Getting out the door in the morning with kids sometimes feels like a behemoth undertaking, here are some tips to help you keep your sanity and feel less rushed.

Cute Boyfriend’s sister-in-law teaches 6th grade and has two little girls.  She is married to Cute Boyfriend’s brother who is also an engineer.  For the sake of this story, we will call her “Megan”.

Megan sent me a text message the other day and this is what it said,

“Hi! What do you do to get ready in the morning and have the children ready while getting out the door on time? Once I start work, I will have to drop the girls off at Before-Care at 6:30am (yikes!!) so I can be at work by 7.”

Here is my answer back to Megan,

“The best advice I can give you is to teach them how to get themselves ready.  They need to be able to get their own cereal in the morning, wipe up any messes they make and put the dishes in the sink.  They have to get themselves dressed and teeth brushed.

Having a stool that lives in the kitchen is great. Also, have a smaller milk jug that is “kid sized”, this will reduce spillage.

Finally, pre-approved outfits the night before are critical.  Zoe and I would argue every morning about what she was wearing until we could compromise.  Doing that the night before is a game changer.”

I honestly cannot stress enough how critical it is to teach your children to take care of themselves early.  As young children, giving them a stool so they can reach the sink and cabinets to get themselves a drink of water is a great way to start.  Being able to reach the sink means they can also learn to scrape their plate and put it in the sink.  Once they are older, they can start putting their dishes in the dishwasher, then loading the dishwasher, unloading the dishwasher and eventually, hand washing pots & pans.  If you wait until they’re in middle-school, you will be combating hormones and mood swings and you’ll be trying to teach them multiple steps instead of just the “next” step.

As far as tooth brushing, every kid is different but DO NOT over complicate this process.  For Ellie, Cute Boyfriend found an app that had a fun song and a cartoon that showed Ellie which teeth she should be brushing and for how long. This was GREAT for bedtime, but this process brought everything to a grinding halt in the mornings.  Either Cute Boyfriend or I would have to stop, pull up the app and sit in the bathroom while she brushed her teeth.

PLEASE NOTE: I will never, ever recommend getting a young child their own tablet or smartphone.  Do the research, they are bad https://www.wsj.com/articles/iphones-and-children But more importantly, they are a major distraction that will slow your child down!!!

In the morning, I recommend a tiny hourglass.  If you have more than one kid, get more than one tiny hourglass so no one comes in mid-brush and takes the hourglass because they too have to brush their teeth.  Tiny hourglasses work great because kids don’t have a firm temporal understanding, but they do love to watch the sand fall from the top container to the bottom container.  They might not do as good of a job in the morning with their teeth as they do at night, so make sure you are monitoring them at night to make any necessary corrections.  The morning teeth brushing with the hourglass is just to help cement the habit.  Once they are older and they have their own teeth brushing routine solidified, they will already be programed to brush in the morning, no tablet required.

Now, for the milk jug.  I recommend using the 8oz creamer bottle from Bed, Bath & Beyond.  If they spill, it’s not a huge mess, the bottle comes with a silicone top that is very easy for kids to put on and take off.  They are only $3.99 each, so if you have more than one kiddo, you can buy multiple bottles and use a china pencil (grease pencil) to write their name on the bottle, this also decreases the amount of time they will spend arguing over who left the milk out because their name will literally be on it. You can fill the jug(s) at night so they are ready to go in the morning.  Cereal before you leave and fruit or a cheese stick in the car on the way to daycare or school works great!

Finally, the pre-approved outfits…

I was happy if Quinn remembered pants each morning, because clothing was of zero interest to her.  Ellie loves clothes and loves dressing for the season.  But Zoe…oh my God…that girl woke up every single morning and asked herself, “what would a homeless princess wear?” and THAT is how she chose her clothes for the day.  It didn’t matter if there was a foot of snow outside, she would want to wear a skirt, one flip flop, one snow boot and 5 sweaters.  So, instead of arguing with her all morning and making us late out the door, we would argue about the wardrobe before her bath at night.  This way, she was already in her closet and we could argue about pajamas and the clothes for tomorrow all at once.

