Mom to the Screaming Masses

The Best Laid Intentions and All That Jazz

I wrote a great post Friday about losing the power in my house and how my kids completely fell apart. I hesitated to post it. Thought maybe I'd post it tonight.

But I can't. Because, for the third time IN A WEEK - my entire neighborhood lost power. Each and every time, as I'm tucking the little girls into bed.

There's a story here, but my phone battery is almost dead and typing takes forever on this teeny keyboard.

Note to self: buy some flashlights and HIDE them from the children.

Peace out- until tomorrow.

What Age Causes the Shift?

The shift. A real and visceral, although completely unseen, happening.

You have a baby. A baby who crawls towards you with peals of laughter, shrieks in delight when you walk through the door, and cries non stop until you return.

Or a toddler. One who tries as hard as she can to walk just.like.you, who sleeps in your lap, hand entwined in your hair, rubbing your tummy for comfort. Looks to you for approval, smiles a beat after you do, and cries when you cry.

A preschool child. Who sits at a table, desperate for your approval. "Look at this picture! I drew you! Can you color with me?"

All too soon, it becomes I'm sleeping over and I'll see you in two days, Stop talking to me!, I don't want to hear anything YOU have to say!, I need soap and deodorant and graph paper - fingers poked in ears with an intense LA-LA-LA I'm not listening look.

What age is that shift? How can you stop it? Because, surely, if you know it is coming - you'd stop it, right?

But you have to get through the valley before you can reach the hills, the time when you return to I'll bet my mom can help me out! and I'll just ask Dad what he thinks as well as I just want my parents to take care of it alllllll.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.You've both been a blessing and a tremendous area of support for me recently as I deal with angst and look at my life with 20/20 hindsight.

Tonight, I'm going out with good friends as a farewell to a great couple. I'm going dancing. I promise to dance as if I'm a spineless octopus, wild, with abandon and quite probably all the vodka that $5.25 can buy me. (That's what I have in my pocket right now.)

Sometimes, it is good to be an adult. And sometimes it isn't. Right now, I'm going to dance like a fool and try to recover from this week.

Maybe I Don't Want To Know

I put new sheets on my daughter's bed yesterday. Clean, rather, not new. Flannel sheets that she picked herself. This is what we woke to this morning.

How in the WORLD did she do this? She went almost immediately to sleep and slept until I woke her.

P.S. I'm profiled over at Runs Like A Mother today. I'd love it if you'd come visit!
Also, I am giving away a Campbell's Soup bag o'goodness, as well as a phenomenal art book!

Questions About Weight Loss

I received this question from a reader in a comment on an unrelated post. I get this question, and many like it, at least three times a week in email, and probably as often in person. So I thought, with your understanding, I'd reference it here, so that everyone would have a place to reflect.

My problem is, though, that when I get up in the middle of the night to feed the baby I always, always get a sugary snack. If there is nothing in the house that's any good, I swear I will eat sugar with a spoon. So bizarre, because during normal waking hours I am pretty good about resisting the urge to binge. I am a solid 40 pounds heavier than I'd like to be, and I mostly blame my middle of the night eating habits and lack of exercise (I have a sedentary job, 3 little kids and NO extra money for a gym membership or any workout gear like SHOES) so all this to say I better not make these but I'd really like to. Off topic, but do you have any advice for me in the weight loss dept? You are pretty much the queen of weight loss as far as I'm concerned... I know motivation is the hardest part, but I feel like I could be motivated if I could just get past these stumbling blocks. What would Carmen do?

Twenty Questions of Infamy

But it's not REALLY twenty. It's more like, I dunno, 30 or so. I swiped this from Adam, which is what I do when I can't think of something to write because I had a day that was just so, so brutal - well, I promised not to talk about it and I have no desire to drag you all through the muck that was this Monday. (Besides, I swipe from everyone, not just Adam. Swipe it from me, link it up and I'll come visit.)

Where is my Saturday night when I need it???

1. Do you have any scars? If so, pick one and explain how you got it.

I have a 3 inch scar on my right upper arm. It's red and puckery and I joke people that it's a scar from a knife fight that I was involved in during a drunken bar brawl. In actuality, it's my first - but by no means last - melanoma excision. It was a stage 2 and it was a beaut.

Sometimes, God Sends Just Exactly What You Need

Yes, I believe in God.

I know that some of you may not believe me. I've received emails from readers in the past, questioning my faith - or lack thereof. How can someone who believes in God DO the things that you do, say the things that you say, QUESTION as much as you do?

