The Not-So-Good Old Days...

I just spent five days with my family and another family on vacation. The other family has two boys, one is six like my daughter and the other son is almost two. I had forgotten what it was like with a two year old around.

The constant, "Momma!" and pushing of buttons and whining. And this kid was about a 5 on the annoying scale to my daughter's 10 at the same age. He didn't scream so loud that my ear drums would rattle. He didn't bolt the second he was put down to go climb something he shouldn't. My Step Dad called my daughter the "Roof Baby" because if we couldn't find her she must be on the roof.

I can't believe how much of my daughter's behavior I take for granted now. When she was two I was wondering if she would be in Juvi as a teenager or in rehab.

It was that bad.

Now days they call kids like this "sprited". What a crock of crap! "Sprited" is politically correct speach for "your kid is an obnoxious pain in the ass". When she was two it was relentless. She had so much energy and no amount of playing, running, or bouncing would get it out of her.

I remember being at playgroup with kids of the same age and watching them play. My daughter had picked up a little play lawn mower and was "mowing" the lawn. She was happily marching back and forth across my friend's lawn over and over again. One of the Mom's remarked that she would sleep good that night.

Huh? I honestly had no idea what she was talking about, because - seriously - a light stroll while pushing a plastic lawn mower was NOT going to do a damn thing!

Here is an example: One day my daugher went to a three hour sport camp outside in a park. Then we had a picnic at the park and she played on the playground equipment for two more hours, then we went to the sprinkler park for a couple more hours so she could run around in the sprinklers and climb their rock wall. Was she tired after that?

Nope. Just hungry.

The worst part was that everyone didn't really believe me about her energy. They only saw her for a couple of hours at a stretch. They had no idea that she sustained that level of energy ALL day long. One of my friends learned this first hand when she moved away and we went to visit her.

On the second day my daughter was being her normal relentless-energy self when my friend got exasperated and yelled, "My God! She is SO annyoing!"

After she said it she kind of gasped and stared at me wondering what I was going to do. Later she told me that she really thought the friendship was over because of it. No doubt I was surprised she said it. But it was the truth. I looked at my daughter, looked at my friend and said, "Thank God! Someone finally admits it!"

I was so relieved that FINALLY someone else had seen what I saw. I wasn't just imagining it. My friend saw that my cute little, adorable - and very much loved - child was a big pain in the ass sometimes.

All kids are at some point or another.

Anyone who says that their kid is all sweetness and light, ALL of the time, is a liar. I put them in the same category with Stay At Home Moms who say they never need a break from their kids.

LIARS!

All of them, I tell ya!

After 5 days in a house with a two-year-old it all came flooding back. How quickly I had forgotten what it was like to have a two-year-old around. Years down the road all of that emotional and physical exhaustion that I experienced is but a distant memory. At the time I felt like a failure as a parent and was holding onto my sanity by just my fingertips. But now I know that it was just a phase.

It may have lasted for more than three years, but it was still just a moment in time.

Not a lifetime.

Women are from Mars and men have a penis...

So my husband just did something to me that just seemed downright rude. At least the women I know would think so.

The men, probably not so much.

My husband was in the garage working on some project or other. I guess men would like to know what kind of project, but since I'm a woman, I don't care. All you need to know is that it involved a saw.

I was just about to leave for the store and he asked me a question. I'm not even sure what the question was, but I do know that I was two words into my answer when he turned around, flipped on the saw and cut some wood.

Umm 'scuse me. YOU asked me a question, I was answering and you freaking turned on the saw??!!

Who knew those things were so loud! I just yelled, "I was STILL talking!" and got into the car with my Mom (who was visiting for Thanksgiving) and left. The ride to the store gave us ample time to dissect what had just happened.

The man asked ME a question. Since he asked the question, I would assume that he would be interested in the answer.

Apparently not.

My Mom said that he's got the part down about acting interested in his wife by asking questions. He just forgot the part about listening to the answers.

He's a work in progress I guess.

If you think about it from a logical stand point it is universally rude to turn on your saw while someone is talking to you. Whether you've got an outie or an innie down there you would be offended. Right?

Wrong.

See it wasn't that he knowingly turned on the saw while I was talking. His mind just took a detour from listening to my answer and went to Planet Man that said, "Oh. Here is some wood I'm supposed to be cutting. Must cut wood." There isn't any room for, "Hmmm, my wife is talking. She might take offense if I turn on this loud contraption while she is talking."

It's a bit ironic that my husband would do something like this because the man hates noises. Any noise. Why he married me, a loud and klutzy woman who constantly drops or bumps into things, I don't know. However, every time he rolls his eyes at my loudness I just remind him that he knew this going in. It wasn't like I hid my loudness until I got him to marry me and then went about banging pots and pans and screaming at the top of my lungs.

My husband's most recent nemesis is my blender. I've been on a pretty rigorous diet over the past year and it requires me to drink a lot of protein shakes. I have at least two a day. One in the morning and one at night a couple of hours after dinner. Unfortunately, those are the two times a day that my husband isn't at work so he hears my blender a lot.

And it's loud.

The other day he even said that if he ever divorces me it will be over that blender. If that happens I'll make sure that he gets it in the divorce settlement.

Okay, back to that damned saw.

My Mom and I had a good time on the way to the store and back laughing about the difference between men and women. Men could do something completely egregious and 5 minutes later have no idea why their wife is upset. Women, on the other hand, will hold a grudge for days. We made each other giggle as we recounted such incidences in our marriages.

As we pulled into the garage my husband was still working with his saw. Luckily it was off for the moment. As we got out of the car I told him that he gave us a good laugh with the, "saw incident". He looked at me and said, "What 'saw incident'?"

Exactly.

So here's the question: If your wife talks while you are running your saw, does she make a sound?

I'm not a "Parent" person...

It's happening already. My daughter is not quite 6 years old and she already has her very own "Mean Girl". Isn't it a bit early for this?

I thought I wouldn't have to worry about this until 6th grade at the earliest. I guess I better shut off my Parenting Cruise Control and get my head back into the game! I think I'd rather answer detailed questions about where babies come from than navigate this sticky situation. It's not just the perpetrator that is a problem, it's the girl's mother.

The mother thinks her child is all sweetness and light. She frequently comments on how "friendly" her daughter is and how she would "never do anything to hurt any one's feelings." When that comment was made at our playgroup me and the rest of the mothers sat there silently with our eyes as big as saucers.

*Blink, blink*

Really?

This is the child who frequently cuts in line, bosses the other kids around, does her damnedest to make sure someone - anyone - doesn't get included when playing, finds a kid's week spot and picks at the raw nerve until her "friend" is left in a sobbing heap on the floor. Did I mention that she's 6 1/2?

I know that's young, but you've got to meet this kid! She is a master manipulator. Her parents believe everything she says. I wouldn't go so far as to call her "The Bad Seed" or anything, but you know...

When my daughter told me that the "Mean Girl" hit another girl while playing in her room I felt compelled to tell the "Mean Girl's" Mom. The girl she hit corroborated my daughter's story as well, but the woman didn't care. She told me afterward that her daughter said that she didn't hit anyone and she believes her. Mmmmkay...

Are you calling my kid a liar lady???!!! (Okay, I didn't actually say this. In fact, it didn't dawn on me until much later that she was calling my kid a liar. I'm a little slow...)

The funny thing is that this "Mean Girl" loves my daughter. She always wants to play with her and sulks at playgroup if my daughter isn't there. So I have no clue why she would be mean. The only thing that comes to mind is: Because she can.

Her parents don't stop her.

I used to think of myself as not really being a "kid person". I LOVE my own kid, but other kids got on my nerves. Then I realized that the kids' abhorrent behavior is usually a direct result of lack of parenting.

I've heard it SO many times. "He won't go to bed at night. He must have insomnia." Um. No. He won't go to bed because every time he gets up you feed him a treat, let him watch TV, and then lay with him for HOURS until he falls asleep. Sounds like getting up is a lot more fun than staying in his room by himself and sleeping!

Or, "She just has a hard head and doesn't realize I'm talking to her." Um. No. She hears you, she just doesn't care. She knows that you are too lazy to get out of your chair and do any parenting so she ignores you. As usual you will eventually give up yelling at her to stop hitting her sister and not do anything to discipline her. So she can just walk away, act like she doesn't hear you and there will be no consequences.

There are sooooo many more instances I can give of this. But I'll stop there. As a parent it's hard to think that a lot of the "problems" our children have are a direct result of something we're doing or not doing. It sucks when it's our fault.

I'm not the perfect parent. My daughter's pig-sty of a playroom can attest to that. I'm not consistent enough about getting her to clean it up. Most of the time I'm too tired at the end of the day to deal with it.

Sometimes I think, "I'm too tired to be a good Mommy today. I'll be a good Mommy tomorrow and have her clean it up." But then the next day comes and I use the same excuse.

One time I even saw my daughter hit another child while they were playing outside in our backyard. I sheepishly admit that for a moment I thought, "No one else saw it. The kid who got hit isn't crying. I can just sit here drinking my tea, talking with my friends and not have to get up and put her in a time out."

Luckily the Good Mommy Angel on one shoulder told my Lazy Devil Mommy on the other shoulder to shut up because I needed to do the right thing. Even if it meant getting off of my ass.

Every day I fight my laziness in order to do the right thing. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail. But I'm always trying! I just wish that everyone else was too.

This Mean Girl Junior is just the first of many who will pop up in my daughter's life. I can't protect her from all of them. So I've got to teach her to protect herself from them. But how?

I don't know.

On the positive side. Having this "Mean Girl" in my daughter's life has been a great learning experience for my kid. I can tell her a million times to stand up for herself, but she is the one that has to do it. Better to learn now at almost 6 than when she is a teenager and some girl is taunting my daughter because she's too "scared" to jump off of a bridge like everyone else.

Right....?

Labor pains...

Parenthood has been an interesting thing. Sometimes I marvel at the fact that I gave birth to this thing that constantly tortures me. But I also love her something fierce. I'm thinking it's somewhat like Stockholm Syndrome where you fall in love with your captor. Except that your captor is your kid.

Your child is the worst of you and the best of you all rolled into one. Not to mention the constant work involved. As my husband says, it's like trying to push water up hill.

My induction into parenthood was on November 10, 2003. The day my daughter was born. The labor itself wasn't too difficult because I had an epidural. It is a glorious invention! After 25 hours of labor at home and some serious sciatica pain, I was ready for some relief.

I have a friend who heard that you needed to ask for your epidural early so you can get in line sooner. She was worried that they would forget about her and it would be too late for the pain medication by the time they got around to her. She told every person who came into her hospital room that she wanted an epidural. I don't know what she expected that janitor to do about it, but her request was duly noted.

I have no shame in saying that I had an epidural. Why turn such a momentous occasion into a painful and traumatizing experience? It's not like you get a plaque on your wall stating that you gave birth without pain medications or anything.

Nobody needs a hero.

Because of the epidural I couldn't feel anything from the waist down. I do realize that that was the point and I was perfectly fine with the numbness. Which came in handy because I did have a pretty serious tear.

Down there.

My legs were in the stirrups for at least an hour while the doctor sewed me up. He - yes HE - had to lean in pretty close to make sure my sutures were right. It was then that I passed gas.

Right in his face.

And he jumped up startled, flapping his hands like a sissy. That's right. I said sissy! Man up dude!

It's not like I projectile peed on him or anything! Haven't these doctors seen it all? Or at least could have pretended that they had?

So that was my introduction into motherhood.

Joyful, messy and woefully humiliating.

The Biggest Loser and Me.

A new season of The Biggest Loser started last night. It's one of the few programs that my husband and I watch together. And cry together. Man that show always manages to squeeze at least one tear out of me before it's over. This season they are the biggest contestants yet.

And I feel so bad for them.

Their first challenge was to run/walk a mile. They were so out of shape that two people had to be taken to the hospital when it was over. One of whom was so serious that she was still there a week later. I've never been 400 pounds or even 300, but I've been over 200 and it sucked.

It was uncomfortable, tiring and humiliating. It isn't too hard to see how people can get even bigger. There is a lot of shame when you are over 200 pounds and the way to deal with that is to eat to dull the pain, then you feel shame over that and then you eat some more. Rinse and repeat until you have gained another 100 pounds. It's sad and I've been there.

My journey to weight loss actually started with The Biggest Loser a year ago. We were watching a weigh-in and my husband asked, "Do you weigh less than her?" And I couldn't answer.

Because I knew I weighed more.

I just sat there and cried. I cried out the pain and humiliation of my big, strong and athletic husband knowing that I was so fat. I always told him that I weighed less than him. But he didn't know that it was only by 5 pounds.