Photo by Porapak Apichodilok from Pexels

These are just a few helpful hints to speed up your morning routine and get out the door with the kids in time to get to work (and not feel like you just waged and epic war of which you are unsure whether or not you won…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every year the kids would ask to see Santa and every year I would make up a lame excuse and then distract them as quickly as possible, yet another shining example of being a bad mom!

But I was being a bad mom for one very important reason, mall Santa’s are on drugs.  To be fair, I only know of one mall Santa to have been incapacitated by illegal substances, but that one Santa ruined it for my kids and me.

I was 16-years-old and working at the CD store in the mall.  A week before Christmas, the mall Santa wandered into the store where I was working in his full Santa outfit and proceeded to decimate the good name of “Santa”.

I was working with another teenage girl who we will call “Samantha”.  Samantha was a bit on the bigger side, but it wasn’t very noticeable because when you looked at her, all you saw were her gigantic boobs.   When Santa stumbled in, Samantha approached him and asked if she could help him find anything?

Santa responded by asking her, “do you have any acid?”

Samantha, unsure how to react, answered, “we have Lords of Acid or Crystal Method.” (Those were two techno bands at the time.)

Santa got very loud and asked her, “what if Santa’s ON acid?!”

At this point, the hoards of holiday shoppers stopped what they were doing just in time to hear Santa exclaim, “my God, you have enormous boobs!” He then turned and ran out of sight.

I called mall security who informed me Santa had tottered into a nearby shoe store and was currently terrorizing the people there, but assured me they had it under control.  A few moments later, we saw the mall security guards, wearing their pressed white shirts and Mountie-style hats, escort Santa past the CD store.  Santa was crawling on all fours.

After roughly 15-minutes, the mall security guards came back in carrying Santa’s beard as a souvenir and informed Samantha and me they had handed Santa off to the police and guaranteed us we wouldn’t have any more problems with the mischievous elf.

Just as the wanna-be Mounties finished reassuring us, Santa (minus his beard) ran past the CD store at a full sprint, followed closely by the aforementioned police officer and then immediately after by the two security guards (one of whom was still holding the beard).

Santa darted to his “village” at the center of the mall (near the entrance to the CD store), he was so nimble and quick! He grabbed a giant stuffed reindeer and turned with a jerk to run back past the CD store.  As he passed us, tightly clutching the stolen reindeer, he enthusiastically waved one hand at Samantha and yelled, “bye Big-Titty-Girl!!”

Santa then got tackled by the cop.

As I stood there watching the police officer and two security guards wrestle with Santa and a stuffed reindeer in the middle of the mall, I swore to myself that I would never, ever let my kids meet Santa.

The next day, there was a new Santa.  She only had one leg.

I have no idea what happened to that mall Santa, nor do I know if he was actually part of a work release program.  But I can say with 100% certainty that I will forever remember the man I affectionately call “Work Release Santa” and Samantha’s giant boobs.

If you had told me in the mid-nineties that in twenty years the following things would happen, I would have laughed myself stupid:

• Blink 182 would still be played on the radio
• Two of the tough-guys from the movie “Predator” would be elected Governor
• Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto would be Oscar Award Winners

None of those things could have been predicted, not even by Miss Cleo.  But Jared Leto’s career has led me to an interesting discovery, you can tell a person’s age by how they know Jared Leto.

I asked my boss this question, “How do you know Jared Leto?” My boss graduated high-school in 1998 and her answer was, “My So-Called Life”.  Since my boss is only one year older than me, this is the answer I was expecting.  Even though I did not have television growing up, I absolutely knew who the hot guy was from that TV show, as did most people from my generation.  

I posed this same question to another co-worker who is roughly 7-years my junior, “How do you know Jared Leto?” His answer was, “30 Seconds To Mars”.  Which is an alternative rock band Leto formed with his brother. 

