Mommin' It Up!

August 23, 2013October 9, 2013

Be Glad I’m not Your Mom: early morning edition

coffee mug — I ripped this off from a friend’s FB page. A) I NEED IT and my birthday is in 13 days. MAKE IT SO. B) Don’t sue me. Because…something about blood from a stone. K?

I have decided to start a series called: Be Glad I’m Not Your Mom. I considered callng it “Be Glad I’m not You’re Mom” just to make Emily’s head explode, but the thought of someone thinking I don’t know the difference between your and you’re was too much to bear.

(Before I go on, I should note that this post is categorized under Being a Mom, I can’t sleep, and Jenny is a jerk. Wait, do I even need to WRITE the post now? Jonah is still asleep. I should just go back to bed. Ugghhh.)

I get up at 6:30 to help Bobby get the kids ready for school. Many of you get up much, much earlier than this. I could rephrase that to say, “I suck much more than most of you.” Truth be told, I am not that great at being a grown-up. I think I peaked at 18. Yes, the summer after graduation. I could sleep in, I was good at everything, my brain cells had not been plundered by childbirth, etc. etc. And even if I didn’t get the chance to sleep in, I could still SLEEP.

Have I ever mentioned that I don’t sleep well? Oh, only 4,000 times in the last seven years? Just making sure.

I don’t sleep well. However, every morning at 6:30 I am having the best sleep of my life when it is time to wake up.

Which makes me the worst early-morning mom EVER. Because A) I don’t know how to program the coffee pot to make coffee the night before and I NEED COFFEE before anyone Hey Mom‘s me. And then there’s B) The kitchen is so small that if I get in Bobby’s way and try to make coffee while he’s getting the kids’ breakfast it causes severe marital problems so I wait for my coffee until he’s done and even then he makes it which is really nice and very good because I am also not real capable of operating the coffee maker until after I’ve had my coffee. PROBLEMATIC.

But while I wait 15 minutes or so for coffee, Joshua and Sophie hey mom me about, hmm, well, I don’t know 700-900 times approximately (each) and I just want to scream STOPTALKINGSTOPTALKINGSTOPTALKING! Especially if what follows the hey mom includes anything about &#!@% POKEMON or TINKERBELL AND THE GREAT FAIRY RESCUE.

No Joshua, I don’t know where (insert unpronounceable Pokemon name here) is. No, I DON’T know why your Pokeball (SERIOUSLY? POKEBALL??!??!) is on Jonah’s table, but I think it MIGHT BE BECAUSE you have a TWO-YEAR-OLD BROTHER AND YOU LEAVE YOUR CRAP WHERE HE CAN GET IT.

Dear Sophie, I cannot listen to you recount the scene where Tink makes Lizzie fly (the one I’ve seen 683 times, BEE TEE DUBS) because you are supposed to be putting on your pants and when you TALK FOR 10 MINUTES while putting on your pants IT TAKES YOU 10 MINUTES TO PUT ON YOUR PANTS!!!!!!!!!! So shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

(Perhaps even worse than the talking is the pre-coffee hand-eye coordination required to do Sophie’s hair. No. Never mind. That’s actually not worse. The talking is worse.)

If I’m lucky I get a few sips of coffee in before I have to get all drill-sergeant on Sophie and regiment her every single step in order to get her out the door on time. Girl. Needs. Direction.

If Joshua is lucky, I get a few sips of coffee in before he gets his OCD on and asks me if I’ve signed his agenda which he brings home every night, which he watched me sign the day before. He still has to ask me every. single. morning. even though I breathe fire at him for nagging me and asking a question he already knows the answer to every. single. morning. Because, I LOVE TO BE NAGGED, especially BEFORE I’VE HAD MY COFFEE.

When 7:20 comes and they’re out the door, I’m typically warming up my partially-drunk, lukewarm cup and praying that I actually get an entire mug into my belly before Jonah wakes up. Because I’m trying to not psychologically damage him until he’s at least five years old. (One out three ain’t bad, right? Oh wait…)

My poor children. I’m all they’ve got. Aren’t you glad I’m not YOUR mom?

