It's time to SPAAAA. . . . RTAY!!!

So mommy learned this week why when she was working (outside the home, that is), she SWORE she would not host parties at her house and she would pay any amount necessary for someone else to do the party.

The Id turned 7 and, of course, since she is going on 16, she wanted a spa party.  So mommy thought “how hard can this be?” some nail polish, some hair braids, some cucumbers on the eyes, I got this, no sweat!

Well, we all know how this is going to turn out, so at the very end of the post I’ll show you what the party would have looked like on Pinterest.  But first, I’ll share the behind the scenes version that would get mommy kicked off Pinterest:

No good deed goes . . .

. . . without someone yelling “your customer service is horrible”; and for a moment, you think, “they might be right, this isn’t my best moment . . .”

And then it hits you. . . “What am I, f*#&ing Nordstroms?!”  And then you will have a conversation in your head with that person in which you say “and by the way, in case you were unclear, “volunteer” means I’m paid exactly NOTHING to put up with verbal abuse from people like you.  Oh, and in case you wanted to file a customer service complaint, please let them know how to properly serve a pink slip . . . including a severance package.”

And that is how I started out the girl scouts new year-a mom becoming very upset with me because I could not give her the answer she wanted, and therefore I needed to be schooled about customer service.  

So I began reflecting on how I got myself into this predicament in the first place.   

Here goes . . . "I admit it, my name is Mommy and I’m a serial volunteer."  

I get it from the Nana and I just can’t help myself, every time someone asks for help, I check the “yes” box.  And as I’m sure you all know, I open my mouth often enough that I find myself in charge of things before I realize what I’ve done.

So since I don’t see entering myself into “volunteer addiction” rehab anytime soon, I figured that in case it might be helpful to anyone (including myself) in the future, I’d provide my lessons learned about coping with your volunteer addiction (oh yeah, you guessed it, these include all the dirty little secrets of volunteering that no one ever admits in public):

I called the witch doctor . . .

. . . she told me what to do (and because of it I don’t have headaches, cystic acne, breast pain, and on and on)!

So I know I’m backtracking a bit, but I never did fully explain what happened during my emergency room visit this summer and last week after receiving a $15,000 insurance bill (of which we had to pay $700 - thank God for insurance), even Husband from Heaven had to admit that my acupuncturist was a bargain.  

As most people who know me are aware, for several years I have not only visited an acupuncturist, I have recently started using DoTerra essential oils to treat everything from mildew to warts to fevers.

HfH still believes I’m crazy, but as we all know, he’s pretty patient in putting up with my shenanigans, including the time I threw away everything in our pantry after learning of my gluten intolerance.  That experience will have to wait for another day because today I thought I would share ways to torture your husband with "voodoo" theories (and better yet, prove you're right - which, of course, ALWAYS happens in our house-I'm pretty sure HfH is going to pull out a voodoo doll of me right about now):

Labor of . . .

. . . Love, Exhaustion, Pride, Exasperation, Joy, Exhaustion, Laughter . . . did I mention Exhaustion?!

So as I reflect on my Labor Day (which, by the way, the irony is not lost on me that any day where the children are home from school is a “labor” day), it also occurred to me that we labor to bring them into this world, we labor to entertain them, we labor to clean up after them, we labor to educate them . . . hell, as I see it, EVERY day is Labor Day!!!!

And, all this time while I’ve been thinking that if I can just get them to 18 and out of my house, I can breathe a big sigh of relief.  And then, I turned on my TV and saw . . .

THIS!!!

Now that I’ve had time to recover from my nightmares and remove all the teddy bears from my house (which, by the way, now rank on the “scare the sh*t out of me” scale right up there with Clowns and Chucky Dolls), I realized that behind that “child” is a parent who tweeted how proud he is of his daughter.  So then I thought well, if we can give awards to people who’s greatest accomplishment is that they have proven to their parents and the world that they Can’t Be Tamed, we really should have awards for the people who started it all.