My teenage children know him as the Joker in “Suicide Squad” and they both think he is an absolute hunk! Which totally cracks me up, because I think he’s super hot and it weirds me out that my kids and I are drooling over the same guy…

My parents know him from his Oscar winning performance and subsequence speech for the movie, “Dallas Buyers Club”.  

So, if you are ever curious how old a person is, bring up Jared Leto and see how they know him.  You’ll have your answer!

Today I was supposed to return to work, rested and ready to go after 11 days off for the holiday.  Instead, I woke up drenched in a cold sweat in a house with no children (they’re all with their other parent).  I had a headache and was absolutely furious at myself for getting sick on my first day back to work after so much time off.  Then it occured to me, I didn’t actually have any time off.  I never have time off.  I spent the entire holiday making sure everyone else had a fantastic break and I was absolutely frazzled and panicked about trying to go back to work exhausted.

I fully realize that this is not what a good mom is supposed to say after Christmas, but isn’t that the point of this blog? I’m burned out!  Our holiday was amazing, truly amazing. We always put up three Christmas trees, one for Cute Boyfriend that is color coordinated to the standards set by Macy’s departments stores.  A second tree for me that wears a tophat and sports memory filled ornaments and giant multi-colored lights reminiscent of the 80’s.  The third tree is actually a branch painted gold and encrusted with glitter that the two oldest and I hung tiny ornaments on when we were living month to month on food stamps, we call it our “Dr. Merry Seuss Tree”.  This Christmas was fabulously wonderful in every way, so why am I so fried?

The answer is simple, the holiday’s are for our families, not for moms.  I painstakingly got each of the kids exactly what they wanted for Christmas.  They got me a $6 chicken thermometer and spent the rest of the money I gave them on gifts for their friends.  (I could continue with examples, but if you have children, I will simply allow for you to insert your own examples here, as I am sure you know what I am talking about.)  So, today I took a mental health day! I honestly can not recommend this enough! Cute Boyfriend had already left for work and instead of continuing with my insane routine, I simply took advantage of an empty house and got back into bed.  The day has been glorious so far! I have binged watched Gilmore Girls on Netflix in my pajamas and I feel amazing! For breakfast I had a bowl of Quinn’s peanut butter cup cereal (because (s)he wasn’t here to stop me) and popcorn for lunch.  Today I am doing nothing and it is spectacularly uneventful.

So my advice to all of you parents is this, when that weirdly rare opportunity presents itself where you can have time to yourself without the kids or your significant other, TAKE IT! Don’t feel bad about calling into work, or ordering pizza instead of making dinner, do whatever it is that needs to be slightly altered so that you can have a few hours completely to yourself to do whatever you want to do!!

We get so frazzled and worn down trying to perfect the art of doing and remembering everything for everyone else.  Take time for yourself!  It is the BEST thing you can do for your family.  But most importantly, under no circumstance, can you feel guilty for taking time for yourself, a relaxed you is the best you and your family needs the best you.

So now, I am going to use a Bath Bomb (if you don’t know what this is, find out and get yourself one!) and tomorrow I will actually be rested and ready to resume my role as Super Bad Mom.

I do not play golf.  Correction, I do not play golf well.  I played competitive fast-pitch softball most of my life which means I swing that sissy little club like a bat.  I have to stand at the men’s tee because I hit the ball further then I should, and always into the rough.  I’m sure I could be a fairly good golfer with proper training, but I’m also sure that’s true for most people.  There is a word used in golf that I love, mulligan.  It is a sophisticated way of saying, “I totally screwed the pooch and I need a do-over”. My life now is absolutely a “mulligan”.

The funny thing about my mulligan life is that I thought I was doing everything perfectly the first time around.  We as a culture are brainwashed into believing there are these boxes you check off as an adult to prove you’re on the right path, and succeeding at being a human being.

