One Moms Rant

Honestly, I want to laugh/cry/scream whenever someone asks me if I’m going back to work. Especially, if that someone doesn’t have young children yet or is from a previous generation. Yes, in your day, you and your husband had a job that enabled you both to home by 5 with dinner on the table as a family by 6. These days, mom is likely heating up a bowl of mac n cheese and popping Dora in the DVD to avoid the painful silence of a missing dad at the table because he has to work an increasingly unreasonable amount of hours to make a living in this shit economy. 

I fully get it though, the life of a homemaker looks great. No commute, no job pressures, just raising our own offspring. How much pressure can we possibly have? But what people overlook is the fact that it’s not the pressure that gets us. Most of us can hack a dirty diaper and a few hours of uncontrollable toddler screaming.  We can deal with the sleep training torture. What we can’t deal with is the incredible loss of identity and ambition that comes with the monotony of diapers/feeding/laundry over and over again ad nauseam.  Do we get to see our children grow in front of our very eyes? Witness every smile, fine motor skill and bit of cognitive development occur as it happens?! YES!! And that my friends, is the most incredibly rewarding thing about staying home and putting up with the other nonsense that comes with it.

Why can’t we as a society say we’ve had enough?  With all the technological advances and civil rights achievements our generation has seen, the decline of a sane life/work balance has gone out the window. Life expectancies may be climbing up, but that’s not going to last my friends. Not when fathers start having strokes and heart attacks from the stress of their everyday lives. Or when mothers forget they have an education and lose the ambition and drive they once had and stop contributing to society outside of their own homes.

It’s becoming clearer and clearer that our generation is now expected to work until we cannot perform or drop dead trying. We will not have the safety net of social security of previous generations. Hell, we’re not even promised that our pensions or 401K’s will have anything left in them by the time we’re full blown retirees.  All work and no rest is not an equation that leaves society peaceful and content.  How long until complete and utter civil unrest?

Any woman or man for that matter, who wants to raise their own children should be able to put their job on hold, keep their benefits and take a childhood leave according to the Imaginary & Likely Improbable Childcare Leave Act of 2015. And said job should be a guaranteed right upon return, after the amount of specified leave necessary to create and teach a human being how to walk, talk and function. There also needs to be a lack of judgement placed on mothers and fathers that need to leave work and pick up their children at the end of a day. Why go back from raising small children to work a mediocre job with no hope for advancement because you cannot log the hours that some of your male counterparts or childless peers can? There should be a harassment law against employers who deny advancement to those who have children and don't want to task a nanny with feeding them dinner at night. 

How about that for some real change? Why doesn’t our government do things that actually make a difference in our day to day lives? This is not a political rant, this is a sign of the times, generational fuckery rant. There is something very wrong with a culture who celebrates working like a dog and then wonders why children who are left to their own devices or raised by someone who isn’t truly invested in them, commit crimes or drown their sorrows in electronic devices? 

Let’s stop blaming guns and the mental health system and look at what's making society ill in the first place.  Children need to be raised, whether by a single parent, grandparent, two parent household, loving caregiver or loving pair of civil partners. It’s time to give all of those people the tools to do so. Lonely unsupervised children become unemotionally attached adults, better known as sociopaths. Yes, that’s an inflammatory statement. But it’s the truth. This rant ends here. With the hope that this ignites the spark for a better beginning for American Families. However long it takes, and whatever barriers need to be broken. 

Chasing Perfection

I think there's a part of us all that strives for perfection. Each individuals definition of what that looks likes is clearly different; but for most people, living the best life they can is a common theme. For years that meant reading books and magazines, taking cooking classes, spurring new ideas over dinner conversation with friends and little vino, visiting a travel agent and investing time in learning about things. Our differences are what make us interesting, and through them we discover things we might never have realized before. 

But when reality collides with technology, we get a new breed of distraction. The virtual reality that exists on Facebook and sites like Pinterest can lead us to believe that life is either perfect or frustrating, the in between is usually lacking. And the paradox between the two is often laughable. 

