I am Alone

All 3 kids are in camp this morning! 9a-1pm M,W, and F. of this week they are in a day camp at our temple. I seriously can't decide what to do with myself.

Do I go get a mani/pedi, go shopping, drive home and masturbate with my bedroom door wide open? Nope. The first thing I did was finish filling out their paperwork, because of course I can't leave them there without it, and I hadn't done it yet. I am a master procrastinator. That took me a fucking hour and 15 minutes! Is this day camp or the secret service. Damn!

Jake cried when I left but he's in good hands, and Mike and Bekah were consoling him. I felt a twinge of sadness but it was fleeting. As soon as I saw the Starbucks sign I was over it. Now I am sitting here with my laptop, a quad shot non-fat mocha, a 1/2 eaten banana and I still don't know what the hell to do with myself.

I guess I will start with some blogging and schedule them to be posted periodically throughout the summer. You probably figured out that I gave up on my Weekly Weight Watchers recipes. Commitment is a challenge for me, probably why I didn't get married until I was 32 years old. I will post a recipe here and there, especially since I would really like to lose at least 5 more pounds before my 20 year high school reunion August 29th. But the weekly thing was an idea suited for somebody way more organized than I am.

Wednesday I do have an appointment and during this free time maybe I will go see the dentist and get my hair colored. That's not frivolity, the gray is coming in with vengenance. I believe I shall go as blonde as my eyebrows will let me. Why not?

I want to have fun and enjoy myself but I feel the need to balance this alone time with some real errands or work since my poor husband is slaving away at the moment.

Speaking of my husband we had a fight last week. We never fight. We snap at each other now and then, because we get tired and irritable but that's about it. Last week I was gently informing him that since my brother is getting married in September there are a bridal shower and a bacherlorette party on the books and I need his call schedule so I can figure out which one to go to. Of course I am leaning towards the bacherlorette party since that will be more fun. Well you think that I had asked him to serve me his balls on a platter.

He got all quiet and pouty looking and I asked him, "Are you pouting?". And he said, "A little." And I asked, "Why?". And he said, "Because you just got back from a bacherlorette weekend and left me with the kids.". "Well honey you are welcome to have a weekend alone with your guy friends too. You can go on that ski weekend with the guys from the hospital this year. As long as you stay away from the bad, slutty husbands.".

That didn't seem to cheer him up. And a few minutes later he said, "You can only go to one event! I am putting my foot down! You are only allowed to go to one event!".

At first I wanted to laugh hysterically! Then I realized he was serious. Dark anger washed over me, I had to take deep breaths, I was standing next to a block of knives, my hands were slippery from washing dishes, this could get very ugly.

Of course I was only planning to go to one event, not both. I may be a lot of things but I am not unfair. I wouldn't like it if he left me alone multiple weekends to party with his friends and family. Having kids is about sacrifice and I don't expect to have the carefree social life I used to lead. But I wasn't going to tell him that now, he pissed me off! And this wasn't drinking with my girlfriends, these are wedding events, for family, my brother!!!

I have come a long way baby when it comes to my anger management. I resisted the urge to yell and throw stuff and swear and call names. Well almost. I said, "What are you a fucking Promise Keeper?!". You know those right-wing Christian men that promise to uphold their marriage vows but really just boss their wives around? Erik said, "What?!" I said through clenched teeth, "You can't put your foot down and tell me what to do. What if this was your family member getting married? Do you think I wouldn't let you go?!." Then it deteriorated into the age old he works and I stay home and eat Bons Bons fight. Nice.

I walked away from that and went back to my Bons Bons, and dishes and kitchen floor and yelling at the kids. Then we both calmed down.

I sat on his lap and he apologized and said he was just really tired and he didn't mean to say that. And I said, "Honey I was only going to go to one event anyways, I am not an asshole. And you can go out and party with your buddies anytime, seriously, I owe you." . So we made up and it's all good!

I just didn't want you to think my life was perfect.

