When I Grow Up...

I want to be a toddler.  Yep, I want to be a toddler when I grow up!

I want to put on a purple tutu dress, red fairy wings, sparkly red shoes and a tiara walk into a store hit some random stranger on the head with my wand, scream, "POOF! You're my trusty stead!" jump on his back and act like this is completely reasonable behavior.

I want to go into a seafood restaurant ask for a happy meal and when they tell me they don't have a happy meal, I will throw myself to the floor screaming about how unfairly they are treating me, then jump up, kick the waitress in the shin and run screaming out the front door.

I want to throw a huge fit when I'm somewhere I was forced to go out of obligation and have someone tell me, "That's it! You're going home and taking a nap!"

I want to be able to throw a huge fit about nothing and have people walk around me as if they saw nothing.

I want to be able to tell people exactly what I'm thinking and not have them look at me like I'm crazy...just imaginative.  Or ask the totally inappropriate question and have people not get upset.  Or fart in public and giggle about it, cuz I'm sorry if you're too adult for that but farts are funny!

I want to be able to run around all day, fall down asleep wherever I may be, have someone carry me to my bed and tuck me in.

I want to stick my fingers in my ears, stick out my tongue and scream, "LA LA LA LA!" when someone is telling me something I don't want to hear or trying to make me do something I don't want to do.

I want to have a person that is my personal shopper, chef, chauffeur, maid, laundress, entertainment coordinator, etc. and when she gets tired I want to ask her why she's so tired and why she doesn't want to push me in a stroller down to the park and chase me around as I try all the things that I could kill myself trying to do.

I have decided when I grow up I want to be completely sane and act completely not.  If I go grey early (which I am) and if I keep getting no sleep I'll have good wrinkles going early too...I'll be able to get away with it.  People turn their heads when old people do outrageous things too.  Yep, I can't wait til I'm old so I can act like a kid again and have people not tell me how inappropriate I am.

If I did all these things tomorrow I have a feeling there would be a totally different reaction, cops might get involved, mental facilities might have to be visited cuz judges said so...I'll give it about 20-25 years...and then, oh the fun I'll have!

For Sanities' Sake

I may be late to the party but I have finally realized something.  I'm a people pleaser, when it comes to my family at least, and do to that fact...I'm slowly going crazy!

I spend my whole day watching Disney and Nick, listening to children's CDs, finding things for my kids to do.  Then Him comes home and don't get me wrong he does help but I still feel like it's my job cuz I'm a stay-at-home mom.  If I want a shower, I make sure no one else needs the bathroom, no laundry needs to be done and the dishwasher doesn't need to be run, sometimes going way longer than hygiene says between showering.  I want to do laundry, I make sure everything else is OK before I take 5 minutes in the basement.  I want to go outside, I ask Him if it's OK.  Yep, I've heard it said that a stay-at-home mom's job is never done and we don't get paid time off or sick days and our job follows no clock.  So, 24/7, a stay-at-home mom is a "beck-and-call" kinda chick.

I have a confession...I'm a terrible 24/7 person!  No matter what the job is.  If I was on call for giving happy people more reasons to be happy I'd still be pissed that I never got a scheduled break and my overload of happy would turn into throwing things at happy people that I would then despise!  Yes, I adore my children. No, I can't be just "Mom" 24/7!  I was someone before they came along and I should still get to be that person every once in a while!  You're supposed to ADD things to who you are, not replace who you were...unless you really are that chick that lives through her children and enjoys that then by all means, come babysit for me!

This being said, my "Sanity Squad" times are very valuable to me but they seem too few and far between.  I know before Son was born Him and I had an agreement that every Friday when he got home from work, I was off the clock til bedtime.  Once Son was born that went out the window.  Even "Sanity Squad" time has been cut due to lack of funds.  (Apparently me quitting my job meant less money coming in...who knew?)  So now, my sanity is wrapped into hoping that I can talk both kids into a nap at the same time and I could actually watch one of my shows, listen to my own music or JUST SIT IN ONE PLACE WITHOUT BEING ORDERED ABOUT!

About 2 weeks ago, A. wanted to go out to a bar to see a band we all love.  I asked Him if I could go out.  OK, both kids had been sick all week long.  Him never took a day off to help, not that I expected him to.  But when I asked if I could join A., he said, "I'd really appreciate it if you didn't leave me home alone with both kids sick..."  REALLY?  I spent 5 days this week from when they woke up til when you came home with both sick kids all alone...but one night you can't handle?  OK I want you to know that when I finally lose it and take a month long court ordered "vacation" hugging myself in a padded room...you'll have the kids all to yourself.  Or plan B, let me go out for a night with A., get a few drinks, talk to adults and keep my mind at least as intact as it currently is?  Your choice babe!

I am a worse mom when forced to not let any other portion of my personality come out to play.  I know other moms that have a weekly ritual day off.  Whether it be yoga, dinner with a friend or locking yourself in your bedroom and reading a book...it's "not Mom" time.

Right now with Daughter going through some toddler right of passage where she is determined to challenge everything I say and Son believing that when he is awake I am his personal jungle gym and when he is asleep I am his personal pillow, I NEED "not Mom" time!  Daughter needs to miss me and Son needs to realize he can do things WITHOUT me!  More importantly, I need to miss Daughter and I need do things without Son.

My birthday is coming up and Him was talking about what to get me and I seriously answered, "A night with the girls."  He was all like yeah, that's what I want for you to be gone on your birthday.  Well, I will gladly spend my birthDAY with my family, but how about for my birthday weekend, I go whip up some J.A.ckassery and go out and remember why I decided to get married and have kids...lemme see those girls that are the me before you and while having fun actually look forward to walking back in that door and seeing the ones I love snoring with a smile on my face and whiskey on my breath.  For sanities' sake, I throw the handcuffs across the sky in lights and dear Him...I hope you see them!

