Monthly Archives: December 2017

Stop. You’re missing Christmas.

Posted on December 19, 2017 | 2 comments

I can’t believe Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is right around the corner. Seems like it was only Halloween yesterday. Oh, but how I love this time of year. Everything is just better, just shinier, this time of year. Cozied up in pajamas under a blanket, drinking a mug of something hot, watching holiday specials. Happy sigh. It all begins now.

Although…I really should have started buying presents already. Like, in July. I always tell myself I’ll start early, buy a few every month, but I never do. Christmas falls on the same day every year and yet I never learn. How many paychecks until Christmas? One, two…Only that many?! Crap. I should check the bank account. Start making the dreaded “People To Buy For” list. So many people. Why do I like so many people? Why does my chest feel so tight?

Nope. Stop. Just stop. You’re missing it. You’re missing all the good parts. It’s Christmas! Stop stressing. You’ll figure it out.

Of course I will. You’re right. I always do. Oh, and don’t forget, it is finally seasonably appropriate to drink eggnog again. And to drink all your daily allotted calories in one single festive coffee drink. Whipped cream? You bet your sweet barista ass I want whip cream. Load me up. Calories don’t count in December.

Ugh. Look at this line though. Every store, every restaurant, every coffee place. They’re a nightmare during the holidays. And nobody’s smiling. Why is no one smiling? It’s Christmas, you jerks. It’s supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year and yet all these people out here acting like feral animals. Yes, lady, I see you trying to oh-so-nonchalantly butt in front of me in line. It’s people. The public. Without them, Christmas would be perfect. WHY HASN’T THIS LINE MOVED!?

No. Stop. What is wrong with you? You are quite literally acting like the very people you were just complaining about. Now slap a smile on your face and remember it’s Christmas! You love Christmas!

I do. I really do. This year will be so fun too. The kids are at that perfect age where everything is magical again. The lights, the candy canes, making snowmen. And Christmas morning! Are you kidding me? They’re going to lose it. I can’t wait to see his face when he opens his Darth Vader and her face when she sees that cardboard box that she’d much rather play with than whatever toy actually came in it. I’ll even let them have cookies for breakfast. ‘Tis the season, after all!

I do worry though that maybe we bought them too many gifts. Spoiled them. He’s not even four yet and she’s only 18 months. Do they really need that many material things? Are we creating monsters that will throw a tantrum in a few years because we got them the wrong iPhone? No, no. I tend to be a bit dramatic about these things. In fact, now that I think about it, we didn’t actually buy them that much. Oh god, what if we didn’t buy them enough? What if Christmas morning is a big disappointment!?

Seriously? You’re the worst. And, again, you’re missing everything while internally debating ridiculous things. Now sit your ass down and have some cocoa and cookies with your delightful children, you weirdly indecisive Grinch.

Yes, yes, you’re right. I should just relax. Christmas is always magical if you just step back and get out of its way. I mean, take a look at our house. All lit up. It’s beautiful. I’m going to have some eggnog and just sit here and look at the lights.

Ah. Now this is what contentment feels like.

Too bad the house will feel so empty and cold when we have to take all these decorations down. Is it possible to be depressed about Christmas being over before it’s even really started? Is there a name for that? The preemptive blues? Well, at least Preemptive Blues will make a great band name if I ever get out of this funk and start learning to play guitar. Be the opening act for the band January Sucks.  

And January IS going to suck. I’ll have to actually start doing all the things I’ve been putting off until “after the holidays.” No more whipped cream on my 2,000 calorie coffee. Just an endless string of months filled with awful weather and getting my life together and nothing else.

UGH. STOP. You’re like an emo Krampus. Ruining Christmas for everyone with your whining. YOU ARE MISSING IT. Right now. It’s happening right now. So knock it off and have some more eggnog and wrap some presents and make out with your husband while wearing a Santa hat and ENJOY THESE MOMENTS IN THE MOMENT, YOU HOLLY JOLLY IDIOT.

You know, you’re so right. I will have some more noggen. Whoops. Eggnog. Because yesh, Christmas can be stressfun stressful but only iffen you let it. But I will sat here and have more egnoog (in fact, may as weel polish off this bottle) and be IN THE MOOMENT. Like Buddha. Lick a festive drunk Buddha. Buddha on a shelf. Ha! Ha! Man, this noggen is dellious delishush dalishus damn good. Maw have overdoon it though. Ah, butt (heh) it’s Chrisstmas.