Del Mar High School's 20 Year Reunion, Pre-Party

I am behind in my blogging but I have been having a great summer! Last week I was without a decent laptop because one of my sons gnawed through the wire on AC adaptor. So while I waited for that to be delivered I dragged out an old laptop from our ewaste pile and, well, it was TORTURE!

I had a mini high school reunion last weekend at a friend's house in Watsonville. We were having this pre-party because 2 of my friends live out of the country and won't be here for the real reunion in August. Kellie lives in Honduras and Jen lives in Australia. So our friend Julie opened up her home to us. It was perfect! Especially since her kids are 16 and 17 years old and the rest of us have toddlers.

Julie told me that I would be sleeping in a trailer with my 3 kids (my husband was on-call that weekend) but it was more like a cabin. It was so cute with a woodburning stove and wingback chairs. There was a kitchen, bathroom and a queen and a double bed. I took the double bed, and gave Mike and Bekah the queen. Jake was in his porta-crib but Jake and Bekah eventually all ended up in my sleeping bag with me squished in the middle.


Julie set up her music room downstairs, with window paints, toys, stuff to color with and play-dough. That's Kellie on the left, Jen on the right standing with the cocktail and Linda sitting down.

I have known Kellie and Linda since I was 9 years old, I met Julie in Jr. High and Jen in high school. Jen looks exactly the same, beautiful. Me and Linda tend to drink more beer than others.

Jen's daughter made this nice poem about Margaritas, hilarious!

Kellie was opening some red window paint for her daughter and accidentally poured it on Jake's head. As you can see she was more concerned than he was.

Linda's son. Freaking Cutest Boy!!!! I would die for his eyelashes. Him and my Bekah hit it off immediately. Linda you are right we need to get together for a playdate soon! They can play and we can drink beers.

Bekah and Jake enjoying the trampoline. Remember when we went camping and Jake was throwing rocks in the creek for Henry the rock fetching dog? Well Julie owns 4 goats and Jake was trying to throw rocks into their pen to make them fetch them. He was laughing and I was apologizing.

Awesome view.

This is Julie and she is not only pretty and a gracious hostess but she made these crepes at midnight that kicked ass.

Jake had too many margaritas. Just kidding. I wish my kitchen floor looked that clean.

7 kids and 2 teenagers and no meltdowns! We lucked out! They were perfect angels.

Towards the end of the night I was feeling as fuzzy as this picture.

I didn't bother going straight home from Julie's the next morning. I left the nice cool weather of the coast and headed home to the Alameda County Fair where it was a 103 degrees. I have a wagon with a canopy that I can load all 3 kids into and we drank a gallon of lemonade each. I had sweat dripping off my chin, gross. But we had fun and it was the last day so I felt obligated to go. Mike is in the yellow t-shirt onstage with this silly band and Bekah is in the red t-shirt playing that tin can.

The real 20 year high school reunion is August 29th but it won't be as much fun as we had at Julie's house.

Summer is for Re-runs

So I have been dropping the blogging ball lately because I am spending more time with my kids. Obviously they come before my addiction, I mean hobby. But summer is all about re-runs anyways right? The post below is one of the earlier ones from this blog.
Enjoy!

Breastfeeding a 3rd grader, Judgemental moms, Other random thoughts

The other night my husband and I happened upon a 20/20 episode on breastfeeding older children. I have read on other blogs that the entire show was on extreme mothering,but Erik and I only saw the breastfeeding segment.

Ok so one of my rules to be a N.E.O. mom is to let other women make the choice to do what they want to do with their bodies and children. Another rules is that rules are meant to be broken, and that is what I am going to do now. 20/20 showed a woman breastfeeding 2.5 year old twins, yawn, big deal. Then a woman was shown nursing a 5 year old, not my thing but he seemed rather babyish so maybe it was appropriate for their family. Then they showed a woman breastfeeding her 8 year old daughter. Ewwwww!

I was already wearing a bra by the time I was 8 years old! I realize I was an early bloomer, so I started thinking about my 8 year old niece,who is more average,and I could not see her being interested in breastfeeding either.

