Tag Archives: life

The Back-to-School Curse

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Still Life with Dog and Sick Kid

Things have gone from bad to worse at the MommyEnnui residence. I don’t know why it always catches me off guard when things go horribly awry at the beginning of the school year. I really should write, “Don’t celebrate yet! The shit’s about to hit the fan!” in my calendar on the first day of school every year.

I already knew last week was going to be difficult. It was the second week of school, we have a new puppy and Ad Man was scheduled to be out of town for several days. That meant that I’d have to get two sleepy, stubborn kids up at the crack of dawn, supervise their morning routine, make lunches and have the girls ready to get on the bus at about 5 minutes past the crack of dawn. I also had to simultaneously get a sleepy, stubborn puppy outside to go potty, somehow convincing her of the urgency of the matter, and then keep her from chewing on the children while they tried to avoid getting ready for school.

We managed to do it, despite a few mini-meltdowns by Biggie and Smalls over the outfits they’d picked out themselves just the night before and complaints about their breakfast which would have been deemed disgusting and inedible no matter what I put in front of them. Surprisingly, Birdie cooperated, contentedly spending time in her crate when I couldn’t follow her around at every moment. I tried not to make eye contact with her for fear of breaking the trance.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing though. This was the first week of homework for Smalls and, borrowing from her sister’s playbook, she cried, whined and ended up doing a half-assed job of it each afternoon. Biggie, on the other hand, was delighted that for once, her sister was the drama queen. She took advantage of the rare opportunity to be the “easy child” by being excessively cooperative and pleasant. Both girls have gotten really good at capitalizing on the other’s foul moods. Generally, it’s Biggie throwing a fit and Smalls smiling sweetly at me, saying, “I love you soooo much, Mommy!” These kissing-up skills should serve them well in their careers someday.

When Smalls got off the bus the next day complaining of a headache and stomach ache, I assumed she’d just developed an allergy to homework. I told her to go lay down in her room if she wasn’t feeling well. After about a half an hour of helping Biggie with homework, I realized that Smalls still hadn’t emerged begging for snacks and began to get concerned. I discovered her asleep in her room with the covers over her head, soaked in sweat. Yep…she was running a fever. At this point, I ran outside, shook my fist in the sky and yelled, “Noooooooo!!!” OK, maybe that part only happened in my head.

It turned out, I had my darling Smalls home with me for the rest of the week and through the beginning of this one. We spent long days watching High School Musical, High School Musical 2, Camp Rock, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam, Princess Protection Program, Freaky Friday and much, much more. If I see one more Disney Channel star, I’m going to lose my freaking mind!

After 2 trips to the doctor, 2 strep tests, 1 mono test, lots of poking, prodding and pleading for a prescription for antibiotics (that would be me), it turned out that it was just a really nasty virus. Ugh…virus. That word dreaded by parents everywhere because it means you are officially powerless to do anything but wait until the virus is damn good and ready to release your kid from its evil clutches. Poor Smalls was stuck with the thing for 6 days.

Oh, and how could I forget the best part? On Fever Day 2 while Ad Man was still out of town, I had Birdie out to attempt a walk. This time, she took a few steps then planted herself on our neighbor’s uphill yard refusing to leave. I ended up carrying her down a set of uneven steps and twisted my ankle so badly I was sure it was broken. I hobbled home carrying the dog (who’s 20 lbs. now, by the way) and immediately iced my ankle while watching it swell up and turn purple. So, there I sat crying with a erratic, potty-training puppy, a sick child and a husband in Texas not returning my texts or calls. Because, you know, that’s how we roll here at MommyEnnui headquarters.

Without access to my absentee husband, I turned to Facebook for support. The best advice came from my friend S who recommended “B.R.I.C.E.”…bourbon, rest, ice, compression and elevation. Many other friends offered their sympathy and asked if they could do anything to help. Those from far away generally just said they were looking forward to a blog post about the whole debacle. So, this is for you heartless bastards.

On the morning of Day 7, I limped to Smalls’s room to check her temperature. Suddenly, the heavens opened up and rays of golden sunshine pooled on her IKEA rug. (Now that I think of it, that could have been dog pee, but I digress.) Once the room cleared of fluffy, white clouds and angels’ wings, I was able to focus on the thermometer stuck in Smalls’s ear which clearly read 98.6! (That’s 37 degrees Celsius for you Europeans with your fancy metric system.)