And that, my friends, is how I landed on formalizing what I’m going to call the Parent Of The Year awards.  Of course, as I came to this epiphany, I remembered that The Nana has a “custody file” that is thicker than a Harry Potter book, and therefore I should probably explain the criteria for these awards just so that everyone is clear about how you can earn one.  These are no ordinary awards!!

Here is how you know that YOU might be eligible for a P.O.T.Y award (and again, one has to appreciate the irony that the acronym just happens to remind us of all the sh*t we put up with – figuratively and literally) by the way, as you read these, you need to imagine that Jeff Foxworthy is saying them in his “You Might be a Redneck” voice:

Don't Blink . . .

. . . or you might look over one day and realize that your 6^th grader has practiced her leg shaving skills on your 7 year-old.

"I don't smile for pictures" is what this child says to me!

The summer has flown by, I’m now the parent of a 6^th grader and I’m in complete denial of what I call the “trickle down” effect of having older children in the house.  For everything from chores to bedtime to learning about body hair, the younger children learn it all at the same time the oldest one does!   And good, bad or ugly, I need to buckle up because there are a few things I’ve learned over my summer vacation with three pre-teens (oh yes, I said it, even the 7 year-old Id is going on 16 and momma’s in for a loooooooooong decade)!  Gone are the days when my biggest concern was a rock stuck up someone’s nose or a crayon stuck in an ear.

Of course, I meant to write many times over the summer, but every time I tried to sit down before midnight, someone was coloring someone’s hair, shaving someone’s legs, destroying someone else’s bedroom and generally about to commit some form of Hara Kari!

Here are what I call my Summer 2013 Greatest Hits:

I hold these truths to be self evident . . .

. . . that all children are created equal (but they will argue to the death that they are “more equal” than their siblings), that they are endowed by their creators (aka those who put their DNA together never truly appreciating how all those bad traits they have could combine and manifest themselves as Mommy+Daddy, 2.0) with certain inalienable rights, that among these are:

 Life – that might be hanging by a thread if you create a scenario where mommy pulls out the old “I brought you into this world, I can take you out!"

Liberty – which is only possible if mommy DOES NOT send you to your room “until you are forty”

The Pursuit of Happiness – which mommy can make d@mn near impossible if you push her too far!

It’s been three weeks since we celebrated the very document that gave rise to these words, but as the children are now at summer camp and mommy is enjoying a “summer camp” of her own with daddy in  South Carolina, mommy thought it only fitting to utilize those words to describe what lessons she learned when she spent her first full 24-7 stay at home mommy summer week with the children and  what she now realizes was “unstructured” time (CAVEAT: of course, mommy wrote these words BEFORE she left on her vacation and now she is posting them as she is sitting on a porch in Beaufort South Carolina with her glass of Skinny Girl - so, don't feel too sorry for her, but if you ever feel like the descriptions below, leave your children in the capable hands of college students in the mountains for 14 days and it will cure you right up):

1) “Summer bridge” workbooks and summer incentive programs so that your kids “avoid the summer slide” were created by the same people who you tortured for 9 months as you dropped off your children at 8:30am and picked them up at 2:30pm (aka your child’s teacher).  This fact should make you very suspicious of pursuing a course where you try to have your kids do these workbooks.  Of course, what the reviews for these books DON’T tell you is that you had better take a class on how to do 2^nd, 4^th AND 6^th grade math, language, grammar and science because when your kid asks you what a quadrangle, dangling participle or a preposition is, you better have a better answer than “lets see what Google says”. 

This picture's been used before, but it's so priceless I couldn't resist using it again.  Not sure who was more tortured - the Id who was stuck in the chair, or mommy who had to enforce the punishment!

And by the way, I also learned that I need to seek a refund of my undergrad and law school tuition.  I am in no way suited to be alone with 2^nd, 4^th and 6^th grade children working on summer workbooks.

There are two workbooks I would recommend, however, if you have kids that might have ADD or OCD issues.  They are:

a) The ADHD workbook for kids

b) What to do when your Brain gets stuck

I won't identify which kid has what issue, but these books have been very helpful for 2 of the kids.

