Motherhood

My birthday was this week, and things are sagging—my body AND brain. 

You’d think our brains would improve since they get fuller with time. Not so. Time has sabotaged my ability to clearly communicate without fumbling for the names of my children and/or everyday objects. 

“Bren... Chri....MICHAEL!! Pick up that (pointing) uh... um... AARGH... soccer ball or I will steal your uh... (pointing) your... phone and tweet, “Just finished Say Yes to the Dress. #RandyROCKS.” 

We all remember shocking, life altering moments in vivid detail.  What were you wearing when JFK was shot?  Where were you when you heard Princess Diana died?  What doll were you cradling in despair when you discovered there was something called “sex” and that your parents were having it?

I was cradling Molly, the nerdy American Girl.  If she was strong enough to get through World War II as her father fought overseas, perhaps she was strong enough to bring me comfort in troubling times.

Here’s how it happened:

My sister, 10 years older than me, had a friend over. They were chatting about some movie, flipping through magazines. I was casually reading a book from the “Little Critter” series, when I overheard something very interesting.  My sister’s friend glanced over at me and, acknowledging my innocence, carefully said, “They were trying to get pregnant so he took her to a fancy hotel.”

Odd ...

I adjusted myself loudly in my plastic, bright pink, blow up chair.  It never occurred to me that something had to happen for a woman to get pregnant.  How were babies made, anyway?  And, what does a fancy hotel have to do with it?  I took mental note of my clues.  Mom would have to be interviewed immediately if this mystery was going to be solved. It took a few attempts to roll out of my blow up chair when my sister and her friend invited me to go get ice cream.

The investigation was going to have to wait.

The other day I tweeted that my son's room smelled like butt. I began looking for the source that day.

Friends suggested looking in the hamper. Nothing unsavory there.

I looked under all the stuffed animals on the floor. No rotting food being hoarded away.

I had a peek under his bed. Not a trace of nastiness...

I grew up with only sisters and that was cool. Especially when we all hit puberty and it was time to have The Talk about that special time of the month when we'd be "riding the crimson wave" or "Aunt Flo was coming to visit". 

Can we all agree that what we have nicknamed our periods is way more obnoxious than just saying we're on our period?

I remember thinking to myself that there was no way, ever, in the entire world, that I was going to have a child of the female persuasion because of the whole, completely mortified, thing about what I was supposed to do with that crotch cork. I was also very good at biology and anatomy and how it's completely not up to you to decide the gender of your baby, no matter how embarrassed you are as a pre-teen girl learning about tampons. 

I guess it's mind over matter because...

What you think it'll be like to wake up late every morning:

Source

What it's really like when the kids still wake up at 6am:

Source

I can't cuss.

Like for reals-ies.

I tried in college, and sounded like an idiot

I really can't stand cursing in general...

Last week's Conversations with My Kids transported me to a time long ago. A time when - for reasons still not entirely known - I refused to wipe my own butt. 

I'd like to say I was too young to remember it, but unfortunately I was old enough to remember it vividly. I'm pretty sure my age wasn't in double digits, if that helps make you feel any better.

It’s not that I couldn’t wipe my own bottom, thank you. There were many times I tried. It’s just that, to be honest, my heart was never really in it. Several pairs of skid marked undies and multiple dollops of itch cream later, the writing was on the wall. Wiping my bottom adequately just wasn’t one of my many childhood gifts. 

Now, much of what I remember during this time wasn't the wiping, necessarily - but mostly being abandoned there. Left on a toilet seat. For what seemed like hours. Without food or water. Soiled. Stranded. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, coaches, trainers, orthopedists, x-ray technicians, the guys who created the Maps app on my phone, and my therapist, Kendall Jackson: I humbly thank you for this honor. 

Thank you for acknowledging my efforts to keep this soccer team at an elite level. Having our eight-year-old girls play against thirteen-year-olds is the best way to prevail in this wonderful sport, as long as they don’t give in to namby-pamby excuses like “strained” hamstrings and torn ACL’s and such. Remember excuses are like sweaty shin guards—everybody’s got ‘em and they all stink. 

I’ve always encouraged Coach Nigel to enter us in tournaments...

It was that glorious moment in the tiny, dark ultrasound room with four adults repeatedly apologizing for breathing on each others' necks, staring at what looked like a weird, mutant alien on a 10-inch screen. The one professional in the room piped in to tell us that in just a few short months, we'd be welcoming a baby boy. 

As far as I could tell, the arrow she'd drawn on the screen looked like it was...

My dad used to joke the only reason he married a Sicilian woman was so that he could have little black haired, brown eyed babies. Naturally, I popped out a ginger.

Then everyone joked that I was the milk man's baby, which really didn't make sense because the red hair came from my dad.

But I digress ...