Despite a small segment of my readers' seeming beliefs to the contrary, I don't actually write about EVERYTHING. I write about LOTS of things, and I write about some stuff that I'm sure some people wish I wouldn't, but this is but a small, self-selected slice of my life, and there are a million and one reasons to be selective about what I put out here. Figuring prominently in that laundry list of constraints are my readers who are known to me, such as my family and friends, and my desire not to vex them any more than is strictly necessary. Also on that list is the fact that my ex is reading...
(Not to be confused with this rockin' mama over here, you understand, but I believe there's enough asshole to go around.) Recently those of us participating in BlogHerAds were asked to state for the record whether or not we could commit to profanity-free writing as---go figure---some advertisers would rather not spend their dollars on pottymouths. Although I didn't have to think twice about checking the "I do hereby solemnly swear to use my genteel language and only fart butterflies" box over on Want Not, after some thought I decided that I wasn't comfortable making that pledge here. Because...
Today is a particularly good Friday. The children have nearly made it through their first week of school, and to celebrate that we decided they could ride the bus home this afternoon. This has less to do with any reward logic (because, let's face it, they'd much rather be picked up and we're all a bit worried about what happens on the bus) and more to do with things like since it's the end of the week, if the experience scars them horribly I have all weekend to help them get over it; plus yesterday the crossing guard lady yelled at me in the pick-up line and I realized that if I continue...
For the first time in about seven weeks, I am sitting at my desk in broad daylight with nothing but the droning of the fan behind me as background noise. I have a million things to do, of course, but I have a solid six hours before I have to talk to anyone else, get anyone something to eat, settle a squabble, or decide whether or not we can go swimming now. First day of school, baby. How do I love the public school system? Let me count the ways. No; scratch that. That would take up precious minutes that I could spend eating cookies because there's no one here to see me. Make no mistake---I'm...
(Which is why this is okay, because I skipped last month.) Dear Otto, Happy three months of being hitched! That's a full quarter of a year, and we still like each other. I think by this point in my last marriage we already had our doubts, so WAY TO GO, US! This month has been the first time we've lived together the entire time, WITH the kids here, and everyone is still alive and minimally scarred. That's not to say that I am not going to shove all three of you out the door on Monday morning when school starts (hooray), but even at the end of a trying day seeing your face does not make me...
(It's not what you think.) After four and a half years of living on my own, I have been completely undone by one month of sharing a house with another adult. That Otto is such a JERK, getting me all used to having him around. That insensitive jerk lulled me into a false sense of security and then just as the temperature spiked, he went and left me. He left me here with the over-100-degrees temps and a couple of cranky kids and suddenly I was all, "I have to take the garbage out!" and "I have to pay attention to my children!" and "Damn there are a lot of dead bugs in this pool!" Oh, he's...
Today the kids went to an all-day program judiciously selected by us because it only cost $10 for the entire day. But, you know, it was church-affiliated and that means it has to be good. I mean, it was really cheap, but it was approved by Jesus himself. Especially the pottery part. Monkey presented me with something that may be either a clay donut or a pencil holder, and Chickadee showed off a gigantic blue whale with a comically tiny Mr.-Bill-like Jonah who fits in said whale's blowhole. (Don't ask me, I DON'T KNOW.) While they were gone, I taped myself to my desk chair and completed about...
The process of adjusting to our new home and different life is very much like playing my least-favorite board game, Candyland. Ten steps forward, two steps back. Sixteen steps forward and OH NO! Back to the beginning, sorry! Seven steps forward, four steps back. Eight steps forward, back to the---screw this. This is the point in Candyland where either a child completely melts down and I have an excuse to pack the game up, or I "accidentally" bump the board. With my foot. Hard. Unfortunately, it's rather less practical to pack up the game when this pattern is playing out in real life. This...
With each passing day I'm learning more about our new home, and further despairing of ever finishing unpacking. At a certain point here I'm just going to start throwing little knitted doilies over everything and pretending that it's part of the decor. Fiddle-dee-dee! Set your drink over there on that stack of, um, art! I did spend a couple of hours upstairs in the kids' rooms unpacking the countless boxes of their stuff, today, and they expressed their thanks by rejoicing over the contents and then making a gigantic mess of all their refound stuff and pelting each other with toys until I...
