Today I helped to a exhume a partially decomposed body* and then went on to rebury it in a proper grave.
And that’s why nobody is ever, really, prepared for motherhood.
Category Archives: Parenthood
How Do You Do It?
“How do you do it?” is a question that gets posed to me on a semi-regular basis.
It’s usually when I’m out in public where my three girls always behave closer to something resembling angels than the screaming devils I know them to be within the confines of our home. And it often follows on the heels of me talking about bees, or chickens, or blogging, or just having three children dressed and out of the house.
And though I’ve been hearing this, likely, rhetorical question for years now, it shocks me a little bit every time. Why is someone asking me that?
How do I do it?
With caffeine, alcohol and under eye cream.
With a deliberate lack of sleep, a great husband and good friends.
With afternoon naps, good books and morning tea.
How do I do it?
I don’t care what the kids wear so long as they’re dressed.
Ditto for myself.
I don’t care if the girls have brushed their hair so long as they can see where they are going.
Ditto for myself.
I don’t care if the kids have shoes on unless we are in a restaurant or grocery store.
Ditto for myself.
How do I do it?
I blog and bake and read.
I raise chickens and bees and pigs.
I workout and canoe and play capoeira.
How do I do it?
With snuggly mornings, hugs in the afternoon and I love you’s at bedtime.
With book reading, coloring and baseball games.
With giggles, smiles and overly loud whispers in my ear.
How do I do it?
My house is messy – and I can live with that.
My truck is a disaster area – and I can live with that.
I haven’t gotten a week’s worth of decent sleep in ten years – and I’m still alive.
How do I do it?
I do it the same way you do.
I do it one day at a time.
One smile at a time.
One screaming tantrum at a time.
One stolen moment of peace and chocolate in the bedroom closet at a time.
One sustaining hug from my husband at a time.
One phone call to a friend at a time.
One moment of wonder at a time.
And so, when someone asks me how I do it I tend to trip over my tongue and mumble a bit. I don’t know what to say, and I’m not sure why they are asking me. Because I do it the same way everyone else does, no matter what they have chosen to fill their lives with.. Some days I do it poorly and some days I do it well and some days it’s all I can do just to do it.
Just like you.
Getting Back to Awesome
If you are going to have kids at the same time as your best friend it will initially be kind of awesome.
Or, rather, as awesome as things can be when two sleep deprived people get together with hungry, crying infants on their own separate sleep schedules. So, basically, just like being at home except that when you are still in your pajamas at eleven in the morning covered in milk stains and spit up, your company will smell just like you.
Eventually the time will come when you get talking, walking kids together. When that happens you can watch the remaining awesome dissipate like mist in the sun as the first kid declares, “Mine!”
As we are now painfully aware, one and two year olds mostly just horde toys and fight. So a “fun” weekend together will in actuality turn out to be exhausting weekends of parallel parenting while refereeing wrestling matches over the toy of the moment. Of course this stage is relatively short lived but, if you do it like my best friend and I did, just as one starts getting out of the wrestling match stage another new kid shows up until you suddenly look at each other and wonder how you produced six kids when the oldest is only four.
But I’ve got good news. If you can just hold on, through the insanity, the lack of sleep, and the toy wars, in just a few short years (nine short years to be exact) the kids will grow up enough that the biggest problem is that no matter how many plates of food you serve, as soon as the food is put away, one of them will show back up in the kitchen proclaiming, “I’m hungry!”
My friend and I… we seem to have made it out the other side. This spring we got together for multiple days of actual, real life, fun.
Yes, dinner time was hectic and there was still plenty of refereeing to be done. But at the end of the day we put the kids to bed early and fell back into our old habits of staying up too late laughing until we cried.
If you are going to have kids at the same time as your best friend, initially it will be kind of awesome.
And then it won’t.
But don’t give up, best friends can always make it back to awesome, eventually…
Of course those friends might not have a picture of themselves taken together since those first kidos were born, but I’m sure that’s just part of the awesome that is yet to come!
Guide to a Sleeping Mother – Addendum
I’m very sorry children.
If, in the last week, you have lost life, limb or been sentenced to an eternity of floor mopping, you have my apologies.
I forgot.
I forgot the thing above all other things you must never do to a sleeping mother.
Do not ever touch her face!
I learned this lesson myself the day I tapped my mom’s forehead to wake her up.