In a third world country where water is unsafe with an inadequate food supply, breastfeeding your children to the age of 8 makes sense. In a country such as the U.S. or U.K. I just don't see that it is necessary, or even beneficial, if we think about a child's emotional development. And I am not anti-breastfeeding at all, I nursed all 3 kids, I just had no desire to do it forever.

Ok I need to talk about something else now. I love evites. You can see who is attending the same party that you have been invited to and that's very important when you recently had to quit a mom's club that you accidentally blew up. So I was invited to a lovely child's birthday party this morning, and I was checking the evite to see who would be there. "Hmmm, oh good I like that chick, oh good I miss her too, phew thank G-d she won't be there, oh shit not her and her too!?". But I am a mature woman and would never do anything to ruin a child's birthday. And my sweet husband said, "I am your friend honey and I will talk to you.".

So I visited with the mom of birthday child who is a friend, and I hung out with some friends from my new and improved mom's club, and I got to visit with 2 women that I miss from the old mom's club. The other 2 women I ignored.

Unfortunately one of those women is not to easy to ignore. She falls into that extreme mothering episode from 20/20. Strongly opinionated and super judgemental. She doesn't vaccinate her child. Do I need to say more?

Well after free play the kids started munching on pizza and that always brings up the topic of picky eaters,of which my oldest is known for being the pickiest. Somebody said something about Dino nuggets (my oldest's favorite food) and annoying mom goes off, "Oh that is not the child,that is all the parents' fault. They just need to offer their kids other foods and they will eat them.". I had to leave the room. You are probably thinking that is no reason to be annoyed but she said this in a very loud voice, totally directed at me and I am not good at being quiet so I just walked out to check on my Dino nugget eating 4 year old.

Later , said 4 year old shows up to eat cupcakes. Don't worry I always feed him before parties because I know he doesn't eat pizza. I just feed him before the party so I don't have to fight with him about food, and then he can have cupcakes after everyone else is done eating their lunch. So Mike was being silly and said, "Look I have a moustache.". It was all frosting from his cupcake on his upper lip, cute. Annoying mom immediately starts asking him in the most patronizing voice possible, "What color is the frosting Mike? Can you tell me? Do you know what color that is?". My oldest looks at her blankly and makes an unintelligible noise like he just got off the short bus. Jeez Mike throw your mother a bone! It would have been the perfect time for him to say, "Why yes this frosting is a lovely shade of indigo.".

Once again I chose to leave the room instead of kicking her in the face. I am no Miss Manners but I am pretty sure that kicking another mother in the face is not appropriate behavior at a child's birthday party.

In her defense, annoying, judgemental mom was so busy pointing out other parents' faults she didn't say anything about the old mom's club being blown up. Another guest that I like very much did say that the club I quit is dead now! She said it's boring and nobody shows up to anything. So I asked her if she would like to join our new informal group and she was very enthusiastic. It makes sense the old club is dead, we stole all the women that don't have sticks up their asses.


So just when I think that old mom's club drama is dead it gets brought up again. Sometimes quite innocently like mentioned above when I am told it's boring now that I am gone. Which I find flattering. Other times that fiasco is brought up at the most bizarre moments.

Recently I recognized a woman from my oldest's previous preschool in the line at the grocery store. We said Hi and she mentioned that she heard of me recently because some neighbors were talking about what had happened with the mom's club. What?!! How small is this damn suburb?!!

This makes me nervous because I don't know who her neighbors are, but she puts me at ease and says that she agrees it was really stupid for me to have to quit. Phew. She then goes on to say that they miss me, "Especially Sharon.". That's great except I don't know anyone named Sharon! So Sharon misses me and she has never met me? These women need a new hobby.

Then at the gym wrapped in a towel,making small talk with another woman, this woman blurts out, "So what happened with your mom's club?". Unbelievable. So I try to briefly explain it, but I start to get fired up talking about it and I use my hands a lot when I am talking and my towel falls to my ankles. Awkward.

My advice is always be careful what you say and what you email, especially if you live in suburb, small town or associate with a lot of women that have sticks up their asses.