Oh, the humiliation

Listen, I know I'm a screw up all on my own and that I'll never win the most organized, most-got-it-together or whatever award but I didn't expect my kids to completely tumble me off of my meager, barely socially-acceptable, pedestal. Wrong again. I was "working" in my office this afternoon, er, that means I was playing online games, and the doorbell rang. My son joyfully announced that people were here. And, oh boy, they're kids! So, I left my office and walked out into the living room. To my chagrin, not only did my son have his pants removed (at least his training pants were still on), but he and my daughter were clambering on a side table and pulling photographs off the wall. Of course, the shades were up and the table was right next to the window so it would be impossible for any visitor not to notice this.

With great trepidation, and after calmly instructing the kids to get off the table and to put pants on (all said in an admirably restrained manner), I opened the door. Wouldn't you know it, it's the woman from down the street with her three kids. And this woman does have it all together. Her hair and makeup are always perfect, her teeth are perfect and she's very tall and willowy. Obviously, she has beautiful clothing on (I'm guessing size 4 or smaller) and her children are sweet-mannered little cherubs. Just the person I want at my door at this moment (or any moment)! At this point, my son is standing next to me, still sans pants and my daughter has decided to pull the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head and has removed her socks so she looks like a homeless street urchin. Great.

So, after some small talk where I'm trying to cover my mortification, I find out her daughter is selling candy as a fundraiser for her cheer leading squad (I will refrain from commenting about cheerleaders). Of course, the candy had peanuts or was cross-contaminated with them. So, I informed her I wouldn't be buying the candy but I could donate some money. I gave her $2 and couldn't wait to close the door. Of course, they want me to come over to their house on Halloween so they can see how cute my kids are dressed for Halloween. Oh sure, that should be great. That last sentence was dripping with sarcasm in case you didn't notice. I bet her kids aren't disassembling her house and I'm sure they'll have their pants on. Who knew that would be something I'm still trying to attain? Should I just give up and remove my own pants at this point? Is it possible for us to move yet? Ack!!!

Life Changing Events

I got kind of wacky this week. I thought I found a lump which wasn't a lump and managed to lower my blood pressure from the astronomical level of 112/68 (I am being sarcastic, my blood pressure, on average, is ridiculously low) after I was seen by a nurse practitioner and told to stop worrying. I won't go into details about the lump and it's location since it's kind of embarrassing and the one person who reads this blog already knows where it was. Anyhow... before I knew that it wasn't anything to worry about I kind of had one of those moments where I thought "wow, if this is the end, what memories are my kids going to have of me, crazy, yelling-at-them mom, or fun mom who took them to new places and had lots to teach them with love?" So, I decided to be more understanding, to spend more time with them rather than the computer (that should've been obvious regardless of my health, shame on me), that we should schedule in outdoor time every day and to focus more on the positive than the negative. So, before I saw my nurse practitioner I took them for a long walk and we picked up different colored leaves and a rock that caught my son's eye. Normally, I would've told him not to take a rock from a neighbor's stone driveway 'cause if every kid took one then there wouldn't be much of a driveway left. Anyway, we listened to the birds singing and talked about all the things we were seeing. Then, that afternoon while my daughter was napping, I sat down at the kitchen table with my son and we created leaf pressings with some waxed paper and an iron. Then, I used my heart-shaped hole punch so we could thread some string through there and hang it in the window. Of course, then my son wanted to use the hole punch himself. New mommy said "OK" and gave him a magazine from recycling to mangle. I ignored the dozen paper hearts that were littering the floor as he punched away. After my husband got home, I nervously kissed my son goodbye and told him I loved him as I drove to my appointment.

Well, to make a long story short, nothing was wrong. I should defend myself here since I may sound a tad dramatic but even my husband was concerned about my discovery and urged me to get it checked out. He didn't say anything but he must have been worried since he emptied and loaded the dishwasher before he went to work. That never happens so I took it as a little sign that he was worried.

I got home from my ordeal, looked at the kids and my husband and decided that even though this turned out to be nothing, maybe I should learn from this whole thing. Would you call this an epiphany? Maybe I should treat each day like maybe it's the most important one and that it would be what my kids and husband remembered of me. Yup, getting corny. Obviously, I'm not going to be able to take my kids somewhere new and exciting every day but I can do simple things with them that lets them know I care. I'm going to try to make sure that the experiences aren't limited to just going to the grocery store or Target. I swear that my son thinks that going to the grocery store is the height of excitement sometimes. There really has to be more to life.

Today we went to our town's Main Street where there were about 50 scarecrows on display. Our town does a scarecrow contest each October and people really get creative with their themes. The kids loved it and I just enjoyed being outside on a warm, sunny October day. We passed by a park and there were tons of leaves on the ground and really annoying ducks. My son was eager to scuffle through the leaves and my daughter was beside herself about the ducks. "Quack, quack," she demanded imperiously. I was getting towards the end of my limits in terms of energy and desire to be there but I gave in and let my kids have a blast for ten minutes. It was so great to see the joy in their faces over such simple stuff. I really find that I find the greatest happiness in seeing my kids laughing and smiling. I really do need to lighten up more. Granted, I totally passed out this afternoon at nap time, something I rarely do, so I may need to budget my energy a little more carefully. However, today the extra effort was worth it.