Are you Susie Sunshine in the morning (if so, I just hissed at you) or Moody Martha? I think I’m more of a Evil Emily.

July 2, 2013July 2, 2013

Laundry Safety: Taking the KEY Pledge

I’m sitting in my living room and it’s finally quiet…two out of my three children are in bed and the one who’s still up isn’t making much noise. I sit and listen carefully to the familiar sounds of a household that is winding down: the hum of the baby monitor, the swish of the dishwasher, and, one floor below in our basement, the rhythmic hum of our laundry machines. I’ve got a large load of the kids’ clothes in, and I can hear snaps and zippers gently clink against the sides of the dryer as they spin round and round, so that by the time this day ends, our clothes will be ready to start the next one with us.

Laundry. It is the never-ending task in my home; one that is ready to be started again as soon as all the clothes from the last round are finally put away. (And let’s face it, often before they are put away.) It’s something I manage to spend a lot of time on yet not put enough thought into, but as I told you last week, that’s about to change. Emily and I are thrilled to be working with the American Cleaning Institute to spread the word about their KEY Pledge Laundry Safety Campaign – and we want to tell you how you can put some thought into laundry safety at your house and how you can help educate others, too.

Why are we talking laundry safety all of a sudden? Well, as you’ve probably noticed as you’ve cruised down the laundry supplies aisle at the store, laundry products have changed significantly within the past year or so – most notably because of the advent of single-load liquid laundry packets. These powerful little packets have made doing laundry so much more convenient and consumers – especially busy parents – have really embraced them. However, in 2012, the American Association of Poison Control Centers received reports of 6,229 exposures to highly concentrated packets of laundry detergent by children age five and younger. These are fabulous laundry products, and we love what they do for our laundry routine, but they need to be treated and stored just like any other household product – up, away, out of sight and reach of children.

laundry collage 2 — My laundry “helpers”. This is why their chore is loading and unloading the dish washer!

I’m excited about working with the ACI on the KEY Pledge campaign because it means I get to spread the word about how to safely use and handle single-load liquid laundry packets. Awareness and education are KEY to safety! KEY is an acronym that helps us remember how to use these laundry products safely:

Keep single-load liquid laundry packets out of the reach of children
Educate your family and friends about the safe use and storage of these new laundry products
You sere a key role in laundry safety

Now you can get involved and take action yourselves by taking the KEY Pledge at KeyPledge.com and by following the ACI’s simple steps to being the KEY to safe laundry room and routine. By taking the pledge you will be automatically entered into a sweepstakes to win a $2,500 gift card to help makeover your laundry room, too! Doesn’t that sound like some good clean fun?

The ACI has made it fun and easy for you to take the KEY pledge, but we hope you also take to heart how very important it is to keep your laundry products out of the kids’ reach. It’s so important that we’ll be talking about this issue more in the months ahead – this is something we need to be reminded about often!

My dryer just buzzed – time for me to go retrieve that laundry while it’s still warm and wrinkle-free. Maybe I’ll actually get it put away BEFORE I need the laundry basket again this time!

June 28, 2013

My Swimmers

We’re about halfway through summer swim team season, and I am going to be sad to see it end. This is the fifth summer Kate’s been on the team, and the first year Sam’s gotten to participate – officially, anyway.

I say “officially,” because with swim team, the entire family participates. Needless to say, I’m not doing laps of the butterfly, but we really are all involved. Whether it’s setting up our little campsite, volunteering as a timer or a cat-herder (otherwise known as clerk of course), or making sure no one misses an event, we’re all a part of the team. That’s what I love about swim team more than anything else – it’s a family activity.

Swim team takes a lot of time – there are practices every day, and the meets last for hours. It’s a whole bunch of hurry-up-and-wait – I remember calculating the time Kate actually spent in the pool vs. the time we spent AT the pool at last year’s championship meet, and the ratio was something like 2.5 minutes : 12 hours. But during all the time that we’re sitting around waiting, we’re spending time with each other and with dear friends. It’s a few hours of screen-free (ok, I have my phone with me at all times, I will admit) outdoor time for all of us, and I love it.

And I really, really love to watch my girl swim.