My joy overflowed, but after 6 days of vegging on the couch watching TV in her pajamas, Smalls was a little less thrilled with the idea of dashing off to school. Regardless, to the school bus she went! I celebrated by sitting on the couch acting as a buffer between Birdie and the furniture, quietly drinking my tea, and watching something (anything!) other than Nick Jr. I actually left the house to sit in a coffee shop with other adults and begin this blog post. I grabbed some groceries and headed home to the dog. It was a wild day of freedom.

Throughout the afternoon, I hatched big plans for the next day. I was super excited to finally get back to my favorite morning hot yoga class. I laid out my clothes and put all my gear in the lovely, as yet unused, yoga bag my step-mom gave me months ago. I planned to finish this post and finally get it up on the blog. I was also going to make one of the zillion tasty recipes I’ve posted on Vegetarian Mamas recently but hadn’t been able to make with a new puppy and sick kid all up in my grill. I crawled in bed that night knowing that Ad Man would soon be home and feeling optimistic for the first time in a long time.

Same Couch, Different Kid

Same Couch, Different Kid

The following morning, I awoke with the sun…and the whining dog and the prodigal husband attempting to pry the children out of bed. When I stumbled out into the kitchen relieved to see Smalls still looking perky, Biggie moaned, “Mommy…my head hurts.” I held my breath as Ad Man stuck the thermometer in her ear, glanced at it and then turned to me with a look of such pity, it sent me into a complete psychotic breakdown.

I don’t remember much after that other than hearing Ad Man’s faint voice from far above the deep, dark place to which I’d sunk. I’m pretty sure he said, “I’ve got to go to work…you know, that place where people praise and throw money at me for a job well done. How’s that law degree working out for you? Oh, by the way, I have to go to San Francisco for a couple days next week.” Or something like that.

Where’s That Damn Noah When You Need Him?

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Remember my “home office”?

I clearly cursed myself when I told you last week about all the awesome progress I’d made carving out a real, grown-up, home office space for myself in our downstairs living room. As you can see from this photo, I’ve had a bit of a setback. Well, OK…a major setback.

I walked downstairs Saturday morning with the intention of throwing in a load of laundry, spackling the former gallery wall in the “office,” and prepping the walls for painting. As I was descending the stairs, I said to Ad Man, “Wow…it smells really musty down here.” Ever the helpful husband, Ad Man told me to turn on the dehumidifier. I then stepped from the wood stair to the carpeted basement and thought, “Why does this rug feel moist?” (That was for you, D. I know how much you love the word MOIST.)

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Chunk ‘o ceiling.

The next step was more than just moist (I could do this all day). In fact, I felt a squish and looked down to see water oozing up from between my toes. I yelled, “Honey, we have a serious problem!” and continued down the soaked hallway to the utility/storage room where I discovered a gaping hole in the ceiling, wet plaster everywhere and water pouring from above.

Luckily for us, unluckily for them, we have a bunch of friends who have dealt with flooding from broken pipes and encroaching creeks in the last few years. So, I ran next door in my pajamas to get my friend B who sprung into action the moment I said, “We need your help!” B grabbed his 6 foot tall 13-year old (my adopted neighbor son C, also in his pajamas) and we headed to our house to figure out: a) why it was raining indoors, b) how to make the water stop falling from the ceiling, and c) just how many of our belongings stored in the storage room (naturally) were now floating.

A frenzy of activity followed. I fought through my social anxiety and called the insurance company to open a claim and ask a million questions. Ad Man searched for the valve to turn the water off to the house and B and C carried waterlogged boxes, artwork, clothing, toys and furniture out to the back deck. One fun twist to this whole debacle is that our house is in a flood plain so we’ve tried to be diligent about keeping things in the storage room up and off the floor. Little did we know that we should have been defending against an attack from above.