Bite Tongue...Put Hands in Pockets

I've never been a good girly girl.  I don't get the two-faced, lying, back-stabbing, manipulating thing.  I've never understood the "invite the girl you don't like to your slumber party just to make fun of her" thing or the under the breath "Oh God it's her..." turning into the "Oh God I haven't seen you in forever! How have you been? KISSES!" thing.  I choose to call it like I see it.  If I like you, you know it.  If I don't, you know it.  I will rarely say something behind a person's back that I wouldn't happily say to their face.

I've never been one to back down.  My 5'4" frame may have grabbed a 200-ish lb. man by his throat through a car window while his three 200-ish lb. friends looked on because he sucker punched a friend of mine in a bar fight.  I also may have jumped from a still moving truck to tackle a friend's boyfriend when I saw him abusing her.  I ended up with a cut lip but he had to explain a fat lip, a black eye and why he was walking funny.

Fact is, if you hurt someone I love...I don't hold back.  I will show you a whole new rainbow of words you didn't know could be strung together like that and while you're wrapping your head around whether or not I just insulted you...I might just take a swing too.  I let people get away with saying a lot of things about me.  I've been called every word that's ever been used to insult a female and most of it I've laughed off or told them to at least come up with something original, dazzle me with something I've never heard before.  When it comes to my friends though, that name you just called me, call them that same thing and that just became a fightin' word!

And that's where I'm going to have a hard time as my children get older.

The girl that was Daughter's friend but now laughs at her cuz she's not wearing the "right" jeans?  The first girl that breaks Son's heart?  The first boy that laughs at Daughter when she confesses that she likes him?  The first time Son comes home with a black eye from a school fight?

MAN!  I can't go yell obscenities at children and then sock 'em!  That would be truly frowned upon!  I mean by then I'll be at least 40-ish and beating up a school aged kid??  Pretty sure jail time becomes involved at that point!  And I don't want to be "that mom" that makes her kids bigger targets cuz she's always calling and tattling on the kids that are being mean.  I mean, if it's truly a bully situation getting involved is one thing but kids being kids?  I need to sit back, bite my tongue and put my hands in my pockets.  And I gotta say...that might be my biggest challenge as a parent.

I know how evil girls can be in school.  One minute they're best friends and all of a sudden they can't stand each other cuz they both think the same boy is cute.  And boys...overall they're easier cuz they punch each other and either remain friends or never talk to each other again but they still have their dramas and hurt feelings but then it's actually getting it out of them that's the biggest struggle.

I teeter on the "overprotective" side of parenting I guess.  I would hugely prefer to keep my kids in a happy world with woodland creatures breaking out into spontaneously choreographed song and dance and unicorns that poop out rainbow M&M cookies but I realize that's not going to happen. (Although now I would like to keep myself in that land too please!  That'd be awesome!)  But when they come home to me crying and tell me all the bad they've had to experience in the world...I'm going to wish I had made them stay in their rooms and I'm going to wish that spanking a child that is not your own wasn't illegal.

Daughter is going to start preschool this fall and she has this enormous heart.  She hasn't learned to protect herself yet.  She runs up to other kids and just wants to play...no matter girl or boy, skin color, handicap, she doesn't judge others, she just sees potential playmates.  I worry about her being so open and loving.  I worry that someone somewhere along the line is going to start dabbing out her rays and she'll be forced to withdraw a little or become cynical.

I remember at a wedding shower about a year ago, Daughter was 2 and a half and she wanted to play with the other girls there.  They were all older, about 6 to 10 so they didn't want to play with "the baby".  It broke my heart when she sat down and started crying and when I asked what was wrong, she choked out, "Why don't those girls want to play with me?"  When we went to the park and Daughter, 2-ish at the time, wore her skull and crossbones Converse that she loved and some 5 year old girl said, "Ummm...those are boy's shoes!"  Daughter, not realizing this was supposed to be an insult, said, "Aren't they cool?" The 5 year old laughed and slid down the slide ahead of Daughter.  The girls at the shower I just wanted to say, "Really? You're so GROWN UP that you have to make a 2 year old cry?"  And the girl at the park?  I wanted to push her backwards off the top of the slide.

It's even happening with Son already.  We were at a birthday party not long ago and it was in a church gym area.  There were basketballs and volleyballs and soccer balls and Son just wanted a ball SO bad.  We happened to find a red Nerf ball...PERFECT!  I sit down with Son and let him roll it back and forth.  He's loving it.  This boy comes over just picks up the ball and walks away.  Son is only 8 months so he just starts crying.  I pick him up and comfort him thinking about how badly I want to go trip the other boy, take the ball from him and leave him crying.

I have to learn to hold back.  It's really hard when these two little people are the ones I love more than any friend I've ever punched somebody for!  It's just like letting them learn to walk.  They'll fall and they'll scrape their knees and they'll bonk their heads and they'll cry and you have to sit back and allow it all to happen cuz otherwise they'll never learn.  After a quick reassuring kiss from Mom they keep picking themselves up and keep trying until one day, they let go and start that stumbling first walk.  I just have to be there with the quick kiss and reassuring words and hope they keep brushing off the hurt and stumble through this life full of obstacles keeping their optimism that every person is just another potential playmate.

MAN!  I thought I had already gone through some of the hardest parts and then life said, "HA! You ain't seen nothing yet!"