So - A Narcoleptic Walks Into A Car Wash...

Hi Peeps! How is everyone doing? Enjoying the "melt-down"? I am over the snow - how about you guys? I am sick of the slippery walkways and parking lots and the schedule being all messed up due to school closing and delays. I cannot remember what day it is, when anyone's assignments are due, when tests are being rescheduled for...This control freak is out-of-control AND SHE DOESN'T LIKE IT!!!

Of course, the snow hasn't been all bad - we were all together for 5 solid days and everyone is still alive and we are all still speaking to one another. We are all probably a few pounds heavier since all we could do is sit inside and eat Valentine's Day candy. The kids built amazing snowmen and a fully furnished, pimped-out snow fort. And we all got to sleep in. Which is why my current state of exhaustion is so disturbing. I am really exhausted - like tired in my bones. I finally went to the doctor yesterday and got an antibiotic for a sinus infection that I have been trying to fight off for about a month. So, that might explain why I've been so tired for the past week or so. 

Now - all Mommies know the tired-in-my-bones feeling. It happens to the best of us. And we all just keep calm and carry on. We make pit stops at Starbucks, load up on caffeine and soldier on. Unfortunately, this strategy wasn't working for me yesterday. As I said, I finally gave in and went to the doctor yesterday. I love my doctor, I really do - but the one downfall of visiting her is that she is always running late. So, if you have a 3:30 appointment, she will breeze in to see you at about 4:20. So you just have to accept it and schedule accordingly. This is why I was shocked that I was in, examined, diagnosed and outta there by 3:49! AMAZING! So, instead of doing what I should have done - gone home and put my bones to bed - I decided to use this "found" time to my advantage and get the car washed. It was disgusting after the snow. So, I popped into the local car wash, waited in line and paid for my "Total Kleen" at the Maui Car wash. I love this car wash, they are nice, they power wash your undercarriage - which sounds very dirty- AND you get to sit in your car and ride through the car wash. I LOVE sitting in the car wash. I know, I am a freak. But I do love it. It is a 5-minute break from reality. You can't hear anything, you can't talk on the phone and you can't even answer email. It is a 5-minute vacation from the rest of the world. (Now, in all fairness and in the interest of full disclosure - I also love getting an MRI and a Pap Smear because I can lie down for a few minutes and I am ALL BY MYSELF. Well, except for the doctor and nurse - but no one is demanding ANYTHING of me. I don't have to check homework, email, make dinner or listen to anyone's drama. )

So yesterday, as my car slides into the car wash and is being rinsed by high-pressured, yet gentle jets - I decide to put my head back and close my eyes for a minute. 

A Minute......or 15....because the next thing I know, I am still in the car wash, but it is not working! No water, no suds, no dryer...AND someone is banging on my window! Apparently, my wheels weren't aligned properly on the roller thing and one of the tire brushes became jammed. The car wash workers then turned off the jets and came over the loud speaker to tell me to adjust my wheels. They became "concerned" when there was no response from me or the car. So - THEY SHUT DOWN THE CAR WASH, and walked in - and found me sleeping - WITH MY MOUTH OPEN - in the car. And I was seriously sleeping - when I woke up, I had drool running down my chin. No joke. AND I woke up screaming because I didn't know where I was AND the man was BANGING away at my window. Thankfully the guy was amused - or relieved to find me alive - because he was very kind and asked me to turn my wheel so that the tire brush would become unstuck. 

Seriously - who does this happen to? How can a person fall asleep in a car wash? It is so loud. The poor man probably thought I was dead. So humiliating. I decided to pack it in after that and go home. Lesson learned? Maybe. Maybe not. It's not like I am going to get less tired as the years go on. Yet I've gotta do what I've gotta do. This Mom stuff is hardcore! Maybe I need to start liking Red Bull.... 

The Mom Olympics

Hi Peeps! Well - it's that time again - the Winter Games are in full swing. And as always, it is SO exciting. So far we have watched the figure skating team competition and a few of the skiing and snow boarding events. I am really looking forward to the rest of the figure skating - it's my favorite! So, yesterday, I was listening to a morning show on the radio, and one of the DJs asked: "What winter Olympic event do you think you might be able to medal in?' And, sadly, when once I would have said figure skating...yesterday - I said Curling. Because it's essentially what I do every night when I sweep the kitchen floor - right? How sad is that? The only "sport" I think myself capable of excelling in is...sweeping the floor. That might be impressive in the Cinderella Olympics.on a Disney Cruise.....but not so impressive in Sochi.

