by mayberry on August 2, 2010
Here is one Mommy Job I would like to quit: Bag packer and stuff rememberer. You start out with a tiny infant and a diaper bag that’s three times as big as said infant. Then as you and the baby grow you realize you don’t need most of the stuff you were carting around and you take it out. Eventually you have a potty-trained child and you grow confident enough to leave the house without a spare outfit, a large plastic bag, and a huge wad of baby wipes.
But the problem is that by then, there are extracurricular activities in the picture. And then, then, you are stuck needing all kinds of supplies and accessories for those activities. And so you–I–begin amassing a collection of bags. Pictured above: one for rollerskating. One for ice-skating. One for school (been sitting there since June 4). One for “water day” at child care. One for the Nintendo DS that comes along for long car rides to ice skating. One for day camp. Not shown: Lunch bag. Soccer bag (last time anyone played soccer was two years ago). Indoor pool bag. Outdoor pool bag. Other child’s school bag. Carry-on bag for air travel (kid 1). Carry-on bag for air travel (kid 2). Activity bag for car travel (x2).
In theory, having a designated bag for each kind of outing is a good idea; you pack once, and then you restock, and then you grab on your way out the door. But you also end up with scenes like this one in the corner of your guest bedroom. (Also not shown: karate clothes piled on guest bed.) And somehow only one person is responsible for finding the right bag, making sure the right stuff is in it, bringing it to the car, and bringing it back in from the car.
Sucker, thy name is Mommy.
by mayberry on March 15, 2010
My recent trip was a rather in-your-face reminder of my lack of cool. Hanging out with a group of twentysomethings who love to snowshoe into the back country to snowboard, carrying ice picks and “avy” beacons, did not do wonders for the ego of this suburban mama.
My jeans are not cool. I only have one pair that doesn’t have a hole in the knee, and they are just a smidge too short and too light of a wash.
My snow pants are not cool (how could anything called “snow pants” be). I have the big, baggy, kiddie kind, not the sleek, stretchy, sexy kind.
My winter boots are so not cool that I left them behind in Colorado (they were also six years old and the zipper was starting to break).
My everyday winter coat is not cool. It’s as baggy as the snow pants and a really blah shade of gray. It’s also six years old and wasn’t even new when I got it. (My spring/fall coat, however, is cool. It’s turquoise with a Paul Frank monkey print lining the hood.)
My hair is not cool. I am starting to worry that it’s less “layered, longish bob” and more “mommy mullet.”
My car is not cool. I drive a dented station wagon.
I know nothing of the latest music or movies.
Even my phone is not cool (as Binkytowne will be happy to confirm). White, flip open, pay as you go, tap out a text message in 10 minutes, no data plan, for emergencies only.
But guess what? I’m moving into the ’00s. Yep. I got a smartphone. And you can read all about it.
And if you want to tell me how cool I am, or how uncool you are, that’d be cool, too.
by mayberry on February 15, 2010
(Aside from being cold all the frickinfrackin time, no matter what I wear, do, eat, or drink.)
- My boots.
- My other boots.
- My coat.
- All my shoes, sad and lonely and unworn.
- My bike, sad and lonely and unridden.
- My dirty car.
- Not being able to see lines in parking lots.
- Wincing every time I dress or undress.
- “Where are your boots? Where are your mittens? Where are your snowpants?”
- Tasteless produce.
And you?
by mayberry on February 10, 2010
(or, just another mommyblog post)
10:47 p.m.: Decide I’ve done enough even though project is not complete; sleep more important.
11:03 p.m.: Actually shut down computer. 16 minutes: Possibly a record.
11:04 p.m.: Contemplate starting load of laundry. Determine that is crazy talk.
11:05 p.m.: Arrive upstairs to discover child in my bed. Haul 50 lbs. of resistant kid across hall to designated sleeping environment.
11:07 – 11:21 p.m.: Brush, floss, moisturize, NY Times Sunday Magazine.
11:22 p.m.: Bed.
11:27 p.m.: Suspicious retching sound. Did dog just barf? Get up to check.
11:28 p.m.: Nope.
11:31 p.m.: Enter child (35-lb version), stage left.