We quickly called a plumber and a water remediation company recommended by friends. Luckily, Ad Man was able to locate the correct valve and shut the water off because the plumber took his sweet time getting to us. I did have to give him a break though simply because the name of his company was “Hers & His Plumbing.” A little girl-power goes a long way in my book.

soggy_playroom

Soggy playroom

A troop of strapping young men from the water remediation company arrived, in record time, tumbling out of a large truck and a van. They were a well-oiled machine and, for the first time all morning, I breathed a small sigh of relief. There’s nothing quite so calming as the arrival of a team of experts whose job it is to take over and manage your disaster. My feeling of relief was short-lived, however, when they started tearing up carpet, pulling off baseboards and punching holes in my walls so they could check to see if the insulation was wet.

Honestly though, the hardest thing for me to watch was the armies of people trudging in and out of the house turning even the dry parts of my floor into a filthy mess. I just kept saying to Ad Man, “I can’t believe I’ve kept that light beige carpet looking brand new for seven years and now this!” When you’re a stay-at-home mom, you sometimes derive a sense of pride and accomplishment from the most banal things. It’s fairly pathetic that I now get the same satisfaction from keeping a rug clean as I used to get from a well-written Motion for Summary Judgment.

Soggy guestroom

Soggy guestroom

As teams of people rushed around my house with tools and fans and huge silver boxes I was later informed were industrial strength dehumidifiers, I retreated upstairs and stood paralyzed with not the slightest clue what I should be doing. Eventually, I wandered off to make the kids’ beds and sweep the wood floors thinking that, if I was going to be living in half a house for a while, it had better be clean or I’d surely lose my damn mind.

The downstairs living room/office space was spared from the water because it is a step higher than the rest of the rooms, but it was not entirely unaffected. As the day wore on, more and more crap was deposited in my newly cleaned and organized office space. It took some serious mental strength to remain calm as I watched all my hard work being undone bit by bit. A friend who was following the drama from afar via Facebook even commented on my relative serenity in the face of all the chaos. Actually, it’s more likely I was just in denial. Zen MommyEnnui was long gone by the time I woke up the next morning and the adrenaline had worn off, however.

The day of the flood, I was thankful for all the things that were spared, like family photos dating back to my grandfather’s childhood. The following day, however, I was far more upset about all our belongings that got trashed, like the two limited edition, signed, Barack Obama posters we bought for the girls so they could have a little piece of history.

Now imagine 8 more of these.

Now imagine 8 more of these.

The incessant buzzing noise of a bunch of fans and dehumidifiers can quickly cause a person to become quite unhinged. I keep wanting to describe the sound as the equivalent of “Chinese water torture,” but I’m worried that that may be considered racist now. Should it be Asian water torture? Or should we refrain from blaming Asians altogether? In China, do they refer to “American Waterboarding”? Boy, am I good at wandering off topic or what? Remind me to add “skilled at digressing” to the list of strengths on my resume.

OK, where were we? Ah yes, Day 1, Post-Flood. Well, my day started sucking immediately upon waking. You see, two giant dehumidifiers draining every last bit of moisture from the air plus ten giant humming fans equals one gargantuan headache. I stumbled out into the living room where the girls had the TV on the highest possible volume in order to hear it over the fans. Then I was hit smack in the face by the stench of nasty-ass old motel wafting up from downstairs. IT WAS LIKE, SUDDENLY, MY ENTIRE LIFE WAS IN ALL CAPS!

If you think the sight of water pouring from one’s ceiling and water bubbling up from one’s carpet is disturbing, that’s nothing in comparison to viewing the aftermath. I walked downstairs to find a half crunchy, half soaked, all stained carpet. In the absence of baseboards, my walls no longer met the floor, instead ending in a jagged line that appeared to have been gnawed off by beavers and leaving a dark and mysterious gap around most of the room. Just getting around to assess the damage was a challenge what with having to hurdle over all the fans. Seriously, if I was looking to buy a house and this one was listed at a low, low price as a “fixer-upper,” I would have turned up my nose and sought shelter elsewhere.

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Oh, the irony.

And, sadly, that is where things remain today. A chorus of angels sang “Hallelujah!” when all the drying equipment was turned off and removed yesterday evening and the carpet is now all crunchy, but other than that, not much has changed. We’ve been diligently listing and figuring out the value of everything that was destroyed so we’ll eventually be able to replace that crap with more crap. An insurance adjuster will be arriving tomorrow to compute the cost of returning this smelly fixer-upper to its original state and, hopefully, write us a big fat check so we can begin the process of doing that.