So after feeling terrible about myself and my utter lack of athletic ability, I was struck with a wondrous thought. If there was a MOM Olympics - I could probably bring home several medals. I mean the competition would be crazy..but since I am inventing these games, I am declaring that I would be competing in them. Now, the Mom Olympics would be hard core. The events would be extreme - like EXTREME Mommying. Nothing easy, breezy like :

Oh no. These events will be epic. And hard - really challenging. Because really, Olympic mommies need to go hard or go home. So - here it is - a list of the Mommy Olympics Events:

1. The Mommy Biathlon: Now in Sochi, the biathletes strap cross country skis on their feet and a shot gun on their backs. They ski and every now and then, they drop to the ground and shoot this gun at a target. For no apparent reason. Seriously? Anyone can do that. The Mommy Olympics Biathlon will still involve strapping on cross country skis. However, instead of a gun, the moms will strap a sick baby on their front. The baby will have some sort of GI issue - so the kid will either be puking or pooping. The mom will have to cross country ski to a supply station where she will have to get a prescription filled, and purchase supplies for the sick baby - Pedialyte, diapers, wipes and baby Tylenol. All while keeping the sick baby from flipping out AND spewing or pooping all over the supply station. If the baby spews, has a diaper blow out or flips out - the mom is DQ'd.  

2. The Mommy Bobsled: So, I will admit - bobsledding is seriously hard core. I had the opportunity to do it at the Salt Lake City Olympic venue a few years ago. AND I totally wussed out. I mean, seriously, I break my parts by walking down the street. I was seriously afraid that I'd kill myself. That being said - the Mommy bobsledding event will involve the actual bobsled event, on the bobsled track, however - the bobsledders will have to balance a travel cup of hot coffee in between their knees AND they also MUST install a carseat properly into the bobsled. This installation will be timed and must be checked for safety by a State Trooper before the sledders push off. The team that finishes first with the car seat still in the sled AND has not spilled their coffee are the winners. 

3. The Mommy Speed Skating Event: Speed skating is pretty easy - I mean it's just a race on skates. Little kids in Holland do this every day - Hans Brinker sound familiar? We need to "mommy-fy" this event - so here's what we will do: The event will involve the moms running late and racing to make a Parent Teacher conference. The moms will have to strap on not only speed skates, but also one of those creepy life like animatronic babies. They will have to speed skate to the finish line - the meeting- all while keeping that baby "sleeping" and navigating around roadblocks...like traffic jams on the ice, red lights and slow old-lady skaters blocking their path. They cannot cuss or shout, or they will wake the sleeping baby and be DQd. 

4. The Mommy Downhill: As I do not ski, I really shouldn't pass judgement on how hard it is... and as several famous people have died while skiing downhill - I'm going to assume it is not as easy, breezy as it looks. But still - we have to Mommy-fy it.

So in this event, the moms will have to ski down a quadruple black diamond run - while checking in at several pit stops along the way. Each Mom will have to pick up several items at each pit stop: Stop 1: dry cleaning, Stop 2: A case of diapers, Stop 3: a healthy dinner from Boston Market for 4 people and Stop 4: milk, bread, eggs and toilet paper. The moms will have to find a way to attach these items to her person, and cannot break or lose anything on the way down the hill. If something drops and does not break, the mom will have to stop and pick it up, adjust her packages and keep on skiing. If she loses any of the drycleaning, Boston Market Side dishes, the diapers or breaks the eggs - she is DQd.    

5. The Mommy Skeleton Event - OK, so have you seen the Skeleton event yet? It's really like sledding...headfirst at insane speeds along a super-slippery death track. Look - does this look safe?:

So, I can't make this any scarier or harder....or maybe I can! The moms will not compete in this event. Each mom will get a call in the middle of the night that one of their kids was screwing around on the Skeleton track and is currently in the ER. The mom will have to get dressed and make her way to the hospital, in a foreign country, in the middle of the night. Once mom gets to the ER, she will be told that their kid is ok - but "pretty banged up", is being XRayed and that the doctor will see her soon, In the meantime, she will have to fill out the intake paper work with a gum chewing, 19 year-old hospital worker who takes mom's insurance card and promptly tells mom that her insurance has been cancelled. Mom will have to contact her insurance company and will be told that this is all a mistake, but unfortunately it will take several days to get everything sorted out. So she should just pay her ER bill and submit the receipts. And she will "eventually" be reimbursed. Then she will be told that the doctor is ready to see her. When the doctor opens his mouth to speak - she can't understand a word that he says. The more she asks him to repeat himself, the angrier he gets. The mom who keeps her shit together and doesn't go postal when given a bill for $8,000.00 wins a medal.

So - who wants to sign up for Team Mommy USA? Spanx , Tampax , Berringer and Gallo wines are our team's official sponsors. We will have really awesome uniforms that have built in tummy tucking lycra technology and will, of course, be fashioned out of moisture wicking fabric for team members who are experiencing hot flashes. I think I have thought of everything here. Comment if you'd like to be considered for the team! 