Nothing exciting is planned for tomorrow other than shopping for new sneakers for my son. The ones he has are literally falling apart and I don't want him to go to Saturday's soccer practice wearing them. It's supposed to get a lot cooler but I think we'll still try to get outside for awhile even if it's just to the backyard (gotta scoop the dog's poop up first). We'll see how this goes.

$17 to Keep Two Kids Happy on a Rainy Day - Priceless

With some reluctance I packed my two kids into the Ford Freestyle and headed to an indoor play place this morning. My playgroup had decided to meet there today instead of the local park for our first get together. As you all know, motherhood does change you and you find yourself making incredible acts of self-sacrifice. However, one change I hadn't thought about was having to give up my antisocial behavior so that my kids would have a chance to make new friends. I'm perfectly happy to be a hermit in my house with some cats and piles of good books to read. However, once I had kids some part of my brain I never knew existed started urging me to get out and hang out with other moms so that my poor kids wouldn't be doomed to a friendless life. One problem: a lot of moms in my area are uber-wealthy. Sure, they may show up at the playground in jeans or sweats but they are expensive jeans and sweats with nary a hole in sight. They have manicures and pedicures and suspiciously smooth-looking legs. How do they get their hair that perfect in the morning? They seem to have the money and time to exercise unwanted pregnancy pounds away and they're constantly talking about this house renovation, addition or furniture purchase or some fantastic vacation they're planning. Um, I definitely don't blend.

The local Mom's club got started up again a couple of weeks ago with the end of summer. I had joined a couple years ago before I knew that they were a bunch of former cheerleaders with endless energy and enthusiasm for planning and activities. Although I didn't attend meetings very frequently I kept paying my dues because I really do enjoy taking the kids on an occasional field trip in the hopes that they can make some friends. Anyway, I tried joining a playgroup in the beginning before I found out what type of folks were in this club and quickly bowed out of the group once I discovered I really didn't fit in. When the e-mail went out in August talking about forming new playgroups I sent an e-mail out suggesting they form a kids with food allergies playgroup. Like I assumed, there wasn't any interest and, thus, no special playgroup. However, the unexpected did happen and I was placed in a playgroup. I wrote to all the women and explained my son's allergies requesting that all get-togethers be peanut-free. They were willing to go along with this so I figured I'd give it a shot. To my surprise, I actually liked the women I met today. They weren't pretentious or fake and I enjoyed the conversations we had. They also have cats and dogs so they've got to be good people, right? The kids had a blast playing on the climbing equipment, crawling in the ball pit (ewwww!!!) and riding on a mini-merry-go-round. So, I'm left wondering, did some normal women join the mom's club or did I change? Should I be unsettled if I'm the one who changed? I think I'm still the whack-a-do I always used to be. After all, how many other moms peeled out of the parking lot blasting Nirvana instead of Raffi? I'm still me (dammit)!

Getting Started

My first day as a blogger... yay! I should probably write something profound and catchy so that I can develop a group of followers who will hang on my every word, eagerly awaiting my next post. However, as usual, I'm too sleepy to think of anything like that. And, let's be honest, what percentage of blogs out there meet that criteria? I'm guessing not that many.

So, this is day five of my week from hell. My husband left us on Sunday afternoon for some work-related conference in Phoenix. Until he gets back on Saturday night, I'm here with my two kids (one is 3 1/2 and the other is 17 months old), four cats, a dog, two tanks of freshwater fish and not a shred of sanity left. I haven't really slept at all this week. My amazing, vibrating dog had a seizure early Monday morning and the rest of the nights I've had to cater to my son's night time needs - sitting potty, drinks of water and soothing night terrors. I battle insomnia as it is. Getting up in the middle of the night means I fall asleep again a couple of hours later after whatever crisis has been dealt with. It didn't help that last night my son was screaming at me that my breath was stinky. Gee, I should've thought to pop a breath mint during my sprint down the hall. Silly me.

Anyway, due to this lack of sleep I've been on the verge of tears at any given moment and my patience is nonexistent. The kids wonder where the nice mommy went to and when she'll be coming back. Coffee is my only friend. The cats are contributing to the madness by not using the litterbox and the dog is dog is redecorating the kitchen with goodies she finds in the garbage can. Yet, I love these animals and won't give them up even though my son and I are allergic to them. I must be crazy.

So, my big question for today is where did the strong, independent woman of my twenties go to? When did I become so needy and dependent on my husband? It seemed like once upon a time I could handle just about any crisis. I was going to take on the world. I was the one friends and family turned to for support. Now I'm the one who needs the help and feel like I can't function without my husband here to help out. I know that a large part of this is due to my having chronic fatigue syndrome, leaving me with an extremely low supply of energy but it's still hard to accept that. This is not where I expected to find myself at 36.