• Go to college
• Get a good job
• Get married
• Have kids
• Buy a big house in the suburbs
• Stock the garage with two Toyotas
• Get a dog

I checked off all the boxes so how on earth did I screw up so badly? Turns out, those boxes are for suckers.  It’s not until you have checked off all those boxes and you’re terrifically in debt that you stop and think to yourself, “I’ve been had”.  Essentially, this is a long con our society pulls on people who think they’re providing a better life for their kids. Every generation wants to be better and so the con continues.

When I was a married-single-mom I was living in a 3400 square foot house with an in-ground pool and full size basketball court in the backyard.  I had a six-figure a year job and two great kids and I used all those checked boxes as a mask.  A mask that told the world I was happy and successful, a great mom and loving wife.  I was none of those things.  Eventually, my marriage became so toxic that I put on a ton of weight and that mask cracked on yet another “trip” down the stairs.

I married the wrong person.  The moment I came to the horrifying conclusion that I was in an abusive relationship was a typical night at our house.  He was mad, I was mad.  He was yelling and calling me names in front of the kids and I realized I was proud of myself because I had finally mastered the art of not crying.  Crying only made him angrier and he would mock me as I stood there sobbing.  He would lock me out of the house if I tried to go to the yard so the girls couldn’t hear me cry and he would kick in the bathroom door if I tried to cry in private.

Physical and verbal abuse are easy to identify.  Psychological abuse is so much harder because you yourself feel like you’re to blame.  The only way to really describe it is to give a ridiculous example.  Let’s say we were out of milk.  Let’s also say I made the terrible decision to ask him to pick up milk on his way home from where ever he was, because he didn’t work, but he was never home.  He would immediately begin accusing me of scissor kicking a goblin in the nuts.  I now feel the need to defend myself against this insane accusation because I know I never scissor kicked a goblin in the nuts, but I can’t prove it because I can’t even prove the existence of goblins. In the end, either I would go get more milk because I had the audacity to ask this of him after scissor kicking a goblin in the nuts or, he would stop and get milk and then lord this enormous favor over me for six weeks. While my ex never actually accused me of accosting a goblin, he would invent some outrageous accusation that would instantly put me on the defensive.  It is impossible to combat this because instinctually you want to use logic to defend yourself but the accusations are not based on logic they are solely to put you on edge and tear you down so that eventually you learn that everything is your fault and you have no right to ask for help.

To say I was miserable would be the most colossal understatement imaginable.  I was a “bad mom” and a “stupid fucking retarded bitch”.  He loved to tell me that he would have stopped calling me a “bitch” if only I could have stopped being a bitch.  I tried to stop, I really did.  But I now know that would have been impossible.  Eventually, he stopped coming home before midnight.  Funnily enough, I was still a bitch because I was too stupid to stop asking him to buy milk.

When he stopped coming home, I was relieved.  It was liberating! It was just the kids and me every night.  There were no fights.  There was less stress.  I did better at work.  The kids did better in school.  Then I started to suspect he was cheating.  Admittedly, it took me longer to figure this out because I was just so grateful he wasn’t around all the time.  The night I confronted him with my suspicions, I thought he was going to kill me.  I should have left as soon as he stopped choking me.

Everything seems so black and white now.  Of course I should have left.  But he always convinced me I imagined it.  That I was crazy and it was all in my head.  This happened a lot.  He never apologized, he would just tell me an alternate version of events, and then tell me how it was all my fault because I was insane.  Just like I was imagining that he was cheating on me.  All of it was just “in my head” right up until the moment I caught her straddling my husband in the middle of the afternoon.

I’m sure my wide, unblinking eyes and manic grin made me look genuinely psychotic.  There she was, a married mother of an infant child scrambling to dismount and hide behind my husband.  He had talked about her enough that I was 99% certain I knew who she was.  I should disclose her full name here, but I won’t because unfortunately I never lost my conscious, so we’ll just call her “Her”.  I walked over to them with a giant Cheshire Cat grin on my face and made “Her” shake my hand.  I remember thinking how weak and fragile her hand felt in mine as I said, “You must be Her, my husband said I’d like you.  I also like it on top.” I then proceeded to tell the two of them that I wouldn’t tell her husband just so long as my ex gave me a non-contested divorce.  After which I left and drove back to work.