Bad Mommy!

Well, hello again Peeps! It's been a while. Have you all dug out from the snow and ice? Our front and backyard are STILL completely frozen. And we are expecting more tomorrow and more again on Wednesday! But enough - Mother Nature will have her way with us whether we complain or soldier on - so we will soldier on. It has been quite a winter so far. It seems like life has been on fast-forward and I can't understand how we are celebrating VALENTINES Day next week. We've been buried with projects and papers and essays and auditions and try-outs and this Busy Momma is EXHAUSTED. I mean out and out tired in my bones. It doesn't help that my new best friend Peri - as in menopause - has a NEW way of torturing me. She has started waking me up in the middle of the night - EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Yep - I can't stay awake past 9pm, but give me a call around 2:47am - I'll answer. This morning she let me sleep until 4:17. She must have felt bad for me. Now, being awake at all hours does have its advantages. I have gotten a lot of reading done! I am like a reading machine. AND I am all caught up on Nashville - so that's good. And last night, well last night I had a revelation. An insight into myself  that was earth-shattering and life altering. And here it is:

 There are many days when I would qualify to some as a BAD MOMMY!

Ok - not bad like this. Not "NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!!!!" bad. But bad by some standards of parenting. The moms who do things like this:

And this:

And this:

Seriously - WHO does this? 

These moms would look at me some days and would probably call Social Services. Seriously. The other night, I found myself doing something that the younger me - you know, the me before kids - SWORE she would NEVER EVER do. I still can't believe I did it. I really didn't want to - but I was in a bind. I was running late, my chicken hadn't defrosted,  the boys had to be at scouts within 45 minutes and the girls had a long night of finishing a Science Fair project ahead of us. And let's not forget the exhaustion factor here. So - what did I do you ask? Well, before you get too worried...rest assured - it wasn't anything like this:

Or this:

Or even this:

Want to know what I did? Well - they say confession is good for the soul - right? Ok - here it is...deep breath:

 I went through the drive-thru at Burger King for dinner. 

I know - right? I felt so guilty about this indiscretion that I could hardly eat my Whopper and Onion Rings. I kept thinking:

 "YOU are POISONING your children. You might as well be feeding rat poison to your babies. Your precious babies. Look at what you have become. You should be ASHAMED of yourself. So-and So's kids have never even TASTED  fast food. Slacker." 

Want to know what my kids were saying? 

"Yay! Burger King for dinner! We've NEVER had BK for dinner! You're the best mom in the world! YAY!!!!!!!" 

You would have thought that these kids had landed in Foxborough Farms from Mars and had never seen a burger and fries before. They were thrilled. 

Want to know what my husband was saying?

"So, tonight when we go to scouts, I have to get this religion book signed, right?Who signs it again? And then he has to bring a glue stick and scissors for some crafty thing and he has to finish working on the badge thing -anything else? I like this burger better than the Whopper - although they were kinda skimpy on the special sauce tonight. McDonalds loads you up on special sauce."

Hmmm....HE wasn't worrying about poisoning HIS children. He was much more concerned about his lack of special sauce than the possibility that we were clogging our kids' arteries or contributing to the childhood obesity epidemic. 

What the heck is wrong with me? And I KNOW that it's not just me. There are many, many of us out here who are striving to be such perfect moms that sometimes we lose our way and need one of those BK moments - a moment when we SEE how happy our kids are when we stop trying to be so darn perfect and start getting REAL. What do I mean by REAL? Well, in my house, REAL means that for Valentines day, you'll be getting a package of cards that I pick up at Target and if you don't like the character I pick - too bad for you. Find the strength to go on, kiddo. You will NOT be handing out anything that looks like this:

Your lunch on Valentines Day will NOT consist of heart shaped sandwiches and heart shaped strawberries and cucumbers shaped like hearts. Nope - it will consist of whatever the cafeteria is serving for lunch that day. Enjoy.

You will find a nice heart-shaped box of Russell Stover chocolates at your place at the table. AND you will be told how much you are loved and you WILL be tortured by your mom with hugs and kisses galore. 

You will not wake up to find your room filled with heart-shaped red and pink balloons. You will not wake up to heart shaped pancakes. You will be offered breakfast - but I can guarantee that it will not be heart shaped. AND that is going to have to be ok - or move out. 

So - if all of these confessions make me a bad mom - so be it. All I can say is that my BIG realization last night allowed me to take a DEEP breath and relax a bit. Because being a" bad mom" last night made my kids really, really happy. And to me - happy kids can only come from a good mom.