I'm sure people saw us on the street and wondered what he was doing with me. My husband is 9 years older than me but I was the old woman. We didn't match anymore and I was ashamed.

I had actually tried to lose weight for two years, but to no avail. I had my thyroid checked, saw a nutritionist, and went to three different doctors asking them why I couldn't lose weight. Nobody had any answers for me. After the third doctor's appointment where the doctor said, "Are you watching your portions? Some people think they are eating healthy when they aren't." It dawned on me after I left the appointment and was in the parking lot that the doctor didn't believe me.

No one believed me.

As the realization dawned I started to weep. Not silent tears, but big ugly sobs. I realized that every "expert" I had seen had said basically the same thing as that last doctor. They probably just looked at me like another fat person who sat around all day stuffing their face and then told everyone else that they were on a diet. Right then, as I sat in my car, I had flashes of other doctor's appointments. Not for me, but for my daughter.

She's is not fat. She takes after my husband. She is tall and muscular with no fat on her. But for her 4 year check-up her doctor said that, "Her weight is fine now." Stop, gives me the head to toe eye sweep. "But you need to start watching what she eats now." Huh? This was the kid who five minutes earlier said that her favorite food was salad! Didn't matter. My being fat was a walking billboard for everyone else. I might as well have painted the words, "Lazy. Eats like a pig." on the front of me. That's what everyone thought anyway.

At a surgical consult for my daughter's hernia I got the same thing. The doctor looked at her hernia and said that it wasn't a big hernia, but there could be complications when she got older.

And bigger.

(Yet another head to toe eye sweep.) Yes, Doctor, I get what you mean...

After that day in the parking lot of my doctor's office I had to have a "come to Jesus" with myself. Did I want to admit defeat? Nothing was working anyway. Was I really not trying as hard as I thought I was? Was it time to just say, "I'm fat and I will always be fat."?

I ate my way up to 215 pounds, but I couldn't figure out how to eat my way out of it.

Luckily, my husband had an idea. Our gym had a program called Lifestyles 20/20. I had looked into it a couple of years before when I first started to try to lose weight. It cost thousands of dollars and - at the time - I thought it was a ridiculous amount to spend to lose weight.

But that was at the beginning of my journey. That was before I had started Weight Watchers and gained two pounds the first week. (My husband lost 25 pounds by changing nothing other than eating the healthy dinners I prepared.) I tried Nutrisystem, lost 9 pounds and then promptly stopped losing. Then gained it back. I counted calories on my own and religiously wrote everything I ate into a journal. Nothing happened for two years.

I kept going because I figured that I had to at least be healthier because I ate healthy and I exercised regularly. I may be fat, but I was healthy! Anyway, back to my husband's idea.

He said that maybe I should check out 20/20 again and see what it entailed. He said that he was willing to pay for it if it would help me. The man that had seen me fail at countless diets over the years believed in me even when all of those doctors didn't!

We don't spend money easily. This was desperation. My final hail mary pass before giving up. We talked about it before I started the diet and we decided that this was my last try and if it didn't work then it "is what it is". I would just need to live with the weight.

Luckily it wouldn't come to that. The first week I lost over 5 pounds. I really expected to gain, I always did before. I was exstatic! Come to find out that I wasn't eating ENOUGH calories!

Go figure...

I also wasn't eating enough heart healthy fat. (I spent my whole life avoiding fat in any form; this was a revelation.) And the last piece of the puzzle was that I was intolerant to grains. Not carbs, those I really needed to keep my energy up. In one week I had two servings of grains and gained a pound. Nothing else in my diet had changed. Basically, I needed to eat whole foods.

Not 100 calorie snack packs. Real food with real ingredients. I was and still am amazed.

As of today I've lost 61 pounds and am at my goal weight. Who knew? I certainly didn't that night when I watched The Biggest Loser with my husband and he asked me a simple question.

That night I never would have guessed a year later I would be my own Biggest Loser.

A-holes and the people who enable them.

I belong to a pretty nice gym. This is my family's only extravagance. It's BIG, it's clean, and it's fancy. Our monthly dues are like a mortgage payment but we are willing to pay it so we don't have to go to the national chain gym that we used to belong to.

I actually wouldn't have minded that national chain so much if their locker rooms were nicer. I'm not saying that their decor was ugly. I'm saying that I don't really like to see poop smeared all over the toilet seat.