Fa la la la la…hiccup…la la la la

 

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Posted in funny, Holidays, Humor, Parenting, Women

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The Great Grilled Cheese Meltdown of 2017

Posted on December 12, 2017 | Leave a comment

Maybe it was because my husband has been swamped with work lately. Or maybe it was because we couldn’t find a babysitter so I could join him at a company Christmas party for a few glorious kid-free hours. Or hell, maybe because it was Tuesday…I think it was Tuesday…but really it doesn’t matter if it WAS Tuesday because the demands of motherhood never, ever stop, making the very concept of time irrelevant. And the concept of death, for that matter, since I can guarantee the kids will only visit my tombstone to ask me to refill their sippy cups and can I help them find their Batman toy?

But regardless of the reason, I had a meltdown over a grilled cheese sandwich. A flip out over the flipping of a sandwich. An existential crisis over an extraordinarily mundane dinner.  

It was all the pan’s fault. That stupid non-stick sticky pan. I should have gotten rid of it ages ago. But who wants to go pan shopping? I get 45 seconds of free time every day. Like I’m going to use it to do something necessary and grown-up and boring. Pffft.

So, since I am selfish and immature and use my free time to do outlandish things like pee and write curse words on Facebook, the grilled cheese sandwich stuck to the pan. Which destroyed the flip. Which destroyed the sandwich. Because while “technically” it was still edible, I was making it for the world’s most discerning and acid-tongued food critic in the entire world…

A preschooler.

A preschooler, mind you, who considers potatoes too exotic and spicy.  

(And that is a direct quote).

The whole reason we were HAVING grilled cheese for dinner in the first place was because it was supposed to be easy. I was tired. I didn’t want to fight about how my meatloaf smells weird and the lasagna looks like dog food.

(Also direct quotes).

And then the kids started fighting in the living room and the dog started barking at the kids because he thinks the solution to every kid-related problem is to just be louder than them (which is also pretty much my parenting method) and it just seemed like too much effort to butter some more bread and throw cheese on it and so…

I lost it.

I dramatically threw the whole mess, ruined sandwich, stupid sticky pan, any semblance of remaining dignity, into the sink and dropped to my knees right there in the kitchen and let out a primal scream. And then I cried a little. Not really a real cry but one of those “I wish someone could see me so they could feel sorry for me” cries. But still, it did include real tears so if you HAD seen me, you’d probably feel a little sorry for me.

And then, as I knelt there on the floor and looked around, I realized, with the clarity that comes after the release of intense emotions, that the pan is just one of the thousand items in my house that have completely lost their usefulness and are skating along the thin ice of their former reputation. Because my whole life is out of control. Because children are tornadoes of pure love and pure chaos.

And that’s why there is a case of Stella Artois beer bottles sitting in an obscure corner of our kitchen that has been there so long I’m pretty sure it’s essential to the structural integrity of our house now. The beer that was bought because hey, let’s try something new. And the beer that was abandoned because, hey, it tastes like alcoholic boogers.

Or the tupperware full of used batteries that I can’t get rid of because I want to properly and responsibly dispose of them but I don’t know how to properly and responsibly dispose of them and also don’t want to bother looking up how to properly and responsibly dispose of them.

Or the ever growing pile of Swiffer sweepers in yet another corner, only one of which isn’t broken, which is also coincidentally the one I can never find.

I need to get rid of all this stuff. Gain control. Any control. And I try to. Especially every year at this time. Because while I can blissfully ignore it the rest of the year, the thought of Christmas coming up and all the shiny new things that will be lovingly piled on top of all our old crap makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a candy cane.

But Aprill, you might be thinking, couldn’t at least part of the solution to your problem be to just ask for a pan for Christmas? And, yes, you’re right. But no. Ew. Gross. Why should my Christmas be ruined with a practical gift when I can so easily just buy a new pan myself?

Which I will totally do.

Eventually.

Maybe after the Big Omelet Breakdown of 2018.

Or the Pancake Freakout of 2019.

