your lawn is.