2) Multi-tasking should be re-named “WTF-are-you-doing-taking-your-eyes-off-the-children-when-they-are-loose-in-your-house" tasking.  When I was working I somehow managed to get myself showered, dressed, children fed, lunches made, and out the door by 8am.  I did this all while typing out an e-mail, answering a phone call, and signing the permission slip that wasn’t due for another week.  Now, I’m lucky to get out the door with my hair brushed, and forget that shower thing . . . that’s not happening. Oh, and those permission slips – I actually average at least once where I have to ask the teacher for another copy.  Last week I was lucky to be out of the house by noon, and I was lucky to have showered.  The 24-7 exposure to miniature versions of myself made my brain mush.

I have absolutely no idea what the children are doing with their faces, and it wasn't until I posted this photo that I realized they even did that!!!  Mush, I tell you, mush!!!

3) During the summer the phrase “stay at home" mom manifests itself as “Dear God, please, can I be anywhere but home" mom; for if you are at home with your beloved children, someone (named the Id) might get strapped to a chair with an ace bandage so she can’t run away, and someone (named mommy) might find herself the spectacle of the neighborhood as she sits on her front porch and cries during her nervous breakdown!  Of course, at the time mommy was not sure if she was crying because she was really upset, or if she had such bad PMS that she could no longer control herself!!  Mommy can’t even bring herself to think of what it’s going to be like when there are FOUR of us suffering from PMS.  We’re pretty sure mommy will have actually moved into the looney bin by then.

A P.S. to the Nana who I am certain will put this in her custody file - that was an ace bandage and she was able to get out of the chair if she tried hard enough!!!!

Moral of this tale, if you have any prayer of any semblance of sanity, DO NOT “just hang out” with the children.  You can:

Visit the NAT! (Natural History Museum)

Of course, you may regret the gelato stop when the children become absolute looney tunes because of the sugar.  Nonetheless, Yelp didn't lie - Pappalecco in San Diego's Little Italy was the yummiest gelato I've had since going to Italy 10 years ago!




Visit the San Diego Children's Discovery Museum in Escondido.

Of course, mommy didn't remember her ice cream rule from the day before .  This was at Golden Spoon,  which,  by the way, was really good.  I loved the way they did their toppings (inside the yogurt, not just on top).

Pick Strawberries in Carlsbad!

These strawberries were so good, they ate 2/3 of them before we even got home.

One BIG CAVEAT - it's very muddy in some parts, and this is what your child's shoes can look like.  Of course, this is my little tomboy the Ego (middle child)!  We needed those shoes the next day for summer camp.  CRAAAAAAP!

 And, of course, enjoy the San Diego sand and sun!!

Oh yeah, and the other moral . . . send the children away to sleepaway camp, and send yourself for a southern vacation for two weeks!!

Second generation campers at Geneva Glen Camp in Colorado.

Mommy and Daddy at Magnolia Plantation outside Charleston - Gorgeous!

 And before you go, you could get a new do!

Mommy sent TEN INCHES to the organization Children with Hair Loss, and she couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity to have done so!!  Got a sassy new do and helped a girl scout troop earn their bronze award.  :-)

Life Happens . . .

. . . when you have other plans.

This past week was one of those where we had planned a Triathlon, a visit to the County Fair, Camp Runamuk and a 3 day vacation within the span of 5 days.  I say “we” as if Husband from Heaven had anything to do with packing that much insanity into such a short span of time.   I really shouldn’t put this on him . . . then again . . . he’s not getting off that easy because he is what we call an "enabler", so I think he’s half responsible!

In hindsight, it was one of those weeks where I look back and think “how the f*&# did I fit that much sh*t into 7 days?! Actually, I didn't . . .

Yeah, this week the universe had slightly different plans for mommy, and rather than a Triathlon she started the week with TWO visits to the ER and ended it putting the dog to sleep (Ok, I have to admit . . . HfH actually took the dog because Mommy was too traumatized).

But, as we all know, mommies don’t actually get sick days, and as usual, we did almost everything and of course, I learned a few things along the way: