Today, I had a student give a speech on generalized anxiety disorder. At some point, it was tough to critique her speech and delivery and not get sucked into the content. Because every one of the symptoms she used, I have. And really, we got into a fairly good discussion because I posed the question: Aren’t those all the symptoms of a parent?
The student had the audacity to suggest I seek medical attention. She also has the audacity to be childless.
Is it me, or do all the other mommies out there “suffer” from the following from psychcentral.com:
* Restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge
* Being easily fatigued
* Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank
* Irritability
* Muscle tension
* Sleep disturbance (difficulty falling or staying asleep, or restless unsatisfying sleep)
Because since having kids, I’ve never slept that well, and I’m usually on edge about something. What else? Oh, yes, difficulty concentrating or mind going blank.
Sigh.
Irritability. Insert more hysterical and a bit uncontrollable laughter here.
Muscle tension. I was in yoga the other day and she had us do some reverse relaxation gig where you tighten up your muscles and then release. I have to do that to relax always.
And then sleep disturbance. If by that you mean, I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t stop my mind from racing about all the potentially worry_things about my family so I have to turn on the Cosby Show because that’s the only non_conflicting show? That’s sleep disturbance and therefore leading back to being easily fatigued right?
Okay, well, here’s the part she missed: The anxiety, worry, or physical symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. *psychcentral.com
Ahh, okay, I’m good. Because my social and everything else functioning is solely based with fellow parents. I roll with other mommies. We laugh in the face of words like anxiety and disorder. We trump those words with words like poopy pants, projectile vomiting, residule laundry, and school parking lot rage. We call it motherhood.
So, the next day, you can imagine my surprise when it was windy out, I couldn’t figure out when it was snowing and when it was just blowing old snow, I was walking from building to building tracking down speeches in all kinds of crazy ways. My feet hurt, someone sent in the wrong kind of tape, I finally get to someone who can play the darn tape for me. It better be a good speech. I’m just sayin. And I get a bonafide super well_supported and kick ass speech, simply persuading me to get this: Laugh more.
Ahhh, the yin and yang of teaching, learning and life.
That’s how I roll.

The other day, I heard Max and his friend talking football.
Max’s pal says, “I’ve just GOT to get on like, the BEST team _ cuz I’m really THAT good. I’m soooo good. And I just CAN’T be on a bad team. Cuz, I’m just too good for that.”
Yes, he really said that, because I wrote it down as fast as I could.
And I really wanted to intervene. But instead I talked myself down while I poured myself another cup of coffee. And that’s when Max replied,
“Well, you could be on a not_so_good team and help your teammates.”
Sweet Jesus, my job here is done. The boy just encapsulated everything we’ve tried to teach him about kindness and problem_solving, about being positive, about friends and sports. All. In. One. Sentence. I think I gave birth to a super_hero. I really do.
That’s how I roll.

This is exactly what my house looks like when I call a service guy to come help me out. And yes, she is on the toilet with a computer in front of her. Don’t act like you’ve never done that before.
We had to call the roto rooter guy to come help with a slight water problem in the basement. By slight, I mean, we thought I was loading the washing machine up too much at times, and then it would overflow just a bit on to the concrete floor. When I do that, there’s usually a little puddle I the corner. But this time, the puddle in the corner had grown to really, a large film of water in the entire laundry room.
I don’t have to call home service places like this too much, but when I do, I always wonder if they run background checks. It’s just, I’m too lame to ask. Just like at the restaurant, you don’t want to ask too many questions and then they spit in your food. Similar, in this situation, you tick off the call lady, she just might send the felon on probation. And really, all a background check can do is assure that the guy hasn’t committed a crime….YET.
Still, I worry about the position the guy is in as well. Just one snot_nosed uppity law suit and this guy could lose his job. God only knows what this guy is vulnerable to. At my house, “It’s okay, he just wants you to pet him. He won’t kill you unless I give the command” it’s probably the least of his worries. But I can’t imagine the potential accusations that these guys have to prepare for in training sessions. I’m only guessing it parallels with other training sessions like, “How to unclog a hot wheels car in a toilet with a bunch of nasty poop.” I bet that’s atleast a day’s session right there.
So, the guy comes over. Seems nice enough. I show him down to the culprit. He runs some water, and says,
“Yep your drain is clogged up.”
“Does that mean I need a new front loading washer dryer?”
“Uh no. Sign here and I’ll fix it for you.”
“Fine.”
I think he kinda liked me.
That’s how I roll.

