Walking On Sunshine

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It’s 9pm on a Tuesday night and I feel like I took the midnight train to Georgia, got drunk as a ho-bo, forgot to get off the train, jumped out of the vagrant boxcar and rolled back home via a ditch I landed in all in-order to get the next day’s Harvard curriculum outline done. Needless to say….I’m TIRED and showing it.

It’s all because we started homeschool this week. So far I’ve only made him cry once. That’s pretty good considering I cried multiple times in unoccupied bedrooms and closets. But hey, not bad for day 2 out of 5. 

I do feel like I’ve been to war though. War with myself, God, the Mexican border crisis…and a printer. Printers are evil. They never work and when your husband finally fixes it (after a 2 year long waiting period) with a new printer purchase, this said husband uses the new ink to print an 8×11 photo of you having a meltdown. All so he can hang it in the medicine cabinet over the sink and laugh until he wheezes every time he brushes his teeth. Pray for me. 

I’ve learned homeschool takes ALL the same accouterments as running an academy, but for ONE student. One! I’m working my cracked tailbone off for ONE STUDENT. I cannot understand how a teacher does this for 28+ students. Kudos to you public school warriors!

I have had to slam so much new change into our lives over the last 4 days that I look like a crying mad hatter with slightly less enthusiasm for her very merry un-birthday party. 

Scouts was another difficult commitment to honor after my 4 days of endless tasks and less sleep than a newborn. By 7 pm, ON TUESDAY, I was DONE! Game over! TGIF on a Tuesday.

My “messy bun” had turned into a vacant rats nest that set a top my head like a crown of rooster’s feathers in full fight mode. Alas, I have no more fight mode for tonight. All I’ve got is wide eyed panicked dead face that’s painted with lipstick bleeding into my lip wrinkles like it’s their escape route. Its counterpart mascara has absconded away from my lashes when it should be clinging to them and making me look gorgeous and effortlessly beautiful! Why does make up run when duty calls? STAY AND FIGHT YOU INGLORIOUS FACE DEFECTOR! 

In this state, I drive the one mile back to my house while listening to a wiz-bang production starting Nathaniel and Stampy the Cat. It’s loud. It’s ridiculous. It’s a little representation of my life. 

During this THREE MINUTE ride home, I turned on the radio to drown out the Shakespeare in my backseat and catch a musical little ditty screaming,  “I’m Walking on Sunshine! WHOA-OH! And don’t it feel good!” No. No, Katrina and The Waves, I’m not walking on sunshine. I’m staring into too bright LED brake lights and I’m dragging home like a wounded cage fighter. 

MMA mom down!

Mom down!

#everydayridiculous

TEARS IN MY HAMBURGER SOUP

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I sat with the other mothers around the potluck luncheon table discussing the specific difficulties it takes to nurture our children. In particular, mine. Vivacious. Gregarious. Wild with energy, intense emotions and an anxiety level that knows no bounds. 

Each mom poured out her heart about the triumphs of gaining insight into how to parent their particular child that was just “extra”. It was so good for my bloody, pureed heart. Once all this was discussed and encouragement given and received, I looked down to find I had been dripping tears in my hamburger soup that whole time. 

I’ve learned the hard way that “Extra” children take “extra weird parenting”. And this “extra” parent embodies all the “extra ridiculous” parenting techniques it takes to parent a pint-sized atom bomb.

How to Parent a Hyperactive Trash Gremlin: 

Technique (1)

DON’T LOOK AT IT! :

If your energy crazed child is quietly reading a book, playing legos or just standing still for a precious few moments, DON’T LOOK AT IT! Do not congratulate the child on building an extra cool lego Nether World. Do not tell the child you are proud of them for reading. Do not make a single pergo wood floor creak while the wild animal child is pondering its next move. 

Simply avoid eye contact, turn your head and walk away. IF you look at it, all the Chuck E. Cheese noises from the 3rd rung of purgatory will break loose. The wild animal child will scream loudly out of pure joy at being alive. A dance party will break out, to which you wanted no invite. Somehow all the animals with actual fur will show up and demand to be held and played with. All the peace you had for a precious few moments will disintegrate into a 3-ring circus. And it’s your fault. YOU LOOKED AT IT!

Technique (2)

Embarrassment:

Be such an embarrassing parent that the child is afraid to act up in public for fear of what (and how loud) their mom will yell across the store, or how bad her next fart will smell. Crop dust Walmart and get out. It smelled the same way when you panic ran in there for color correct hair dye anyway.

Technique (3)

Don’t Teach Your Child Spanish:

Threaten your kid in Spanish. No joke. It stops them dead in their tracks. Lower your voice and begin to say things like, Tengo zapatos (I have shoes), Hay Fuego! (there’s a fire) or Lamo caras (I lick faces). It scares them right into line.

Technique (4) 

Use a British Accent:

Give all instructions and daily plans in a British accent. This works GREAT when your child is in a stage of hysteria that makes you wonder what he’d taste like if you just ate him. Mother crabs do it with NO remorse. Luckily, me pretending to be Mary Poppins immediately stops him from publicly screaming “You’re murdering me!”

Lesson:

Children are… Horrible. Hilarious. Hellions. Heartwarming. And honestly, I’m not sure I would have gotten on this haunted hay ride had I known how scary the trip was going to be. So I just swing back at the approaching “life zombies”, pray to God that Nathaniel doesn’t hear the cursing and that I’ll get a chance to scream it out in my car later.

Of Crap and Miracles

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Of Crap and Miracles…

First we speak of crap. I woke up to the nose hair singeing smell of liquid cat scat permeating our home like smoke from a fire. Nathaniel had locked the cat in his room for the night, by accident this time. It’s usually on purpose.

Often times after we go to bed, he goes and gets an animal with the self-proclaimed righteousness that he deserves “a person” to sleep with him.

Today’s ridiculous start off was in cat crap town and my husband stating, “Oooo. Do you smell that? Nathaniel locked the cat in his room last night and he crapped. I’m working, so enjoy!” Then laughs in my face, with steady eye contact, while slowly closing his office door. It’s a miracle we’re still married.

#everydayridiculous

It’s All Around You!

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Opening Statements

Life is ridiculous. Look around you.

Notice the small things that people just shouldn’t be doing… experiences that seem too outlandish to really be happening. 

These types of things happen to me Every. Single. Day. 

I want to share them with the world (or at least a limited closed caption audience who already knows me).  Because hilarious ridiculous stuff is in every nook, cranny and Kroger around in your area. You can laugh the whole day by just paying attention to what’s going on around you. Humor is in the mundane. 

And I have soooo much to tell you…

(SOME names have been changed to protect the guilty, the extremely guilty and those who are aiding and abetting a ridiculous situation unwittingly).