Sunday, July 20, 2014

Confessions




I am going through a phase of doubt and confusion.  I have asked God to get me out of this, but I don’t see the cavalry riding in, so I can only assume that God feels I need to dwell here a bit longer, for learning purposes.  Oh great.  Learning. 



Let me give you the rundown...so maybe you can relate...or maybe you will just think less of me.  I am willing to risk it – either way – because I need to get this out on paper.  Be warned – this is going to come out of me like bad sushi.  I am not going to try to organize this or make sense of this.  I am just going to stick my finger down my throat and type:

at the moment, children who cannot read well...if at all...are reading to each other in the reading nook...oh, how charming...a reading nook.  It sounds like I really have my house in order.  Aren’t you impressed....good...good.  Don't stay too long.

I have a book sitting on my nightstand, a Hardy Boys classic that I have wanted to read to my kids for weeks now, so we can all feel cozy and old timey and functional.  I haven’t read even one page to them because if I have a moment of silence it doesn’t occur to me to say, “Hey, Everyone, you are leaving me alone right now, but please come back and sit really close to me again....”

And now, I hear them kinda reading some picture book, and I think, “I should go in there and read it to them,” but I don’t go.  It is this battle between my ideal and my brokenness.   My ideal eye can picture my sitting there, hamming it up with a cute book, kids on knees, smiling...getting all literate and stuff.  

But, my brokenness knows there is a chance that kids will interrupt me and swat at each other and ask me to skip pages, which is like sacrilege, and so...I stay here.  I don’t want the ideal so much that I am willing to risk sorting through the other stuff...annoying stuff for which I have no patience or energy. 

What is that?  Knowing the outcome at the beginning and not willing to try again?  Does that make me sane...or insane?  We've all read that doing the same thing and expecting a different result means you are crazy, so maybe I am just really sane...like sane to a fault.

"What she said."


Then, there’s my son, who gives me sloppy wet spitty kisses on my cheek. I have actually given him instructionals, using the back of my hand...the back of his hand...on how to kiss a cheek without allowing tablespoons of saliva to exit your mouth.  We have gone over this and over this because I cannot stand to have someone spitting on my cheek 50 times a day (this kid is really affectionate).  No dice.  The sopping-wet kisses are still coming, dripping and disgusting, and I am no longer able to receive them kindly.  I am now making noises of offense; jerking away, and saying sophisticated words like, “Yuck!”  I am Parent of the Year!  My kid kisses me, and I yell “Yuck!”  That won’t affect him in his adulthood ...no....not at all.

This is probably what happened to Magic Mike.

Then, there is my making eggs and bacon yesterday, while shouting.  I basically wasted a pound of bacon.  I mean, if you are going through the trouble of frying meat – yes, I called it trouble - then there should be a good feeling that comes over all.  But, no...I lost it...right in the middle of sizzling grease.  I kept poking with my fork while in full lecture mode...full roar.  I finished my speech when the meat was crisp, and I looked at my children for evidence of understanding, and they said, ‘Is the bacon ready?” 

I hate cooking breakfast, and not just because of this incident.  I just hate cooking breakfast.  I like to be left alone until about noon.  Did you READ that?  I have FIVE kids, and I want to be left alone until NOON

Rahhahahhahhhhhaaaaaaaaa!  RAH!  Ha ha.

I have poorly-selected goals.




I hope it snows tomorrow.

But, seriously, I am a terrible person for hating to cook breakfast.  I should love to make pancakes and eggs and bacon and toast...all simultaneously and perfectly and all twirling around, pushing down the toaster lever with my elbow because I have a merry spatula in one hand and a nursing baby in the other.  I should enjoy that.

But...I do not. 

I yell at you when I feel obligated to fry you your morning meat.


Then, there is soda.  I dump full cans of soda down the drain.  My husband informed me last night that dumping soda down the drain, in front of our children, whilst the children are clamoring for the soda, WILL, in fact, cause deep psychological damage in our children in their adulthood.  

Probably more of this:



I say to Husband, “But...why do you keep bringing soda into the house?”

He has no good answer.

I say, “Do you feel no part of this deep psychological scarring...as you are the supplier?”

He says nothing.

This is all on me.

Moments ago, in the midst of howls and leg clutching that nearly pulled down my pants, I dumped another can of Dr Pepper because Shirtless wanted it for TODAY’S breakfast.  I mean...who can blame him for ASKING for something as simple as soda since YESTERDAY I flipped out on him whilst cooking a NORMAL breakfast of fried meat....

Soda.  Dumped.





Then, there was the lady with the monogrammed baseball tee...a few days ago.

I am still thinking about her.

I take Shirtless and Pixie to "a thing" at church, and there is the mom, the mom with a bunch of kids who is always dressed perfectly.  I saw her from afar.  I am always looking for this lady, so I can avoid her.  I do not like to be near people who comb their hair, let ALONE people who carry expensive purses on their wrist...with their bedazzled cell phones all up in their perfectly manicured nails.  

I mean...who wants to see this every day!

When I see this, I throw up in my mouth a little and then I feel really ugly, like butt ugly, and then I feel bad for my husband, and then I decide to clean up my act a bit, and then I go buy hair color in the grocery store, and then I get orange hair.  So, it is best to NOT look at the perfectly dressed mom.

But, there she was...ol perfect mom.

I was schlepping across the parking lot with many many kids...all of them mine.  I had just nursed Baby Child, so I am pretty sure my bra was still wadded up above my left boob, meaning I had one boob in its semi-normal location (near my ribs), whilst the other boob was pushed down flat by the bra bulge.  Here I come, schlep...schlep...weird boobs.

There she was – I saw her from behind...but...wuh?  wuh?  She was purseless...phoneless...she...she was wearing a baseball tee and khaki shorts.

The joy.  The rapture.  A baseball tee.

I wear those!



We were one, this mom and me.

No more orange hair for me.  I sidled right up to where she was, so I could get a closer look at her averageness and show her my weird boobs.

She turned around.

It was monogrammed.




The schleppy baseball tee was monogrammed...freshly...like vibrant colors, popping out, as in – just monogrammed this morning or something...probably in her IKEA-sponsored Pinterest workshop above her well-organized garage with hooks hanging from the rafters...for HANGING stuff.

COME ON.

I retreated.  I dove behind a large cement pillar.  I had no idea where my kids were...that wasn’t important.




Today, I’d call my hair more pink than orange.



So, um.  Yes.  I am having doubts and experiencing some confusion.

And, how are you?


















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