The other day, while running by the breakfast table, I glanced over and saw Lucy making out with her muffins and yogurt. Absolute kissing on a muffin. A muffin. It gave a whole new meaning to loving your food. It was grossing me out. And like they say when you’re dying, the register of what this girl could have potentially witnessed to instigate this new blueberry crumble boyfriend make out session flashed before my eyes.
What if it was Ricardo and I? Oh God. Maybe they just saw something on tv. Let’s be real here, the odds of the latter situation are more likely. Because that would be MUCH better, sure. They pretty much stick to Disney and Nickelodeon but that Zoey 101 IS pregnant… And we have parent controls on their computer right? All that in less than a second.
So, I gave her the That’s_inappropriate_behavior_and_you_know_it_look. And she just said, “What? That’s how they do it with Ferrero Rocher commercials!”
Thank God those Herbal Essences commercials are gone. That one would have been weird.
I’m just glad it’s not my fault. I mean really, how am I supposed to filter and child_proof chocolate commercials?
So I explained that chocolate is a whole different level than blueberry muffins. And we went on with our day.
That’s how I roll.

I was raised to prepare for hurricanes and tornadoes. Snow and cold, it turns out, isn’t necessarily noted anywhere as a natural disaster _ but it should be. I keep asking Ricardo, “Seriously, have you ever lived in a winter like this before? Or is it just me?”
He assures me that uh, Yes _ I’m a big wuss. Still, this winter is one of the worst he’s ever experienced.
It all started with a white Christmas. Snowed in on Christmas. And although we weren’t able to drive to our family Christmas _ we had one snuggly family Christmas at home. It was pretty and fun.
The fun stopped the day after Christmas.
Day one _ shoveling snow. I can’t really explain shoveling snow. There’s a process, and yes sometimes people (smart people) shovel while it’s still snowing. That is to lessen the load later. Snow, it turns out, is heavy, and sometimes packed down and icy. The more snow you shovel, the better your odds of being able to get up your inclined driveway after surviving unplowed roads. And you need to do that, and then re_shovel once the snow stops. Our personal preference is to shovel every 4″ of snow.
We help our neighbors get their driveways cleared. They come over later with a Thank You Ham. This nice thing is working out nicely.
Day two _ Where are the snow plows? I can drive on my driveway, but that’s about it. The kids have made a full on snowboarding/sledding slope with two separate tracks, and a ramp for take off. If they get a good enough go at it, they end up three yards away. I can’t tell them to stay out of the street because there’s no street.
Day three, or maybe it’s four, I’ve lost time _ Stupid snow plows. They finally came through, but when they plow the street, they plow snow back into your driveway. Grab a shovel. We announce to the kids that we’re going out to shovel and they are welcome to join us if they want. Thanks to Santa _ they are simply too busy with their video games, new movies and board games to even possibly think to shovel. I hide all the lighters and knives and go to work.What. Is. This? Ricardo explains that it’s icy packed snow. Duh. He breaks it up and pushes it up the driveway for me to shovel into the yard. We’re having to find more creative places to put the snow. We are literally pushing snow up hill…both ways.
I dig out our mailbox, and the neighbor’s too. We can get out and drive now. I suppose we could go to the gym and all. But I just got a workout shoveling and snow_blowing for two hours. TWO HOURS. That is 12 points on my Weight Watchers plan. Guess I can have that ham after all.
Week two: It snowed again. Really its not safe to drive because of the 6′ snow plowed up every where. So, you pull up to an intersection, look to see if it’s clear to turn, and are greeted with a snow pile salutation. You could stick the nose of your car out a little further, but oncoming traffic isn’t really in the position to tap the breaks _ seeing as how they are driving on snow and ice.
Week three _ Yay the kids go back to school and I can focus back on my awesome teaching skillz and writing that book, and blogness. Woops. Nope. School is canceled due to more snow.
Well, there’s always tomorrow. Wait. Nope, the next day it’s canceled again. This time, school is canceled just because wait for it…wait for it…IT’S TOO COLD OUT.
A part of me thinks the school guy who makes this call is being a big baby. Someone doesn’t have their lesson plans ready. The kids are having a blast at home. They are starting to think that this snow will never melt, only accumulate, and there will be no more school ever again. Me too.
But the truth of it, the school guy who is making this call is considering the parents who send their kids to the bus stop. Standing in snow up to their thighs, while getting frost bite _ well, it’s frowned upon. So, no school. Did I mention we don’t have bus service for our school?
Why is my house such a mess? Because it’s never been more lived in than it has been for the last 3 weeks. About ten days into it, I decided to just go with it and stop nagging. It’s a fire hazard here, now. Nagging has it’s benefits. Still, I opt to clean when they go back to school. Whenever that may be.
Having twins is a lot of fun in a situation like this. They are each other’s best friend. But they are also siblings. They bicker and tattle and fuss. Phrases like “Let’s play a game” or “Let’s bake something” are now being replaced with “Stop talking” and “Separate” and “Make Mommy another totty”. The problem is half the time they fight. The other half of the time, they get along, and that’s a problem too. I think they’ve just united in force against me.
The weather guy says its _5 out but it feels like _27. Don’t you tell me what to feel mister weather guy. Its colder here than Antarctica. I checked. I surf travel deals to the equator. Fine, maybe just Mexico. Fine Texas. Oh just forget it, I’m going to take hot bath number 4 for the day.
The kids’ school keeps getting canceled, but the schools I teach at do not. Getting a sitter when you work for the first couple of days is fine _ but I’ve tapped out all my friends that I’d like to keep and Ricardo can’t work from home. He needs to go to work to rest…
On Friday, I decide to risk hypothermia and frostbite to get to the pizza fun place.
Its so cold out and there is so much snow everywhere, piles and piles and piles of it. While we’re hustling in _ to avoid frostbite _ I notice snow in the air. I can’t tell if it’s actually snowing, or just blowing remnants from the roofs or what. And then I realize that I don’t care. All this time, I’ve been underestimating the value of painted parking space lines. But with a 3″ layer of snow all over, I see now how, uh _ creative and free_form people can express themselves through parking.
I just paid almost $100 for a pizza buffet and unlimited fun rides. I realize I got robbed and that’s the price of an insured therapy session _ but they don’t serve diet coke and pizza, nor a dessert bar at therapy. And therapy doesn’t understand that money indeed can buy happiness _ and sanity _ in the form of skee_ball and indoor go_karts. I try to find a way to justify this into our budget though. “Kids, get comfy. We’re staying for lunch, snack and dinner.” And we do. Its not as crowded here as I thought it would be. I figured everyone would be here. But it’s fairly empty. Was it THAT bad to get them outside even for less than a minute? I’m starting to question my parental responsibility of my decision on getting the kids out in this when I see a kid in sandals with heels. Okay, I’m good. I’m a better mom. For sure. Worse than the kid in sandals is the kid with frostbite on her nose.
We finally made it to today. I dropped the kids off without even checking to see if school was open. I’m assuming it was based solely on the traffic. Maybe everyone else was doing the same.
Today it’s supposed to get up to 30 degrees. Tomorrow and Wednesday _ it’ll be in the high 30s. It’s a beautiful muddy mess. I’m thinking about re_shoveling the driveway in my bikini. I mean, the snow is blinding already, my skin would just blend right in.
That’s how I roll.

