Tag Archives: parenting

You’re gonna catch me Ridin’ Dirty….

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Literally. 

 My house is messy, but my car looks like a crazy person lives in it.  Why does this surprise me? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you are transporting kids, dogs, neighbors, neighbors’ kids, sports equipment etc, then things are gonna get dirrrr~tay.

imagelego pieces, books, bits of food…is that a pair of underwear?

The bigger question is why the hell does it bother me so much? I tried to change my dirty ways.

I made declarations!

 carwash

I put my foot down!

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But nothing changed. That’s when I realized I’m going about this all wrong!

Cue positive spin:

Food keeps mouths and hands busy and off of others. Legos and other toys keep their brains engaged so I don’t have to hear, “How much longer, Mommy?”  Time is limited and I already wash 3 kids and 2 dogs.  You can see where I’m going with this can’t you?

Ridin’ Dirty is the key to happiness!

Maybe you are thinking, give me a break. How hard is it to get to the car wash? Or bring a hand vacuum out to the car? It’s hard, damnit! You might be one of those people who also gets their nails done every week. Oh, I want to be like you! I wish I could be perfectly manicured, hair coiffed (do people still get coiffed?), car washed every Saturday.  But I’m not. I’m the other guy. The one that looks like this:

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So I am going to stop stressing about it. I will embrace my mess and call it enlightenment!

enlightenment

Life is messy! Time is short and I want to have coffee with friends instead of coffee at the car wash!  When I look down and see that lego figure lying on top of a few crumbled goldfish, I’m going to have a new perspective…..I’m totally down with ridin’ dirty. Now I just need to work on a spin for not doing laundry! 😉

legos

“They see me rollin’, They hatin’,
Patrolling~ they tryin to catch me ridin’ dirty,
Tryin to catch me ridin’ dirty,
Tryin to catch me ridin’ dirty!”

Can you embrace the mess?

My Balls

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Balls. They can be scary. I never think I’m handling them the right way. It’s hard to know. Big ones. Small ones. I’m told to grab them but then I think some should be handled with care.  I am no expert, but I definitely have balls.

50 shades balls

My balls are labeled with names like: school, soccer practice, dinner, homework, career, relationships, the budget, dogs. What balls were you thinking of? Oh right. Those balls are another ball. Yep, lots and lots of balls.(Maybe you should drink every time you read the word balls!)

I’m rarely on the ball and I am constantly dropping the ball.  They are rolling around on the ground by my feet, tripping me up. (Kind of reminds me of a song: “Do your balls hang low do they wobble to and fro…” Yes I know it’s actually ears.) Anyway, back to my balls.  How do I get a good handle on all these balls? (You are drinking, right?)

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 I could set up a schedule!  The red balls are juggled on Monday and the green balls are Tuesday…I will save the blue balls for Friday night. 😉

I could give my attention to one ball at a time! Be fully present with whatever ball I have at that moment. Juggle one. (But isn’t that just holding the ball?)

Or maybe I just keep doing what I’m doing and watch my step. No one has broken their neck, YET.

Whatever I decide, one thing is for sure:

No one can ever say I don’t have balls.

And my own personal balls should be a priority.

(Yes, I realize that’s actually 2 things.)  

Because if momma’s balls aren’t happy, ain’t no balls happy.

What about you? What do you do with all those balls?

Do you make time for your own balls? (Who’s drunk?)

A lesson from Young MC

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You know him right? The one hit wonder rapper from 1989~ish. young mc

His voice is haunting me.

(Yes I know what the song is about, but don’t you take lyrics and apply them to your life all the time? You do. Don’t you?) So here’s the deal:

My kids are creative. They are imaginative. They are exhausting. crazy kids

If I said yes to half the things my kids asked me to do, we’d never sit down. So I say no and leave the room. And then the words of the prolyphic Young MC come to mind…

Just Bust A Move, Whitney.

“From frustration first inclination is to become a monk and leave the situation.”

Damn straight I want to leave the situation. Hey MC, you are young and don’t have kids. I’m tired and their ideas are elaborate or loud or messy or include me or (gasp) all of the above! I don’t want to bust a move.  So of course the kids “get shot down cause <their> overzealous.”