It is true that tapping her head work her up.
It’s also true that to this day she yells at me for the time I woke her up by tapping her forehead.
Children.
Do not tap.
Do not gently pat.
Do not set paper snowflakes on eyelids
Do not, under any circumstances, lightly brush your fingers over her lips or eyes.
And, most importantly,
Never. Ever. Put your finger up her nose.
Ever.
Just don’t.
I can not guarantee your safety if any of these things are done to a soundly sleeping mother.
Apologies again for the late warning. I’m pretty sure that had I gotten just five more minutes of sleep last week, I would have remembered to tell you.
P.S. You should thank Jane for “reminding” me of the horror that is sleeping face touching, because heaven knows I didn’t.
In case you missed it here is last weeks Guide to a Sleeping Mother.
Guide to a Sleeping Mother
Pay attention children. It seems that many of you are unsure how to act around sleeping mothers. Today, for you, I have outlined just exactly what to do when you encounter a sleeping mother.
First we have identification.
If the mother is in bed under the covers with her eyes closed, this is called sleeping. It is unnecessary to call her name multiple times. If she’s not sleeping, she wants to be sleeping and should be treated as if she is.
It should be noted that sleeping mothers do not need things.
They are sleeping.
All they need is at least five more minutes of sleep.
Extra blankets, toys, and books are unnecessary.
Hugs are nice but will actually be appreciated later in the day and if snuggling with your mother means stealing both covers and pillow, skip it.
Tea, however, may always be quietly left by the bedside.
This:
is not an awake mother.
This is a mother who has been badgered long enough that she has opened one eye to confirm which child will be scrubbing the toilet for the rest of the month.
Do not continue talking.
Under no circumstances should you demand anything.
In fact, unless you or someone you know is actively bleeding or something is on fire, drop off a cup of black, highly caffeinated tea and back quietly away.
No doubt after your considerate tea donation she will roll out of bed on her own. And once she is standing upright beyond the confines of her bedroom you may start your day of demands.
Now children, read, memorize and say thank you. This information could save your life, or at very least prevent a few extra toilet scrubbings.
Starting The Day Off Right
I remembered the incredulity as I dropped the kids off at school this morning. The sad scorn I felt for those parents that would send their poor children off to a long day of school without a proper breakfast. They were heavy on my mind, those poor nutrition-less children and the worries that surround them. How could they make it through a day of learning and activity without a good healthy start to the day?
I was thinking about those deprived children because I had just watched in the review mirror as my own kids ate old stale Cheetos from a bag Clara found in the back. I had just thought how odd it was that they’d even want to eat something like that much less in the morning right after – Oh shit!
I forgot to feed my kids breakfast.
I dropped them off, wished them well, figured it was a good thing we never clean the truck and that Clara gets a snack within an hour of getting to school. Made a mental note to be nicer in my head to people because you never know what the circumstances might be and headed to the gas station.
I got out to pump gas and looked down at my slippers.
Moral of the story: Don’t judge, you never know what motherhood may do to you.
Other moral of the story: Some people just don’t do mornings.
Blogging the Moments
Christmas Day we took a walk down to the unfrozen lake to catch a beautiful, peaceful and serene sunset.
At least, it looks that way after my efforts in Photoshop.
In actuality that moment, like the rest of our Christmas break, was full of kids (our three plus my two year old nephew), numerous dogs and not quite enough tired adults to field all the whining, barking, “Look at me!”‘s ,rolling in dead fish, crying and bouncing off the walls that was going on.
There has been a huge amount of material written about how we skew our internet presence to make our lives look better than they are. And to that I say, of course! I’m not taking a selfie in the clothes I’m wearing. Nobody wants to see the jeans I’ve been wearing for three days, combined with the top I worked out in, while I sport my “hairstyle” created through the subtle use of pony tails, sweat, and winter hats. Including me.
Including me.
I blog because I’m trying hard not to become one of the ferrets that eats it’s own young.
I blog because, if I look at this picture and squint just right, I can see all the fun, giggles, snuggling cousins and laughter that was mixed in the chaos.
I blog because sometimes, in the midst of the snot and the tears and the stinky dogs and the whining, it’s hard to remember that those happy moments are existing right along side. But if I share a moment like the one above, I’m sure to remember that life with kids is more than just accidents on the floor, snot on my shirt and sleepless nights.