Though it will undoubtedly take longer to complete, there’s a chance I’ll actually be able to hire professionals to prep and paint MommyEnnui headquarters. That may unfortunately be the only silver lining to this big, ugly storm cloud. Well, that and being able to entertain you all with the story of the Great Basement Flood of 2014. Always an adventure at MommyEnnui!

Awkward with Strangers

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louie_subwayI’ve been looking for my next show to binge-watch while on the treadmill and folding laundry having recently finished ‘Call the Midwife’ and ‘Top of the Lake,’ both which I highly recommend. I decided to go with something a little lighter today and started the second season of Louis C.K.’s dark and very humorous sitcom ‘Louie.’ If you haven’t seen it yet, in ‘Louie,’ comedian Louis C.K. basically plays himself–a newly divorced father of two young daughters living in New York City.

There was a particular moment in the episode I watched that really struck a chord with me. Louie and his daughters are asleep and his pregnant sister is spending the night on his couch when she suddenly starts screaming in pain. Her yelling wakes both Louie and his neighbors, a lovely couple whom he’s never met. The neighbors come to Louie’s door to see if they can help, one man offering to help Louie get his sister to the hospital and his partner offering to stay with the sleeping kids.

Louie, visibly uncomfortable, seems paralyzed and incapable of making a decision until one of the neighbors says, “Brother, do not let your sister die from pain or lose her baby because you are awkward with strangers.” Later, after having this experience in the trenches together (not to worry, Louie’s sister’s excruciating pain is eliminated at the hospital with one enormous fart), Louie decides that he’d like to be friends with his neighbor. Louie, of course, is a social misfit and intimidated by making new friends so the ensuing conversation about getting together again is hilariously awkward.

I laughed my ass off at this episode, but could also completely relate. It made me wonder how many experiences I’ve missed out on because of social anxiety. Recently, I had a dentist appointment. It occurred to me afterward that so many of my actions relating to just this one appointment were driven by my own social weirdness. First, I dodged phone calls from the office attempting to confirm my appointment, instead, waiting for an email so I could respond online. The receptionist at the dentist’s office is a very sweet woman named Martha who I like very much and am comfortable chatting with in person so there was really no rational reason for me to dodge her calls.

I despise the telephone. I avoid calling even my closest friends and family members because I spend the entire conversation just waiting for the moment when I can get off the phone. I will also do just about anything to avoid having to call in an order for take-out. I get a tightness in my chest and a lump in my throat when I’m forced to make the call and a ridiculous sense of accomplishment when I manage to do so successfully. I know I get this from no stranger. My mother, who suffered from depression and anxiety, rarely answered the phone. My dad was always screening calls for her. Email and texting have been like a godsend for me and I know my mother and I would have kept in much better touch with each other if we’d had access to texting while she was alive.

It’s funny, my psychiatrist once asked what it was like for me to grow up with a depressed mother. I told him I didn’t actually realize she was depressed when I was a kid. I just thought she liked to sleep a lot. It’s only as I’ve gotten older and become better able identify my own depression and anxiety symptoms that I can point to similar behaviors I saw in my mom.

Anyway, back at my dentist appointment, I pulled into the parking garage and sat in my car for a minute because I didn’t want to get out at the same time the person next to me was exiting her car. I walked into the lobby of the office building and, forgetting what floor the dentist was on, did my damndest to squint at the directory rather than asking the security guard sitting next to it. I often have to search for words and forget people’s names when I’m nervous and was afraid I’d forget my doctor’s name if I had to ask the guard…as if that would be the worst thing in the world.

I walked to the elevator bank where there were numerous people milling about. I could access the floor I needed to go to by either the regular or express elevators so my mind spun while I tried to figure out which one would likely have fewer people riding on it. When I was able to get in an elevator alone, I was relieved. Small talk with the dentist and his assistant was uncomfortable and I was happy that I could no longer speak when he jammed my mouth full of cotton and dental tools. After the appointment, I walked into the bathroom of the office building hoping that no one else would be in there.

