I am She-Ra, Princess of Mommy Power!!

Rosemary as She-ra.
Yeah, I made that costume.
It was yet another moment
where I was a
Master of the Mommy Universe.

Yesterday, I was in a mommy funk. (Check that link if you get a chance, because I'm about to make reference to some things from yesterday's post.) 

Today, I ROCKED IT.

Here are my accomplishments:

1. I got us out the door without seeming like a stressed out lunatic mommy. I believe it has to do with getting more sleep.

2. I ate breakfast, as promised. I DID finish my morning coffee, and didn't reheat it even once.

3. I cleaned up for company. (If Amy reads this, I'm sorry to announce that my version of clean--which I like to call "cleaner"--is what you saw. That's as good as it gets until the kids grow up and move out.)

4. We played with our company and had fun. We played outside in the rain, and that suited me just fine.

5. After company, I picked up my friend's little girl from morning kindergarten. I prepared snacks and drinks, and then I watched two sweet girls adorned in mismatched dress-up clothes dance to music from Olivia's preschool class. I made popcorn, and they watched something calm on Netflix. I helped make paper crowns covered in glitter glue. Like my friend said the day before, when we discussed me watching her little girl, having a friend over for Olivia got her out of my pocket for awhile.

6. I managed a dispute between Olivia and Rosemary about chalk. I don't mean to brag, except that I DO mean to brag. I was stinking AMAZING. By the time I was done, they'd talked the whole thing out and everybody was ready to take turns and play together again.  It was a moment of parenting awesomeness.

7. I cooked dinner, and everybody liked it! If you're one of my amazing Facebook fans, you might've seen that I made "Copy Cat Cracker Barrel Chicken Tenders" for the first time. Olivia said if they tasted like a copy cat, she wasn't eating them...but she totally ate them anyway. 

So...look how far we've come in one day! 

I have to run now--because it's 11:04pm, and I vowed to make an 11:00 bedtime. She-ra needs her beauty sleep!    

I Don't Wanna Be Decapitated St. Francis!

This is how I have been feeling today. A bit like St. Francis after he's been used as a bowling pin. If you're wondering, that's actually how he got broken...Rosemary used him as a bowling pin one time too many.

If you want to know the truth about it, I've been Grumpy Mom (again) today. 

I didn't want to be, but it's just that there's always somebody who wants something from me. There's somebody making noise around me, at me, on me, in spite of me. I'm hungry and didn't eat enough because I was focused on feeding other people. I swear, I reheated my coffee in the microwave at least 4 times this morning, and I never did finish the whole cup. And somebody was following me around ALL DAY with her hand shoved in my jeans pocket, laughing a lot and saying, "I'm attached to you! I'm attached to you, Mommy!", or insisting on helping me cut onions with a very sharp knife, or neeeeeeeding me to play, puhleeeeeeeeeeeeez?! How about now? Now? NOW? (Nobody EVER plays with that kid. She's totally neglected, in case you're wondering. There's also NOTHING that says her name on it--"Olivia". And she never gets anything or gets to do ANYTHING. Can you imagine?)

And in spite of all that puhleeeeeez-ing, there's laundry all over my house, dishes piling up in the sink, and dirt on the floor. Oh, and rhinestones. There are always, always rhinestones all over my floors. We love sparkly around here.

My body and my senses are not my own today, and I'm keenly aware of it. I guess I'm not in control of anything, including my emotions. 

And what I really want today is to sit in a quiet room, look out the window, sip a glass of wine, eat chocolate and Cheez-its, read awhile, take a ridiculously long bath, and then go to bed in the bedroom I slept in when I was a kid--because my dad put me in the basement and sound-proofed it so that he wouldn't have to hear me practice my french horn. Oh, how I long to sleep there. It was always so quiet and so dark at night.

This post by blogging buddy Jessica Smock resonated with me today. It's about how we introverts shouldn't feel bad about our need to step away from constant social interaction and get our mothering mojo back. So I am trying not to feel so bad about wanting to escape to a rubber room, but I'm also trying to figure out what to do about the issues I am having.

And I've decided that tomorrow is a new day. 

For the next week, my plan is to focus on three things: food, water, and sleep. Cyber-audience, I hereby solemnly vow that I will eat breakfast every day for a week. You heard it here first. And I will go to bed by 11pm every night. Yes, every night. And I will drink more water and less sugary, caffeinated crap. 

And we will reconvene after that, and I will be transformed into the She-ra of the mommy universe. I will become as beloved as St. Francis before that big ball from Wal-mart took off his head. Or at least I'll be less grumpy and better able to function. I am not sure about how to deal with the noise in my universe, but I guess I'll figure out something.

How do you cope when your universe gets too chaotic?    

These Aren't the Moments We Live For, But...

It’s 8:03pm and my girls are asleep. 

This grin isn't toothless...Sure is cute, though. Yeah, not asleep.

Not the kind of “sleep” that involves the isometric exercise that is my children scrunching their eyelids so that they’re all wrinkly and shaking while the eyelashes just poke out; not the kind of “sleep” a child does with a toothless grin on her face because she’s thinking that you think she’s asleep and looking just like she did as a tiny, angelic baby. Not the kind of "sleep" where the minute you close the door and walk away, she’s hiding under the covers with her Violet the Dog, making Violet light up and sing songs that say her name in that narcissistic way designed specifically for the toddler set. I don’t hear Violet saying, “Hello, Olivia! Let’s sing a song about YOU!” Not this time.

Mommy Insomnia Syndrome

Sloppy Copy Mommy, WebMD Edition

My name is Jessica and I am battling MIS. Mommy Insomnia Syndrome. It’s a medical term coined by me, a high school reading specialist and mommy. Please wait a moment while I put on my white lab coat so I can explain the signs and symptoms to you.

The first signs of MIS become apparent as soon as the mommy wakes up in the morning.  Patients have been observed craving coffee while they lay awake cursing the alarm as early as 5am. Often the mommy has woken up several times during the night, usually following the pattern she started when she became pregnant for the first time, though sometimes other people and animals just wake her up. Over and over. And over. Even when the parasites who feed off the mommy every other stinking waking minute of the night during infancy start to sleep through (3 long years later), the mommy continues the pattern of waking up periodically ALL NIGHT LONG.  This prevents the afflicted mommy from obtaining a decent night’s sleep for several years, particularly when she continues to have children.

A Reason to Sing

The last few nights, Rosemary has been asking me to rock her like I used to do when she was little. She says she just wants to hear me sing. When I rocked her to sleep every night, I used to sing for hours and hours. Even though rocking and singing seemed to keep her awake even longer, I tried very hard not to resent those hours sitting in the dark and holding her close, and most of the time I didn’t. There were desperate moments after 10pm sometimes that I thought I might go insane and yearned to look into bright light again, but most of the time, I was quietly content to be snuggling with my own little angel baby—even when she was big enough to just go on to bed.