I kid you not, at least once a week I would find a toilet with poop all over it. Smeared. Like some one's toddler reached into their diaper and finger painted on the toilet. And by the looks of that poo, that toddler had to be over 150 pounds and liked to eat A LOT of fiber.

Smeared poo is something I have never seen at our new gym. The only problem with our new gym is that people seem to get a sense of entitlement when they pay that much for a membership. For some reason the rules don't apply to them.

They waltz past the sign in the Women's Locker Room that says "Cell phones not allowed." while gabbing on their phone. Loudly. They happily do their runners stretch underneath the sign that says, "No stretching in the lounge area." If this were the '70's I bet they would stand in the cardio theatre smoking while they leaned against the "No smoking sign". Helllooooo?

Why are they so special that they don't need to follow the rules? And if they don't follow the rules, should I stop following them too?

No. I don't think I could. I'm too much of a rule follower. If everyone did this it would be complete anarchy out there!

They will ignore the signs that require them to sit on a towel while naked in the sauna. Naked stranger butts will be everywhere! Stop signs will become like a standoff at high noon, but with cars instead of guns. No one will allow the other person to go. They will all screech into the intersection, stop an inch from each other's bumper and proceed to honk and gesture out their windows. And they won't get anywhere.

It's almost like the polite people have to acquiesce to the assholes of the world just to keep things moving. And this I think is why it pays to be an asshole. There are still more polite people then a-holes.

A-holes are the adult equivalent of schoolyard bullies who push people around because they know they can. The people who ruin my zen locker room experience and steal my quiet time were probably the same people who shook kids down for their lunch money in grade school. It worked then and it works now.

So what should I do? Say something?

Um. No.

As my husband always says about us Americans, "If you call someone out for being an asshole. You will become the asshole." And everyone who once agreed that the person was an asshole will now look at you with scorn because you actually said something.

I don't have a good answer to this. There are less of them than there are of us nice people, but they are still getting their way. Squeeky wheel gets the grease and all that. I guess I can sit around and whine about it or I can try to let it go.

Man is that hard. I do my best to hobble up on top of my high horse and tell myself that at least I'm not like them. At least I try to be polite to my fellow citizens. And I have never - at least in my conscious memory - ever smeared poop all over a toilet seat. On purpose anyway...

Memories...

Today I received an e-mail from a friend who's youngest child started preschool today. Seeing his smiling face with his new backpack reminded me of my daughter's first day of preschool and I set out in search of a picture I knew I had that documented the occasion.

Because my husband is German we sent our daughter to a German preschool. They accepted kids from 2 years old and up. After two years of screaming, not sleeping, hyperactivity, and horribly short naps I was ready to cut the apron strings. At the time I thought she was ready too.

I mean, she had grown from a 21 inch 8 pound (11 ounce) screaming blob to a toddler. (I can't even remember her weight or height at that age. It was off the charts, though, I remember that.) To me she seemed practically grown up. Did it occur to me that she wasn't even two yet? (She started at the school 6 days before her second birthday.) Did it occur to me that she had never actually been away from me before? That she didn't speak German and her English wasn't so good either? Nope.

I was soooo ready for a break that I made whatever deal I needed to with my conscience in order to drop her "high energy" self off at the school. I see that picture of her first day now and I cringe. She was so small. My God the kid barely had any hair! She couldn't even say school! (In German or English!) But I dropped her off and made a break for it. I only got as far as the nearest Safeway, but I didn't care. For the first time in her short life I was able to go to the store by myself.

There was no screeching. There was no grabbing of things off of the shelves. I didn't need to run from aisle to aisle like Supermarket Sweep and throw things into the cart haphazardly. I didn't care what I bought, I just needed food and FAST before she lost her noodle! A trip to the grocery store usually ended with me all sweaty and her screaming and crying at the indignity of being strapped into a grocery cart for all of 20 minutes. I left that store that first day of German school with a smile on my face.

I wasn't sweating and I had actually bought things on my list! I packed the groceries into the car and was heading home when I noticed that my cell phone had three messages on it. All from the school. Claudia apparently wasn't adjusting as well as I was.

So that first day she lasted 40 minutes. It would have been less if I would have answered the first call. It is hard to remember a time when my daughter was that attached to me.