Take Pinterest, for example. A virtual land filled with casseroles laden with cream of mushroom soup and "thinspiration" photos. Now you can simultaneously bake cream cheese crescent rolls while chanting "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" and find the perfect recipe for a Cake Batter Protein shake for that workout you might attempt someday!  I can't help but laugh at the irony of it all. If we put as much effort into living a healthy life as we put into our virtual pinboards, we'd at least be getting somewhere. But looking at retouched images of fitness models with unrealistic mantras is so self defeating, it's almost insane. I fully realize that I can be "sore tomorrow or sorry tomorrow" but if my husband happens to work late that day and I don't have a babysitter available, I'm not getting to the gym.  But hey, at least I can drown my sorrows in a vat of "the perfect broccoli cheddar soup" and buy something called a Pocahontas Dolmon Top that I don't need from an oh-so-chic website straight out of Utah. 

Flip flops with huge bows! Sheer blouses with heart cutouts on the back! It will be so much fun to wear them together with a chevron skirt to my moms club meeting next week!  It all appeals to my inner fourteen year old and fuels a need to dress cuter, be fitter, cook more often, etc. It's also completely maddening when the amazing dress I've been searching for was only sold at a boutique in Australia, three years ago. Maybe they should change the name to Pineterest to describe the painful longing you experience for something that doesn't exist or was never available to you in the first place.  

Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic thing to share ideas and it's completely gratifying to find things that improve your quality of life. And those things do exist out there in the social media galaxy. But do they make up for the massive black hole of time and energy these websites siphon out of us? That remains to be seen.  Until then, I'll happily reorganize my pantry with the perfect apothecary jars and vintage decanters I've searched a hundred sites to find. Until my toddler smashes them all into a thousand pieces on a Teddy Grahams bender and I trade perfection for practicality. Maybe I'll stick with my Oxo containers after all.

Life Interrupted

My only goal for today was to make apple chips. What could be simpler than a recipe consisting of three ingredients? All I had to do was slice 'em up, sprinkle some cinnamon and stevia and bam!, apple chips. 

This is going to sound crazy to those of you who don't have children yet, or for those of you who haven't had young children in a very long time, but life is often chaotic when raising the under five crowd and even the most basic tasks seem impossible at times. 

I know you're thinking it. "What does she do all day?" It's not like I have a job, right? My sole responsibility on this earth is to make sure my two year old is safe and healthy. How hard can that possibly be? 

Well, ridiculously difficult in ways you can't even begin to imagine, is my answer.  The toughest part of it being the fact that you can never ever ever let guard down. A simple trip to a library or parking lot becomes a nightmare of epic proportions when your kid thinks it's hilarious to run away from you , weaving in and out of the aisles & spots like a tiny pinball, making them nearly impossible to catch fast enough to avoid irreparable harm. And I don't care how good of a parent you are, your kid will try this. In fact, I'd venture to say that the better of a parent you are, the more so your child will have the confidence to assert his or her independence and test their limits.

It means catching the cup of juice before it hits the ground because they doesn't understand the concept of gravity yet. Fielding the "What's that noise mama? When can we see a train mama? Where the moon go mama? Who that big man in the store, mama?" And then making the crying stop when they don't understand that trains don't run at night and you can't stand out in 20 degree weather waiting for one to roll on by. It's playing hide and seek in the closet 24 times in a row because "Peek a Boo, mama!" and reading the same book over and over again until you start to hate it. 

It also means finding the entire roll of Charmin in the toilet because "Look, mama. I flush!"  It's teaching them what a highway is, how to climb the stairs and why you don't throw things on the floor. It's giving them an option between the Thomas shirt and the Cars shirt because "No like Buzz Lightyear shirt, mama!"

It means making homemade zucchini bread, white bean dip, mashed potatoes, butternut squash soup and flax muffins until they decide to eat three bites of something because you're afraid they're going to turn toxic orange from all the mac n cheese.  

It means being forced to shop at a mall or a Target because you can't get out of the car for two minutes to buy something and then put a toddler back into the car seat again without mass hysteria. There are no quick errands, or quick anything for that matter. Getting out of the house at any given time is a 45 minute process. That's right. Between chasing them to get dressed, averting disasters every three minutes, changing the channel because they change their minds every thirty seconds and inevitable diaper changes right before you walk out the door, the odds of being on time are always stacked against you.