Listen, I will be the first to tell you that I'm not as spiritual as some people I know. Not anywhere as religious as my husband and his father - don't believe in some of the wilder tenents of the faith - but I believe in God. I may not spend hours a day nose deep in a devotional, but I am a firm believer in God.

And today, I felt that God listened to what my heart was crying out for, heard my inner turmoil - and answered.

After one of the most strenuous weeks of my life, which began with one of the top three all time worst arguments I ever had with my husband (in front of my children, mind you), barreled on to the stomach flu, crashed into bill paying with a less than adequate amount of tender, cascaded into surly,smart mouthed and snarly teenagers, pinwheeled into transmission trouble in my van and came to a sliding stop with acres and acres of dishes/laundry and the like - God sent today.

I took boxing class. I worked on a new writing job that I was pleased to be awarded when I spoke up at Blissdom with a beloved friend. I spent two hours reading in my bed, wrapped in a fluffy white robe, sent to me by one of the wonderful sponsors of Blissdom as a Speaker gift as my children rested in their rooms. I ate a cupcake.

Then I curled three sets of hair, helped the girls don fancy dresses and makeup, and drove them to school, where the youngest three girls participated in the yearly tradition of the Daddy Daughter Dance. I realized that, next year, I'm going to work on getting MY DAD to come. I think it'd be fun to attend the dance as a grown up.

(Seeing my 13 year old in a strapless dress almost did me in, though. Especially in the 3 inch heels she wanted to wear - the ones I vetoed.)

No, it was after that I felt God's Grace. I went with the boys to dinner, enjoying pasta and a drink. (Both of which have been VERY rare as I've been delving back into the world of CrossFit.) My boys returned home, and I went to the bookstore. By myself. For two hours.

I picked up book after book until I finally settled on two. I paid with the Groupon I'd had the foresight to purchase last month and the gift cards I'd saved from Christmas. I bought a coffee, and sat in the car for 30 minutes.

I read. I listened to The Beatles. I drank my coffee.

It was, in short, exactly what my scattered and exhausted mind and psyche needed. There was no drama. There was no screaming. There was just - me.

 

Friday Means Quiz Time!

Take out your number 2 pencils. I hope you've studied - because today's quiz comes to you courtesy of The Full Moon. And it promises to be a doozy. (PS - the formatting is weird but it looked ok in the dash - and I'm, ahem, too grumpy to fix it.)

Question 1- Your children have a day off from school. Do you:

                  a) plan a day full of enriching activites, possibly including a picnic lunch and a museum?
                  b) call another mother, commiserate over the injustice done to you both by the school or
                  c) tell your husband not to wake you and plan to sleep in, letting the kids take care of                   themselves while you luxuriate under the covers past 5:45?

Devil Dogs, FTW!

This is what I do when I get bored.

I made devil dogs. I used my favorite Chocolate cake recipe, made my favorite marshamallow fluff frosting, hollowed out the centers using an apple corer, piped in the filling, dipped them in ganache and then spiral coated the tops.

Originally, I used a more narrow tip, but the frosting was too thick - as you can see - and it clogged and frustrated me, so I switched to a wider tip - which was much too wide, but I thought it looked cool anyway. I really needed the one in between. Ah, well, maybe next time.

Sometimes I get ideas of stuff to cook in my head and I have to make them. I can't let them go.

It was a great way to fill an afternoon - I was trying to avoid laundry  and bill paying.

Did You Ever Wonder Why Grocery Stores Have Customers at Midnight?

It's for people buying LYSOL.

Let me back up. This is a long one, so you'd better make sure you pee AND get another cup of coffee before you go below the fold.

Yesterday, the phone rang. It was the school nurse, telling me that Emma had a headache. It was 2:30 - she'd just hold her in the office until 3:00 dismissal. I wasn't alarmed - Emma has a history of headaches, doesn't always wear her glasses when reading. and her classroom is really loud. The school has a note for motrin, and the nurse is competent and familiar with my child. I arrived at school and grabbed my daughter, who admittedly did look a little pale and iffy - but by the time we got home, she'd bounded back beautifully.

Looks can be deceiving.

Chaos and Turmoil

I think it's telling that in the middle of my freshly vacuumed carpet sits a basketball.

In the bathroom rests a naked babydoll, behind the bathroom door.

Both are metaphors for my life, as well as visceral symbols of the chaos that reigns.

Every person in my house walks in and dumps. Backpacks, books, notebooks and pencils rest in the same spot they fell, hours ago. Shoes congregate under the tables, hair ties decorate the floor of every room and DVD's are long term separated from their covers.