This morning she got a ride with a friend to school and was chanting, "I'm a big girl! I get to go to school without you!" while jumping up and down. I realize that my purpose as her mother is to turn her into an independent adult who leaves the nest in search of a life of her own. I try my damnedest to make sure that she can do that someday.

But does it have to be today? I shouldn't have wished away her "toddler" years so quickly. Thank God I have that picture of her first day of German school to remind me how cute she is and how important she is in my life. And I know that some day, in the not so distant future, I'll be staring at her first day of kindergarten photo wondering where the time went. I'm looking forward to getting from here to the first day of Jr. High and High School and college. I just need to pay a little bit more attention to the journey and not just the goal.

Big girl in the City...

My daughter started Kindergarten last week. This was a momentous occasion that was harder on her parents than on her. I actually was maintaining my calm until I met up with my husband in the hallway after dropping our daughter off. I rounded the corner and found all 6 foot 3 inches of my Manly-Man crying. His eyes were red, tears were flowing and he was sniffling. It very well could have been the sexiest thing I've ever seen.

After that day I've at least managed to not cry while dropping her off. Not even on day two when she begged me to drop her off a couple of blocks away from the school because she was a, "big girl now!" I won't even go into my chanting, "You are only five! You are only five!" while I walked/dragged her to her classroom. Then came the big Milk Money Dabacle of 2009...

It started out innocently enough. My daughter wanted to buy milk in the cafeteria. It costs 50 cents so I thought it was a good compromise because I wouldn't let her buy lunch. I didn't have any change so I gave her a $5 bill and instructed her to bring back the change. This is where things got sticky. She came home that day and said that the "girl" wouldn't give her her change. I asked her over and over and in multiple ways and this was the story she was sticking to. Being that this wasn't my first rodeo as a mother I had a feeling this wasn't exactly the straight poop. So to speak.

My husband, on the other hand, heard her story and was ready to rip the "girl's" throat open for taking advantage of his little girl. He ranted about some snotty teenager stealing his child's money. My husband is from Germany and I don't know what kind of lunch ladies he had growing up but my vision wasn't of a girl at all. I pictured some overweight lady with a giant mole (with or without hair growing out of it) and some sort of unattractive hair net. I just couldn't picture this woman stealing my daughter's milk money. It was all just a little too cliche. After calming down my husband and promising him that I would get to the bottom of it all I e-mailed my daughter's teacher. Luckily, just as I suspected, the change was put onto her lunch card account and she can buy milk as much as she likes. Or until her $4.50 runs out.

If my husband was this upset about her milk money, what is he going to do when our daughter is bullied by some mean girl? Will he track her down and hang her upside down on the monkey bars? Then leave her there as an example to all other bullies what could happen if they messed with our little one? Maybe I should stop allowing my daughter to buy milk and start saving my change for bail money.

Where does the time go?

So I just realized that my first...and last....blog was in February. I have no excuse. I can't even say that I've been busy keeping my house clean. My husband would be the first to say his crap detector was going off because I'm not - shall we say - a slave to housekeeping.

I have a friend who cleans when she gets anxious. Lucky - or unlucky - for her she's anxious A LOT. So her house is spotless! In the car on the way home from our first visit to their house my husband kept saying OVER and OVER again, "That house was clean. I mean, really clean." I have a feeling he may have been daydreaming about trading me in for a newer, cleaner model. But I just keep reminding him that Housewife 2.0 may be cleaner and better looking, but she could never love him and take care of him the way I do! And he must know this because he constantly tells me what a great wife I am even though our ideas on tidiness are on oposite sides of the spectrum.

We have a picture that my Dad gave us of two cleat hitches on a dock. One has a perfectly tied rope on it with the rope perfectly coiled in a perfect circle. The cleat opposite of it on the dock is tied good enough with the excess rope dropped into a tangled pile. The title of this picture is "Different Perspectives". This describes my relationship with my husband. We both have the same goal in mind, but one of us (I wonder who?) goes about it in a slightly more scattered way. How the man puts up with me, I don't know. On the other hand, he's the first to ask me how I put up with his anal retentiveness.

I've got my ways.... One of which is to invite my previously mentioned anxious friend over when she is hyper anxious. All I need to do is leave a closet door strategically open. Once she gets a look at the chaos inside she gets to work organizing! So far she has organized my linen closet, hall closet, and my pantry. My husband was very impressed with "my" tidiness. For about 30 seconds. Then he remembered that my friend had visited that day and knew who was really responsible. Oh well, sometimes it's not how it gets done, but just the fact that it's done.