11:32 – 11:41 p.m. Impassioned debate with self. Return child to bed (requires getting out of bed) or defer to apathy? Child’s knees pinning my right arm against my body; child’s flannely arm thrown across my throat.
11:42 p.m.: Dude, talking in your sleep = automatic eviction.
11: 47 p.m.: Back in bed, sans child.
12:01 a.m.: Crying. Yeah, I heard it even before my husband elbowed me in the back.
12:01 – 12:17 a.m.: Impassioned debate with self. Wait one or both of them out? Get out of bed (definitely faster)?
12:18 a.m.: Guess which one I picked. It was the “please *whimper* come here *whimper* Moooommmmmmy” that finally got to me.
12:31 a.m. Back in bed. Notice it is now nearly two hours after I decided I should go to bed “early.”
P.S. I know exactly why this happened. The night before, I said, out loud, that bedtime had “gotten much better for us recently.” Kiss. of. death.
by mayberry on January 4, 2010
alternate title: I Was Under the Impression that the Craptasticness Would Be Confined to 2009
At the end of the summer, my one-month-old netbook had to be sent back to the manufacturer for repair. I got it back, fixed, for free, but not in time for a business trip (which is the whole reason I bought the netbook).
Right before Thanksgiving, the hard drive on my regular, workhorse laptop died. I limped along for a week or so on the netbook and my husband’s laptop, then rebuilt everything on my old laptop when I got the new hard drive. You know, re-finding all my favorites, reinstalling all the software, downloading stuff like Tweetdeck and Adobe Reader, restoring all my files from my (thank god) backup. (Shout out to Mozy.com, by the way.)
A week or so after that, the hard drive on Jeff’s laptop died. So then he had to order another one, and go through all the restoration process, accompanied by much gnashing of teeth. He is still convinced that I caused the failure by downloading Firefox. Which, no. And, he was running IE6! I couldn’t function!
Saturday night, I spilled, like, a tablespoon of tea into my laptop.
Yup. Dead hard drive AGAIN. Another $150 and another two days of my life, gone.
2010, so far I am not impressed.
(P.S. This a.m., I am not able to comment on Blogger blogs, for some reason … sorry)
by mayberry on December 15, 2009
It’s a bloggy tradition — the unsent holiday letter!
Dear friends and family,
If you’re in the mood for something really ho-ho-ho and fa-la-la, you should probably just go ahead and recycle this and move on to the next envelope in your stack. Because really, what good can I say about a year that started with (a) a dead baby and ended with (b) a 6-week-long (and counting) migraine?
When I wasn’t crying about (a) or (b), I was putting on a chipper face and working on my fitness site and other freelance projects. I learned that three days of child care during the summer months was not exactly sufficient, and also that attempting to work during a vacation at my parents’ house was a lousy idea. Yep, I am blessed to work for myself and from home but I am also here to tell you it isn’t always a picnic.
Jeff weathered some pretty big storms at work and came out on top. He also decided to take my attempts at Shredding and raise them, to the tune of a 50-lb.-plus weight loss. I am super-proud of him. However, I believe I deserve half the credit due to the volume of laundry his workouts generate.
Jo was on-trend this year. She grew a pretty impressive set of vampire fangs thanks to the loss of several baby teeth. She made amazing progress in reading, swimming, ice skating and watching every episode of “iCarly” ever shown on Nickelodeon (multiple times).
Opie? Well let’s just say his biggest accomplishment of this year involves tighty whities and leave it at that. He has also developed an unpleasant obsession with the phrase “punch your booty.” He’ll totally be ready for kindergarten in the fall!
Our dog Folly is still with us, trying to protect us from the mailman and the puppy next door. The kids are still waiting for her to die so they can get a kitten.
Bah humbug,
Mayberry Mom
by mayberry on October 14, 2009
I am a really fairly relaxed housekeeper, but every single night I scrub my bathroom sink, faucet, shelf, and surrounding walls. Because every single night they are covered with dried-up drops of toothpaste. I’m unclear on how this keeps happening. Does my family stand three feet away from the drain when they spit? Do they actually aim at the walls, instead of the inside of the sink? Do they spit into their hands, then shake them like a wet dog? Do they spit onto the dog herself, prompting her to perform the shake-n-spray maneuver?