Since school has been canceled for the third day in a row due to weather (don’t get me started) _ my minivan proves yet again to be a place for more learning opportunities than school.
I’d say for the last year or so, we’ve been locking the door for uh, late night curricular activities. I’d be so bold as to suggest it’s the signal for game time. Or perhaps locking the door at this age is foreplay. All I’m saying is, I don’t want the kids seeing our uglies bumping. We lock the door. The day they decide to pick that lock is their own damned fault.
So, the other day, I picked up a fellow gal pal and her kids fairly early in the morning. The kids were all one_upping each other about how they had to get up so early.
Her kid: “I just woke up 5 minutes before you picked us up!”
My kid:”Well I got up at like SEVEN or something!”
Her other kid: “Well, I woke up so early, my clock said 6, and I went to get my mom, but their DOOR WAS LOCKED!”
I did a slow look over to my friend (because I was driving), who’s eyes about popped out of her head and then she just dropped her face of shame (and apparent satisfaction) in her hands and started laughing.
I looked in the rear view mirrow at the kids and quickly ended the awkward silence with, “Well, I bet they were cleaning the bathroom and didn’t want to wake you up so they shut and locked the door.”
Then I looked over at my pal in a high pitched tone, “Well….uh…(she’s still laughing)….uh….whatcha been up to?”
BAHAHAHAAHAH!
It’s good to know that my pal has a healthy and satisfying marriage. That’s great. And it’s also a great reminder that I should lock the door in the morning too. Never thought of the occasional kid waking up earlier than usual.
That’s how I roll.

One more thing about Santa _ because nothing says fun like bringing your kid to tears like the holidays.
We knew _ thanks to her many proclamations _ that Lucy was still on board with the Santa gig. But we weren’t sure what Max thought. We figured from his lack of reciprocating said proclamations that he was suspicious. And we (I say “we” because, yes, Ricardo and I had more than one discussions over this very subject) assumed he was staying mum about it to not fizz out Lucy’s dream. Aww, how sweet is that? Well, it was that or he didn’t want her to punch him. He’s smart like that.
So you can imagine our surprise on Christmas Eve night, hours after we’d sent them to bed, when he came down stairs hysterical and crying. We could barely understand what he was so upset about. I mean for crying out loud, it’s the one night a year we get the kids to bed with the promise of a man breaking and entering to bring gifts for kids. Toys from strangers? Sure, it’s cool. Max was desperately searching for the right words. And finally: “Well…sniff sniff…I was thinking that if Santa doesn’t come I’ll blame you guys because you didn’t go to bed in time. He could be flying over any minute!” And then he just collapsed in my arms, shaking and completely shuddering at the fact that a) Santa might not come, and 2.) he was heart broken that he had to call us out like that. Guess we were wrong about the whole belief thing with Max…
So we turned off our movie and followed him up to bed. Tucked him in and tried as best we could to lay in our bed and out last Max so we could welcome Santa when he got here.
Max didn’t notice that Santa had already eaten the cookies…
That’s how I roll.