Bitch Fight at Kindergarten registration!

I thought I was handling this Stay At Home Mom thing pretty well. After 5 years the kid is still alive, relatively well adjusted and the house hasn't burned down. At the end of the day my motto has always been, "If she is still alive, then I did a good job." So far so good...

What threw me for a loop was registering her for kindergarten. I was the most organized I've ever been. I even had a file folder all ready with the required documents. (If you knew me, you would now how outside of the norm this is.) I didn't want to get lost in the shuffle, I wanted everything to be perfect because I not only wanted to register my daughter for kindergarten, I wanted to sign her up for full-day kindergarten. Where I live in Washington state kindergarten is a half-day affair. By the time you drop your kid off at school you'll barely have time to go home to take a poop before you have to go right back and pick her up. If you want your child to attend full-day kindergarten it's going to cost you. Not only monetarily, but in years off of your life from the stress of waiting to find out if you got in. I mean, if your child got in.

You see, the schools do a lottery to see which of the kids who ask for full-day actually get full-day. No amount of whining, cajoling or bribing will get you what you want. You just have to wait. Things weren't looking good when I noticed that ALL of the parents in the room filling out registration paperwork had the identifiable "Full-Day" set of papers. I'm assuming the half-dayers just waltzed in threw their documents at the nearest person and waltzed out. What do they care? Everyone gets half-day! It's the uber-competitive full-day people that had to sweat it out.

With my five-year-old dancing around me wearing her usual uniform: messy hair, pink floral Capri's (it was about 40 degrees that day), green and white shirt with a penguin on the front, turquoise and red striped socks, and purple keens. Looking good! I was a little nervous when one of the kindergarten teachers starting to speak with my child. What if she said something to the teacher to embarrass me? What if they teacher takes one look at her outfit and declares her unfit for full-day and puts a little asterisk or something on her paperwork noting this fact? I shouldn't have worried, it was me that would ultimately cause the raucous.

I was standing in line minding my own business. I swear! There was a man ahead of me and a woman behind me. We were waiting our turns like good little girls and boy. Then another woman strolls in and sits down at the registration table. 'Scuse me! She totally cut in line! (Okay, I thought this, but didn't say anything. Too wimpy.) Luckily, one of the ladies working the registration table kindly told her that there was a line. The "Cutter" sighed heavily, looked at us schmucks waiting patiently and said, "He's still writing." Then, without thinking - I believe I may have been PMSing that day - I looked her right in the eye and said, "I'm done." Apparently I should have kept my mouth shut.

Mrs. "Cutter" got up with another heavy sigh and stood about 1 inch in front of my face with her back to me. (I certainly hope she doesn't have some sort of fatal lung disease with all of this heavy breathing she's doing. Maybe the lack of oxygen is what made it so difficult for her to see the line of three people behind her.) Being the ever so helpful person that I am I tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, but there is another person behind me." She turned around and in a booming voice said, "I heard you." and turned back around. Obviously she was really confused so it was my civic duty to straighten her out. "No Ma'am, um.. the back of the line is back there." I said as I helpfully pointed past the woman waiting behind me. Again, Mrs. Cutter turned around and even louder than before said, "I HEARD YOU!" Okay...

So, not the most positive beginning to my daughter's elementary school years. In fact, since she was right there we got to have a long talk on the way home about how even some adults can't wait their turn. Fun...

Oh and the result of all of this full-day vs half-day stress? Well, on the day of the lottery everyone I know received a call with the results. Except for me. I waited patiently, but then started worrying that they lost my paperwork. Or Mrs. "Cutter" was the Principal's best friend and thus made sure my daughter would spend her entire academic career at the back of the class next to the kid who was 12, but still in the 1st grade. So, I called the school feeling like one of those over hyper Mommies that has to have everything perfect so as not to disturb her son's precious feelings and will still be wiping Little Johnny's butt until he goes away to college. (That is IF she lets him go away to college.)

Anyhoo, come to find out I wasn't called because they were still trying to add another full-day class because there were so many requests for it. I had to wait. And wait. And wait until they got it figured it out. So I wait with my hands folded together in prayer. Nothing else I can do, yet again the fate of my schedule and "me" time are in the hands of someone else. Isn't that always how it goes when you are a SAHM?