You can buy tooth-whitening toothpaste, organic toothpaste, enamel-shielding toothpaste, tartar-protecting toothpaste, and mouthwash-infused toothpaste. You can buy toothpaste in flavors from watermelon to bubble gum to vanilla mint (um, gross).
What you cannot buy is toothpaste that dries clear when it ends up on your dark green walls. Somebody needs to get on that.
by mayberry on October 4, 2009
I have had headaches almost as long as I can remember. As a tween/teen/young adult, I saw general practitioners, neurologists, dentists, rheumatologists, and gynecologists. I got X-rays and MRIs and answered, ad nauseam, the question “on a scale of one to 10, how painful is your headache right now?” I was variously diagnosed (and then undiagnosed) with conditions ranging from TMJ to lupus. There was nothing to see or quantify objectively. I was treated with painkillers, antidepressants, and biofeedback therapy.
Nothing really worked. Things got a little better, life went on. Until I started having babies. With each successive pregnancy (and with every cycle in between), the headaches got worse and worse, and were enhanced with a heaping dose of nausea, lightheadedness, exhaustion, and heartburn (you know, the fun stuff that pregnant women get to enjoy anyway). My doctor smiled ruefully and handed me some T3s. Those don’t work, by the way. Neither did acupuncture.
Nowadays, my head hurts during PMS week and then any other time that routine deviates even slightly from the norm: a little too much work/not enough sleep; travel beyond a 100-mile radius from home; two glasses of wine instead of one. Today I’m at the tail end of a 10-or-so-day span, and that’s after I took one of those aforementioned T3s and slept for 11 hours straight. (Sleep usually is the only remedy.)
I’m not sure what the point of this whine is except to say that it’s hard to think of much else when I’m in the clutches of one of these headaches. I wasn’t going to write about it, on Captain Obvious grounds. Then I heard about this. Son of a …. scooped again. (And no, I haven’t tried Vicodin, only because I know that narcotics make me feel even crappier than I started out feeling.)
by mayberry on June 18, 2009
Sometimes I feel like the only mother in the world who really dislikes bedtime–the process, not the result (that part I like). Yes, I like snuggling and reading books (well, some books) and shampoo-scented hair. I even almost like ear-fondling. But I don’t like “put on your pajamas” nagging, “brush your teeth” nagging, “put your clothes in the hamper” nagging, “stop jumping on the bed” nagging, “did you use the potty?” nagging.
It is absolutely prime time for me losing my patience in a big bad way, even more so than the 5:00 arsenic hour. I don’t know if that’s because bedtime comes at the end of a long day and I need a break, or because I am jumping ahead to the sweet, sweet free time that’s almost in reach. But you will never catch me writing rhapsodic posts about cuddling with my darlings at bedtime.
Maybe when they’re teenagers and put themselves to bed and sleep until noon. That’ll be rhapsodic, right? And then I’ll blubber about how I miss those bedtime moments. For now, I’ll continue wishing for my instant-sleep superpower. I promise only to use it in good faith.
by mayberry on May 18, 2009
And it’s not at the playground while “supervising” your child. During a birthday party.
I went to three birthday parties this weekend: 1x roller rink, 1x planetarium (that one was actually cool. They played Fine Young Cannibals during the ’80s-themed laser show), 1x playground. I get that most dads (well, a lot of moms too) would rather be almost anywhere than hanging out at the playground with your three-year-old while she attends a party, but dude. I think that is just rude (and kind of makes you look like a creep too). He didn’t even take one out during the truly social portion of the afternoon–cake-cutting, pinata-swatting, etc.
I should probably start a whole blog full of judgmental posts about parental birthday party behavior.
Here is one Mommy Job I would like to quit: Bag packer and stuff rememberer. You start out with a tiny infant and a diaper bag that’s three times as big as said infant. Then as you and the baby grow you realize you don’t need most of the stuff you were carting around and you take it out. Eventually you have a potty-trained child and you grow confident enough to leave the house without a spare outfit, a large plastic bag, and a huge wad of baby wipes.