Or the Even Greater Grilled Cheese Meltdown of 2025.

To be honest, I’m probably going to be buried with that stupid pan and that ancient case of Stella beer.

But hey, at least my ghostly essence will have something to refill my kids’ sippy cups with when they come visit the cemetery. I’ll even throw some used batteries at them for their stupid Batman toy.

 

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Posted in Family, Food, funny, Holidays, Humor, Parenting

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Well, there’s always tomorrow

Posted on December 5, 2017 | Leave a comment

I have never wanted to star in a reality TV show. I have happily hate-watched enough of them to ever wish that kind of scrutiny on myself.

So, imagine my surprise, then, when I had kids and suddenly realized I was one.

Every day of my life now is pretty much the kids binge-watching their favorite reality show, “Keeping Up With Momma’s Sanity.” Followed by the spin-off, “Here Comes Vodka.”

Those adorable little sponges absorb every single little thing I do with their big eyes. And then repeat everything I say with their even bigger mouths (including curse words they “may” have overheard a “certain” parent say).

Which is why I want to be a good example for my children. I really do. I want to be the friggin’ best example of humanity that has ever existed for them. But since that will never happen (I once told my entire second grade class that Santa didn’t exist), I’ll settle for trying to be the best version of myself for my kids.

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Here’s who I want to be. I want to be the loving dog owner who is always patient and kind with her aging dog, Buffy. The kind of owner who never gets annoyed with his incessant, loud barking because she knows his eyesight and hearing is going and so every fast movement and loud sound is clearly a gang of pirates attacking the house, which can only be stopped by his heroic barking efforts.

I want to be the loving mother who keeps her cool at dinner when both kids are complaining about the home-cooked meal placed in front of them, even though they also complained about lunch. And breakfast. And every meal the day before. And the day before that. And everything I have placed in front of their mouth holes that wasn’t chocolate since the day they came into existence.  

I want to be the confident professional(ish) writer who works hard and leaves a beautiful published legacy for her family.

I want to be the loving wife who definitely doesn’t bury her husband under an angry verbal avalanche of “guess what YOUR children did today?” as soon as he walks in the door.

But here’s who I am.

I am the loving dog owner who patiently tolerates my aging dog Buffy’s panicked barking…up to a certain point. And then I will yell back “SHUT UP, BUFFY! SHUT UP! YOU’RE KILLING ME! YOU’RE *definitely not a curse word* KILLING ME!”

I am the loving mother who once snapped and threw both kids’ dinner plates out the window.

I am the professional(ish) writer who, when suffering from a bout of writer’s block, slams shut her computer and yells “WORDS ARE DUMB” and then hides in the kitchen to shove unhealthy amounts of cheese in her mouth.

I am the loving wife who also assaults her husbands with verbal tsunamis, verbal monsoons and, on one particularly bad day, a verbal tornado (when he was still in the driveway).  

Sigh.  

It’s enough to keep a girl up at night worrying about whether or not she’s ruining her kids.

But then I remind myself that, from time to time, I’m also the mom who will spend hours every day reading books to her children until they get sick of it (and they never do). And I am Darth Vader Momma, who will have light saber fights with Stormtrooper Riker with one hand while holding Baby Yoda Mae in the other, and even resists the urge to correct her 3-year-old on why this situation goes against “Star Wars” canon.

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I’m also the loving dog owner who carries her dog up and down the stairs when the temperature drops too low, kicking his arthritis into high gear. And then gives him all the mashed potatoes her daughter didn’t eat because him such a good wittle puppeh, isn’t him? And then quietly cleans up the vomit the next day because his aging system can no longer handle human food.  

I am the completely not confident writer barely scraping by who still writes and never stops writing because she loves it. And then fiercely hates it. And then loves it again.

And I am the loving wife who makes naughty stick figure drawings for her husband and hides them in his computer bag.

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I am a work in progress. And ultimately, perhaps that’s the best lesson of humanity I could teach my children. That no one is perfect but every day is another chance to be a better person.  

Eh…nah. It’d be much better if I was just a much better human overall. One who didn’t eat her kid’s last chicken nugget when they weren’t looking.

But still, every day is another chance to be a better person.

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Posted in Family, funny, Humor, Parenting, Pop Culture, Writing

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