“A girl runs up with somethin to prove, So don’t just stand there, bust a move”

Shut up, MC! I’m trying to read my Facebook newsfeed. Ain’t nobody got time for a bake sale. But he won’t shut up, it’s like an earworm. Come on Whitney, just bust a move.  Ugh. Damn.  I think of the experience they will get from the yes. I don’t do it all the time but I do try to say maybe instead of no…that gives me some time to think about it.

“You run over there without a second to lose, And what comes next, hey bust a move.”

So the no becomes a maybe…. that many times turns into a yes. My laziness shouldn’t be the reason to not do something. Besides, I gotta get Young MC off my back.

Mom, may we have a car party? Yes! Let’s bust a move!

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Mom, may we have ice cream for lunch?Yes! Let’s bust a move!

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Can we make an obstacle course in the garage? Yes! Let’s bust a move!

obstacle course

Can we get our pets and our friends and their pets and have a pet parade through the neighborhood? Umm no. What? I’m not Mother Teresa.

So my friends…..

Now you know what to do, go, bust a move!

Don’t say no too quickly. Say maybe. (Unless they ask for a pet parade and then it is totally acceptable to say no.) A maybe that possibly turns into a yes. Because when I think back, the yes made a pretty good memory. xoxoxo

Young MC not doing it for you? Allow Brian Williams to inspire you.

http://youtu.be/vwc9_nqX6Zc

Suddenly….this summer!

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Camp enthusiasts

I sent my three California kids (along with their cousin) to the Hill Country of Texas for two weeks.( My husband said I was shipping them to Camp Hell for 10 days because of the heat and humidity.) But let’s face it, kids are resilient. Heat doesn’t bother them. “Pain don’t hurt.” ~to quote from the amazing movie Roadhouse.(yes I said it was amazing.)

I’m a Texas native and wanted to give my kids a meaningful connection to my home state. They had never been to sleep away camp and they were excited.  I too was excited. I had 2 full weeks without kids, without dogs, without any responsibility except to see old friends and eat and drink myself silly. I mean, I had to be in Austin in case there was “an emergency” at camp. That’s just good parenting. 😉 My husband was kind enough to pretend to believe that reasoning.

On the 2 hour drive from Austin to camp, my kids and their cousin, discussed the exciting things they would be experiencing. (Canoeing, Horseback riding, Archery, Campouts, the Guadalupe River, and of course…NO PARENTS!)  I gave them a thumbs up code so I could get a sense of how they were doing in camp pictures. (2 thumbs up~ awesome time, 1 thumb up~ ok, no thumbs….miserable)

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Needless to say every day I’d go to the camp websites and scroll through the pictures. Not one kid adhered to my thumbs up code. And only one of 3 wrote consistently to let us know they were a- having a great time, b- were a little homesick, and c- needed money, sunglasses, and Minecraft books.  But I could see from the huge grins on their faces (and the charges made at the Canteen)…they were having a blast.  In a world where kids can’t play in their own front yards much less be free to roam their neighborhoods, sleep away camp gives them the freedom that we all took for granted.

And let’s not forget my freedom! Freedom to sleep in until 9am! Freedom to eat chips and salsa for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Freedom to have marathon couch viewings of Netflix series. Ahhh I love sleep away camp!

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Lord knows we moms need a break from our rewarding yet challenging 24 hour 7 days a week full time mom gig.  I was instantly reminded of that when we got home and I opened my daughter’s suitcase to find a broken bottle of BBQ sauce drenching every article of clothing. And again the next morning when I was driving to the pediatrician’s office after being up all night with my son as he coughed and wheezed.

As I complete my millionth load of laundry, dole out meds, and answer the constant question, “what are we doing today, Mommy?”, I make a mental note to do the early bird sign up for next summer’s sleep away camp…and look into the 4 week session option. You know, for the kids.

“It happened one summer
It happened one time
It happened forever
For a short time…” ~The Motels (Suddenly Last Summer)