Odd-woman out

I have never been able to find my niche with fellow moms. I think it has a lot to do with my area. I'm not a Tea-Bagger, I mean Tea Party follower, I'm not Christian, and my kids are definitely picking up on differences between their home and their friends' homes. When Sofia was learning the letter T in Kindergarten, they went around the room asking all the little ones to think of words that start like "t." They gave answers like turtle, tummy, table, etc. Then Sofia says, "Tattoo." I was so proud.

Well, today I was asked by the school's PFA to help out with the snowcone sale. I have no problem helping. I'm a room mom for two of my children's classes, so this wasn't a big deal. But it was hard to spend 3 hours with 5 other moms who only talked about their latest trip to Disney, ear infections, and renovations in their house. It's not that I'm opposed to those things...I like Disney, my kids get ear infections, we're in the middle of a tile DIY project. But for three hours it was too much. I would join conversations, but it was just hard for me. (Which is equally my own fault because I feel shy around new people)

So, as I am dumping ice into the "ice hopper" to be chopped up and made into snow cones, the mom working next to me starts telling me all about her son's birthday party. It was for him and his best friend, who apparently have birthdays close to one another. It was a camp/boy scout theme, and 30 little boys slept over her house. The thought of 30 children in my house overnight - running, screaming, jumping, arguing - because we all know there is no "sleep" at a sleepover, makes me ill. So I made the comment that "I just don't love my children enough to do that for them." Now, it was sarcastic. I even laughed when I said it. And it was funny, I think. (And true in the sense that there is no possible way I would ever host 30 kids for a sleepover. ever. ever. ever). But these five women stopped in their tracks, twisted their necks around and stared.

Come on people. It's sarcasm.

I would love to find a group on moms around here that I feel comfortable with. Moms who don't necessarily obsess over their children, who don't flutter their eyes in disbelief when I say we're not believers, who can hold conversations about books and possibly "The Real Housewives." I prefer "Bad Girls Club" to "Dancing with the Stars." I prefer Austen to Twilight series.

Wanted: BFF. Democratic, non religious zealot. Must love dogs, Etsy, World Market, Farmer's Market. Willing to spend countless hours in the library or bookstore. Prefers sarcasm to slap-stick.

How a 6-year-old expresses her love

Sofia ran out of her class just to tell me she had a surprise for me. As I turned to finish talking to my friend, she put four warm candy corns in my hand. She ate some, but saved these ones for me all day. In her pocket. Warm, sticky candy corns... Yum!

Mommy Brain

I seem to have developed a bad case of Mommy Brain. You know, that fuzziness of not-remembering-anything. Unfortunately, while I once thought this affected only me, I now realize that there has been spillover.

Like the fact that I forgot to send Sofia into school with 75 cents to buy a little pumpkin on her hayride yesterday. Or, that I put Bella in the wrong soccer uniform. Again. And how about the fact that I actually never sent in Gabriel's birthday treats. Okay, that's not completely true...I actually forgot to buy them to begin with.

I forget to do homework. I forget to start dinner. I'm so busy running around, trying to tread water and be all things and do all things, that some very large cracks are forming.

Now, my theory on Mommy Brain is that there is a direct and positive correlation to Mommy Guilt. An increase in Mommy brain is related to an increase in Mommy Guilt.

And it's the guilt that keeps me awake at night. Little whispers of, "You forgot to go over Sofia's sightwords with her...," "Damn, that's three evenings in a row without reading Gabriel's book with him...," "You really ought to spend more one-on-one time with Bella..." And so on, and so on.

Thoughts like these eventually turn into cause and effect statements which aren't necessarily true but still manage to keep me awake at night. For example, because I haven't read with Gabriel for 3 days in a row, he is going to fail his FCAT in March, then he will be held back in 3rd grade, he may get made fun of by all his friends moving on into 4th grade, ohmygod, he's going to get depressed, feel like an under-achiever and do drugs; we'll be discussing this on A&E's Intervention in 10 years and it's all my fault.

I'm not sure why Mommy Brains make these type of cause and effect leaps around 1:30 a.m. Maybe it's because all the other hours of the day I'm back treading that water, trying to keep the house clean (ha!), cook healthy meals, and con my kids into thinking I am Supermom.

I hope I have them fooled, but it's doubtful. I'm the mom with stains on her clothes from juice boxes, hair in the pony tail, speeding across town in order to make it to the soccer game on time, all the while yelling for them to be quiet, stop poking each other, read their homework because we are swamped today, not to mention discussing important topics like how girls can be anything they want, stand up for themselves, and all my other third-wave feminist, liberal ideals.

It's like throwing it all at the wall and hoping something sticks and matures and turns into something great and beautiful (and productive) without the need for too much therapy. Why don't those pregnancy books warn us? Warning: Pregnancy leads to Mommy Brain and Mommy Guilt which lasts a lifetime. Beware.

New Blog, New Perspective

So this is my new blog for a new time in my life. I shut my old blog down a couple months ago because I never kept it up. But, then all those voices in my head, I mean, creative thoughts needed to be released. I couldn't go back to my old page because it was created during a time of extreme turmoil. Things in my life were changing. I was changing. So, here we are...new blog, new times, new perspectives. That's not to say I am not still changing. But, I guess I feel like I know myself a whole lot better than I did before. So, fresh starts, sorta like clean sheets, are necessary and feel good.