The thing is, few people can tell that I have problems with social anxiety. I’m an outwardly friendly, open person. Hell, I tell hundreds of people about the most personal issues in my life–depression, anxiety, grief, infertility, miscarriages–on a weekly basis via this blog. I’m lucky that my social anxiety is not crippling and is fairly well controlled with medication, but I know there are plenty of people who are not so lucky and spend their lives paralyzed by anxiety. There’s a soft spot in my heart for socially awkward people. I understand the constant battle they fight with their own minds just to get through all the normal human interactions one encounters each day.

In the ‘Louie’ episode, it wasn’t easy, but Louie managed to fight his own demons and make a new friend. I’ve met some of my closest friends in just the last few years. These are people with whom I actually spend time alone and occasionally even talk to on the telephone!  I am so incredibly grateful that I didn’t miss out on all the love, laughs, support and happiness they bring to my life because I’m awkward with strangers.

Are You Happy Now?

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goofy_familyMany moons ago when Ad Man and I were childless and living in Los Angeles, the family I worked for as a nanny in Chicago came out for a visit. Ad Man and I took the kids while their parents enjoyed their first weekend away in eight years. I remember thinking at the time that it was insane that they hadn’t had even a night away together since their oldest son was born. That was mind-blowing to me.

Fast forward to the other day when I was asked the following question by Gabriele Neumann of Basically I’m Complicated:
Q: You get a free one week trip for two to anywhere in the world! Where do you go and who do you take with you?

In formulating my answer, it occurred to me that Ad Man and I haven’t been away together without the kids since Biggie was born…eight years ago. We have a number of married friends who take trips alone fairly often but they all live close to family members who are happy to take the offspring for a weekend. We, unfortunately, don’t have that luxury. But, I don’t think we’re alone in this situation. Many people tend to neglect their relationships once children hit the scene.

Which brings me to an article I read recently from the Telegraph. The headline was ‘Happier Relationships for Couples Without Children.’ The article addressed a study done by Open University in the UK that surveyed and conducted extensive interviews with 5,000 couples of different ages, financial conditions and sexual orientations who were in long-term relationships. The research showed that, overall, childless couples reported more satisfaction with their lives and felt more valued by their partners.

As a married, mother of two, my first reaction to the article was, of course, “How dare you! I am blissfully happy with my loving husband and beautiful children. Every day is like a honeymoon for my Ad Man and I, the kids are perfectly behaved at all times and I feel completely fulfilled.” Just kidding!  Would I have named my blog MommyEnnui if that’s really how I thought?

baby_birthday_someecardIn reality, my reaction was, “No shit!” I mean, think about it. That’s like saying, “We were so much happier when we had money, could go out for dinner or see a movie any damn time we liked, got to sleep in on the weekends, had sex on a regular basis and lived close to all our friends in our city of choice. Ever since we bought that failing farm far away from loved ones, and started getting up before dawn to feed the animals and milk the cows, never, ever getting a day off, our relationship is less satisfying.” Did they really need to do a study to figure that out?!

Are Ad Man and I less happy now than we were during the nine years we were married before having kids? I can only answer for myself (though I’m guessing he would agree) and I would say absolutely. Despite what Biggie and Smalls say, my life today bears only a slight resemblance to my life prior to children. Back then, I had a successful career, was a newlywed, lived in LA and had lots of friends who I saw often. Ad Man and I had plenty of disposable income and were able to travel. Of course I felt more valued by my partner! We had a relatively simple life with lots of time and energy to dedicate to each other.

This isn’t to say that my life is less happy overall. Interestingly, the Open University study also found that mothers were the happiest of the research subjects despite reporting that they were less satisfied in their romantic relationships than they were before having children. Since having kids, my life is far more complicated. My worries are deeper…will we have the money to send the girls to private school in a few years, let alone college? Will my children grow up to be fine, upstanding young women or will they be psychopaths? How in the hell am I going to survive their teen years?

But, my highs are also higher. These two monsters bring me more joy than I ever thought possible. When I watch them learn to ride a two-wheeler, or make a new friend or listen to their hilarious observations, my heart just about explodes in my chest. Are they pains-in-the-ass much of the time? Yes, but they’re my pains-in-the-ass!  And,18 years goes by shockingly quickly. So, Ad Man and I know that we’ve got a little more than 12 years of having a kid in the house and, after that, the world is our oyster again. Hopefully, we’ll still have something to talk about other than our children!

How about you? Would you say your marriage was happier before having children? What about life in general? How has it changed? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Your Mama Don’t Dance and Your Daddy Don’t Rock ‘n Roll

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little_green_cars_c:uI went to see an amazing band called Little Green Cars play the other night at a small venue in Atlanta.  My friend E turned me on to them and I’ve been listening to their CD (I had to stop myself from typing ‘album’)* for the last few months so I was super psyched to see them live.  As Ad Man is out of town, I had to get a babysitter so I could join E and his wife M for the show.  The three of us are very compatible and often have lovely dates together.  You’d think we all met on eHarmony.

Let me explain first that M is not known for her punctuality.  On top of this, I was coming from one side of town, E was coming from work and M was coming from the other side of town.  So, we decided to meet at the show, M taking Marta, Atlanta’s train line, and E picking her up at the station on his way.  As is common with such fail-safe plans, wires got crossed and it turned out that I arrived at the venue long before my friends did.

I waited outside for a while, trying to look engrossed in my cell phone while sizing up the crowd milling about before a different show next door.  I generally feel like I can hang with the hipsters despite my advanced age.  I have the requisite thick-rimmed glasses, skinny jeans and visible tattoos.  In this instance though, I had far too few tattoos and my clothes were too recently washed so I felt conspicuous and decided to go inside to grab a beer and wait for my friends.

I should point out that this act alone required great courage on my part as I tend to have a smidge of social anxiety disorder.  (My official diagnosis is a smidge of social anxiety, a sprinkling of OCD and a large dollop of depression.)  While, I have mastered my fears of eating at a restaurant alone and going to a movie alone, sitting at a bar alone still makes my palms sweat a bit so I generally avoid it at all costs.  Luckily, though the space was small, there were a few tables.  So I bought myself a Guinness (Little Green Cars are Irish, so it seemed only fitting) and sat down at one.  From there, I could hunker down, get engrossed in the many entertaining tidbits on my phone and check out the crowd.

Except, there really wasn’t a crowd yet.  In fact, in hindsight, I’m pretty sure I walked in the door with a few members of the opening band.  In my youth, heading out at midnight to go to a bar or a party was not unheard of.  These days, if I have a babysitter, I am out of the door the moment she arrives so I don’t have to deal with the dinner/bath/bedtime drama.  I mean, that’s what I’m paying for, right?  If I’d known I was going to be early and so very alone, I would have stopped to browse at the closest book store or something.

But, alas, I had lots of time for reflection which, in my case, is never a good thing.  I started looking around and determined that I was likely the oldest one there.  (It’s kind of hard to tell how old the guys are these days since they’re all sporting long, burly beards…which I find adorable, but still a bit confusing.)  I did conclude without a doubt though, that I was the only one there carrying a big-ass mom purse.

For a moment I wished I’d stuffed my More magazine in there instead of leaving it in the car.  The thought of being spotted by some young hipster reading “Dress 10 Pounds Thinner: We Target Your Wiggly Bits” was simply too much to bear, however.  At the moment, my particular wiggly bits were being corralled by the spandex in my skinny jeans and I didn’t want to out myself.

The room began to fill up and I gleefully spotted another woman, who appeared about my age, carrying a voluminous Louis Vuitton bag which I imagined was as stuffed with Lego figures, band-aids and other kid detritus as mine.  My comfort was quickly shattered, however, when her teenaged daughter yelled, “MOM!” from across the room.  I should mention that this was an all-ages show, so there were (literal) children in attendance who were years younger than my own babysitter.  I even had to wear a wristband (for which I was carded) to indicate that I was of legal drinking age.  Seriously?!  Granted the lighting was low, but there is an obvious canyon bisecting the forehead space above my finely-lined eyes. It’s hard to miss.

LV woman and her daughter were shortly joined by her son and very gray-haired husband and and I thought, “Oh how nice.  They’re a family that enjoys going out to watch indie rock bands together.  You just don’t see that enough these days.”

I was considering how lame I would look doing a crossword puzzle on my phone when E and M arrived and I quickly forgot that they’d abandoned me to the harsh judgment of a room full of 20-somethings.  Anyway, soon the opening band started playing and it quickly became clear that LV woman and her family were only there to support her son who was now up on stage playing a guitar.  Ah, yes…I should have known.  Generally, the “elderly” people in the audience at rock shows are only there to cheer on their children.  Ugh.  The daughter proceeded to text nonstop through the entire performance.

After the underwhelming opening band (bless their hearts) finished their set, Little Green Cars took the stage and my mind was completely blown!  They were even better live than on their CD*.  In fact, they were one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen.  It didn’t even bother me that, as the entire band is made up of 20 year-olds, I could easily have given birth to any one of them, no scandalous teenage pregnancy necessary.  I probably shouldn’t point out that M and I both found the male lead singer quite attractive despite the fact that he’s not even old enough to legally drink in the US, but really, when have I shown any shame before?

The evening turned out to be wildly fun and I was happy that I’d dragged myself out on a Tuesday instead of succumbing to the siren song of my pajamas and the couch at 8 pm as usual.  It wasn’t until the next day that it dawned on me that all my anxiety was for naught.  The young hipsters probably didn’t even register that I was there.  Doesn’t the act of turning 40 render one invisible to under-30-year-old eyeballs?  My experience thus far points to yes.  I’ve found the transition from “hey, check out the hottie” to “wow, she’s a cool mom” to be the most awkward and uncomfortable change I’ve weathered since puberty.  But in the light of day, I also realized the only one judging me for my age (at least overtly) is me and I’d better get the fuck over it or I’m going to miss a lot of great bands over the next 40 years.

* While proofreading this post for me, my friend A said it was cute that I stopped myself from typing “album” when “CD” is now a pretty archaic term as well.  So I stabbed her and buried her body somewhere in the space between our two backyards.

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Life Lessons

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I’ve P_and_W_on_bike_0913_v3discovered, if I tell Ad Man that I need to work on a blog post, he’ll willingly take the girls out to do something fun-ish and if I say I need somewhere to write, he’ll blow all the leaves off the deck so our house no longer looks abandoned from the back.  I should have started a pretend job long ago!

I have to admit though, for all the shit I give him (usually in a public forum like Facebook), I have an extremely supportive husband.  He’s quick to cheer on any half-assed scheme I present to him.  Like the time I told him I was thinking of making and delivering soups to office buildings after his co-workers made a few comments about his lunches looking delicious.  I mean every office gets sandwich delivery and what’s a sandwich without soup, right?  I soon kicked that plan to the curb though, when I realized the fact that I don’t eat meat and am squeamish about cooking it meant that I would only be able to offer vegetarian soups thereby limiting my potential customer base immensely.  (Prior to giving up meat altogether, I once called my father freaking out while prepping a turkey for Thanksgiving and squealed, “Oh god, what do I do with this, Dad?!  I feel like I’m cooking an INFANT!”)

Of course, Ad Man quickly moves on to leaf-blowing the entire back yard and forgets that we have two children, one of whom is now putting stickers on my face while I attempt to type and the other who is glaring at me from across our filthy outdoor table because I won’t let her watch the Disney Channel for the 17th hour in a row.  And, I suppose that’s one of my biggest gripes about (traditional) motherhood vs. (traditional) fatherhood.  For hours on end, even my comparatively involved and supportive husband has the luxury of forgetting that he is one of only two people on the planet responsible for keeping these two humans alive and preventing them from (fingers crossed) growing into adult psychopaths.

I had a sudden epiphany recently when trying to figure out why, after spending most of the last 7 years yearning for my “lost” career, I was still conflicted about going out and getting a damn job already (as if it were that easy).  I realized, no matter how hard I worked or what amazing job I managed to land, I would never be living the equivalent of Ad Man’s charmed life because of one glaring omission.  I will never have a wife.  Even with the best, most loving nanny possible, I would never have the freedom of knowing that I had someone at home who loved my kids even when they were acting like little assholes and would show up at “work” every single day even when I was out of town and she had strep throat.  (Just a random example, of course.)

And, while that realization still really, really pisses me off, I’m taking steps to try to learn the lesson I’m constantly impressing upon my daughters.  Life isn’t fair.  Suck it up and move on.

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