I don’t need any help remembering what sort of mess I look like today, all that takes is a mirror.
I Created The Monster
I created the monster.
Well, that one too, but that’s not the one I’m talking about.
No, the monster I’m talking about is the one that rears it’s ugly head every year at Halloween when I try to tell my children to wear weather appropriate clothes with their costumes.
Probably if I told them to wear weather appropriate clothes more often, this wouldn’t be an issue. But that’s not my way. I’m more of a, “Alright if you don’t want to wear your hat/shirt/shoes/pants/jacket/socks/mittens that’s fine,” sort of mom. I’m a, “Sure you can wear a tank top in October but grab a sweatshirt to leave in the truck just in case,” kind of mom. I’m a, “My kids are smart and will put on clothes when they are cold,” kind of mom. Most importantly I’m a choose your battles kind of mom.
And when it comes to battles, I never choose clothes.
Except.
Except on Halloween.
Because cold children and trick or treating go poorly together and when one ridiculous evening of candy gathering (don’t get me wrong I love the candy) is hyped for weeks and costumes are gathered (thank you Grandma Pat), the last thing I want after experiencing the horrid-ness that is Halloween (I’m a Halloween hating curmudgeon, it’s true) is for all that effort turns into snot nosed, whining, crying, cold children who need to cut the evening short where they (and I) will be devastated by their meager candy haul. (Miniature Milky Way bars are the only thing that continues to ensure my participation in this terrible holiday.)
And so on Halloween I tell my children to wear more clothes. This is a direction that is so unpracticed on both the directing and the receiving end that to call it a lead balloon would be a kindness.
This year, I eventually remembered that I’m a choose your battles kind of mom, threw my hands in the air and we left the house looking like this.
While I personally feel that that picture contains a lot of cuteness it’s totally lacking in clothing for weather befitting a drizzly October evening in Wisconsin.
Ivy had cold toes and Clara had cold fingers and Jane was frozen all over. Not that that meant she wanted to put her shoes on. So John and I stood at the end of many sidewalks and showed concerned citizens of our town that our pockets had both sweatshirts and shoes for the small purple princess who was shivering as she slowly minced down the sidewalk after us.
It was just after John made the comment that perhaps we should take away her crown and give her a box of matches that she was done. John took her back to the warmth of the truck while I continued to follow the others through the town. To their credit none of them whined about the cold. They just talk about it in an, “Oh my gosh I can’t even feel my toes” sort of incredulity as they marched on through the ghoul-filled darkness.
It’s true, I created the monster.
And I’m ok with that because for the other 364 days of the year it’s a monster that serves us well.
As for Halloween, well, I’ve never liked it anyway.
Except for those mini Milky Way bars…
Weekly Photo Challenge: Careful
Weekly Photo Challenge: Careful
I suppose one could call out to the three year old with the dozen eggs traipsing around outside in nothing but her swimsuit on a chilly October day to be careful.
But I don’t.
I’m not that kind of parent.
She knows all about broken eggs. She knows what breaks them and what to do with the broken ones. She’s been there and she’s done that.
And after a few run-ins with thistles, raspberry canes and other less desirable things, she knows how to watch what she’s stepping on.
And as for the swimming suit, all you grandmas out there shivering just looking at her, will be glad to know that after an hour or so she told me she was going inside to warm up.
I could tell her to be careful.
But I won’t.
Three Treasures
I am a temporary, treasure repository.
At the end of the day my pockets are filled with treasure, the front of the car has extras handed up from the back and the kitchen counter has a collection of interesting things.
Some days, I get pretty rocks and precious toys.
Other days, I get small handfuls of vomit and bits of garbage.
These are the three best treasures I was given today.
An egg. 
Jane collected the eggs today and I caught her rolling the warm smoothness of them across her cheeks. Then she handed them to me with them same enthusiasm she does every morning that she gets to pluck them from their nests.
The molted shell of a cicada.
Ivy and Clara found this in their favorite climbing tree. As they hauled me out of the house to see and take custody of it, they were so giddy with excitement you never would have guessed they had found one in a similar spot the day before.
And a small duck feather.
Another find of Jane’s, she had me hold it in my pocket and randomly requested it back throughout the day.
She looked at that feather with wonder and excitement every time I gave it back to her.
It was good day to hold the treasures.
Behind the Willows 
