Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby once said “If the kids are alive at the end of the day, I’ve done my job.”

Well, my kids are alive and today, that in itself was an accomplishment. I deserve a frickin' gold medal.

Fear This

Conversation between my studly husband (here in known as SH) and L, my oldest son.

Place: In the car, on their daily commute to school

Time: 7:30 am

Provocateur: A bumper sticker that says “FEAR GOD”


L: Why should you fear God?
SH: Some people believe that God will punish you if you do bad things.
L: Well, God forgives you when you do something bad. It should say “Fear Santa Claus.” He'll leave coal in your stocking if you do bad things!


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Great news! Want to know whenever I post? You will need to have a newsreader (ie a personal My Yahoo page, AOL, MSN ) Click the SITE LINK to the right and add it to your content. This is so exiciting that I gotta go peee!

L taken by 4 yr old E, moments before he fell off the the spinning stool.

Patience

I am amazed how much patience I actually posses. I hear mothers-to-be express their fear of not being patient enough, as if they were talking about breast milk. Will I have enough? What will I do if I run out? How will I know if my baby’s getting the right amount? There is only one question that cannot be put in both groups. Breastfeeding mothers never worry if their lack breast milk will produce the next Jeffrey Dahmer.

Patience is endless, that is, if you can remember to breathe. When I discovered I had it, it made me feel like Cinderella after her Fairy God Mother turned her rags into a beautiful ball gown. I danced around, hugged myself, looked at my beautiful, patient face in the mirror and thought, “Oh, how lovely!”

Today, however, I forgot to inhale….deeply…..several times…to find my patience. I’m not sure it would have worked anyway. It was 9:00 at night, an hour and a half past bed time. My daughter, overtired and over-stimulated, was sobbing in her bed. She wailed over our dead dog she never knew. Sensitve? Maybe, but at 9:00 all I could think was the damn dog died 5 years ago. My daughter is 6.

In that moment, my patience was nowhere to be found. It is a good thing however, that I have discovered another “emotion” equally, if not more important, but barely talked about. This emotion too flows in abundance. The best part of this emotion is that you don’t have breathe in or tke as many times breaths to tap into it. You just need to let go.

I go in, pick up and hold my mourning, sobbing daughter. I make an attempt to hide my hysterical laughter.

And Now for Something Completely Different

As many of you know, I'm a triathlete. And while that has it's pluses - eatin' more than my husband, and having legs that even I like -- it has it's down side like, finding a toe nail polish regiment that will keep my toes looking cute after 3 pool swims a week!

Toe nail painting season is upon us. I have broken out the old sandals and flip flops for more than just getting to and from the pool. But last year I found myself re-applying polish ever third day due to the chlorine. I am not a spend-time-on-my-feet kinda gal. I'd rather spend it writing, of course. What's a girl to do? Has anybody found the perfect non-chipping nail polish or perfect polishing system to ensure a good swim time AND cute toes? Please let me know.

A New Kind of Mother's Day

From this day forth, I declare that I will celebrate Mother’s Day WITHOUT the people who “gave” me reason to celebrate it, a.k.a my kids.

Now don’t get me wrong, yesterday was a nice day. But I had lunch with a friend today and her Mother’s Day consists of a brunch with the family and then she LEAVES and goes shopping with her friends! This was like someone telling me, “You can fly!”

All this gift making/giving stresses me, my kids and my husband out.

Me. I can receive only so many teacher-directed potholders, drawings and popsicle stick frames. My kids are forever coming home with “gifts” for me, Mother’s Day or not. My closet has enough of them. My garage has enough of them.

My Kids. They are supposed to spend, at the minimum, 8 hours not doing any of the things that come naturally to them but annoy the hell out of us. Stress enough to raise their blood pressure.

My Husband. He’s supposed get the right kind of flowers, take me to the perfect restaurant, and keep the kids in line so that at some point in the day, I’ll look loving into his eyes and think, “What a wonderful man he is to take all this time to make me feel special.” If he can’t make me feel special without the reason of Mother’s Day, I need to see a divorce lawyer.

So next year….I will have the perfect Mother’s Day by: 1. Sleeping in. This will be the only stressful part for my husband for he will have to keep the rogue child from slipping away and disturbing the sleeping queen. 2. I will eat breakfast with the family. 3. After breakfast, I will dawn shorts and hiking boots and a backpack, loving filled with wine/cheese/fruit, the scrumptious tofu sesame salad, and bread. 4. A horn will beep out front. I will leave the house and board a minivan filled to capacity with true mom friends. 5. We will hike in the Santa Monica Mountains. 6. We will toast to ourselves, to each other and yes, to our kids who allow us to celebrate this day. We will giggle over our husbands taking over, swear we will train them better next year and talk about what we will do for future Mother’s Days.

There will be no talk about the following: bad marriages, bratty kids, things we guilt ourselves over, and absolutely no conversation about loosing a few pounds or Botox. We will bask in our sincere enjoyment of the moment, and in each other’s company. We will relish our motherhood AND our womanhood.

So…from now on, I declare that I will celebrate Mother’s Day without said children. That is, until my kids are older, and I don’t see them as often and actually WANT them around for Mother’s Day.

But it will be Mother’s Day, so I can change the rules.