It's a constant struggle between temporary gratification (you get the cookie right now because the entire store isn't interested in hearing you cry right now) and raising a decent human being (you will not get a cookie because you can't always get what you want in life and i flat out refuse to raise an entitled brat). You have to be okay with the stares at the grocery store, the unsolicited advice and ignorant remarks. You have to make small goals, like apple chips. And you have to give yourself a break when things don't go as planned. 

I may have sliced off 1/16th of my right thumb with a mandoline today, but apple chips have been made. And that's good enough for right now. The fact is, I am incredibly lucky to spend every chaotic, loud, messy moment with a tiny human being that I am fortunate enough to be able to shape, inspire and hug a hundred times a day.  I will continue to set ridiculously small goals and live in the moment, because it's the in between that matters. It's the kisses on a boo boo, cheers when he gets the puzzle piece right, sweet little giggles when I  drop something on the floor, and spinning around the living room until we fall down laughing that counts. My son will only be this age once. The rest of it can wait. 

turbanista

Too much time spent getting ready in the morning equals major toddler trouble.  One minute I'm putting on mascara while G is playing with his cars on the floor and two seconds later he's out of sight and I hear silence. Awesome, right? Doesn't everybody love when their kids are quiet? No. Unless he's eating yogurt melts (in the "lellow" bowl!!) or in a Dora/Umizoomi/Mickey Mouse trance, silence is all around a major warning of impending doom. Like the time (yesterday) he pulled out the surround sound wires and matter of factly handed them to me like they were a present, "Here Mama!!!". Or the time (this morning) he tried to plug in the Christmas lights. Or make a crayon mural all over the kitchen wall (last week). Or unroll all of the toilet paper (everyday).

Needless to say, primping is not a priority most mornings. And getting up at 6am to get ready is just not worth it. Sleep is a precious, valuable commodity around here. It doesn't get traded for much. So, what's a girl to do when she doesn't want a momfro (think Kate Gosselin) on her head?

Behold, the Turban headband! It's a headband, it's a Turban! It's cuter than roots or flat hair when you run out of dry shampoo! Just don't pair it with a sari or hipster scarf (you know, the one you got at Urban Outfitters two years ago) and you're good to go. And now you know.

Semi Annual Sellout

It's been one of those days. It began with a wayward mist of Argan oil to the eye and an accidental melee with a container of applesauce (the applesauce won). Progressively worsening, Monday afternoon threw a wrench in the most basic of female mall trips, a trip to the VS semi annual sale. I don't expect much from Victoria except a random mishmash of neon bedazzled bras in a cardboard bin. Next to a bunch of unruly broads who act like they've never seen a Demi Cup before. 

This trip was no exception. One (excessively sequined) little number later, I was fully prepared to wait an unreasonable amount of time on line while distracting my toddler with copious amounts of potato straws and Nick Jr clips ( thank you iPhone!).  I was not, however, expecting the cashier to fully abandon register and rush over to assist the disheveled mess (wearing BEBE sunglasses) who just happened to cut like 15 people on line.  Breathe. My psyche steps in. No, don't breathe! Give her the side eye. Say something random out loud about the line, oh, i don't know; existing or something.  Too late. Employee of the month hands her a shopping bag and returns to finish my transaction.  My two year old is now screaming and lunging forward like a mini Houdini trying to escape his straightjacket, ahem stroller. Abort mission!! Exit store and judgey people immediately.

In an attempt to avert full toddler meltdown, I make a run for the exit when BEBEface runs right into my City Mini. "No, you go!", I exasperate. "Saaaaahry", she says and then it hits me. I've heard that shrieky Italian voice before. It's none other than table flipper extraordinaire, Teresa Guidice from The Real Housewives of New Jersey. You've. got. to. be. kidding. me. However, this is a mall in North Jersey. What else did I expect?

Barely recognizable, in unfortunate sweatpants and a very messy low ponytail, I almost feel sorry for her. Particularly when I think about the fact that she's likely picking up a leopard thong for Juicy Joe.

And suddenly, my Monday doesn't seem so bad.