I had so many thoughts going through my head after I caught them.  Mostly, I was surprised at how calm I felt.  It was as if I was channeling a different, stronger woman.  A friend told me the next day she thought I might have actually been channeling a female family member who had died, but was watching over me.  My mom said she thought both my grandmothers and my aunt had been standing there with me, cheering me on.  I kinda like my mom’s version, I know I felt stronger in that moment then I had in years and the idea of those three women who I loved so much standing beside me was very comforting.

Everything after that is pretty much a blur.  He refused to move out and I couldn’t leave the girls.  The woman he was cheating on me with got spooked that I would tell her husband and came clean.  Her husband essentially put her on house arrest, so my ex was suddenly home every night.  It was the worst case scenario.  If he hadn’t been there, I could have finished all the repairs on the house in half the time.  I got rid of practically everything, which was an extensive amount of stuff.  Sold the house, packed the dog and clothes for the girls and we left.  We rented a fully furnished 600 square foot house near downtown with a yard.  It was perfect. I had my kids, I had my dog and I was free.

The first night we were there I fell asleep on the couch and the kids couldn’t wake me up.  I was so exhausted that once I escaped with my children my brain turned itself off.  When I woke up it was past midnight and my kids had tucked themselves into the queen bed they now had to share and were sound asleep.  I know they saw me as a bad mom that night.  I felt like a bad mom that night.  The next morning we talked about it and they understood why I was so tired but it will never erase the fact that I didn’t tuck them in on their first night away from their home and their dad.  They know not to let a man speak to them the way their father spoke to me, but I worry they will repeat my mistakes or blame me for their world turning upside down.  I am a bad mom because I stayed and a bad mom because I left.

I lost my job two weeks after the girls and I moved.  The house down-town was super expensive so we only stayed there a month before moving to a different fully furnished apartment in the basement of an old church.  I rented both the house down-town and the church apartment through AirBNB.  We didn’t have a lease at either place, we were just renting by the month.  I literally had no job and nowhere to live.  Eventually, I had to go on food stamps and medicaid.  I did everything I had to do to take care of my kids and I will never be made to feel guilty for the decisions I made.

I was back cleaning dressing rooms and working at Macy’s when I was finally able to secure a wonderful job and I met an amazing man I call “Cute Boyfriend”. We live with him and his daughter now in a beautiful house with a great yard and even better schools.  My relationship with Cute Boyfriend is nothing like my relationship with my ex.  Cute Boyfriend is calm and respectful and patient.  He views me as a partner, not a house elf.  He is fantastic with my girls and I adore his daughter.

My memory of my life before is blurry, but now I wake up every single morning and I know I am going to be okay.  My kids are going to be okay.  I don’t know of many people who get to start over the way I did, but I’m not going to waste this opportunity. This time I’m not going to check off boxes.  I am going to live the life I want to live.  This is my mulligan life.

I was 27-years-old when I found my daughters.  I wasn’t looking for children, I was actually on a date with a guy I had been cast alongside at a local theater.  I knew he had four kids, his boys lived with him 50/50 and his daughters lived in Virginia.  That was about all I knew about the kids and honestly I wasn’t looking for a long term relationship so when he asked me out I agreed because it sounded fun.

When I first saw the picture of two tiny little blond girls dancing and smiling I knew they were my daughters.  If you ever want to feel like a crazy person, have this experience.  You will interrogate your sanity like the Riddler after a seventh cup of coffee.  It wasn’t until after I met other adoptive parents that I learned my reaction is not an uncommon phenomenon.  Many parents know that is their child(ren) by looking at a photograph.  The main difference being the other parents, the “good moms”, were in the market for a kid, whereas I was tipsy and wearing a low cut blouse.

The girl’s bio-mom abandoned them when they were six-months and two-years old.  Their dad couldn’t handle the responsibility, so he sent them to live with their maternal grandparents over 1,700 miles away.  I met them only a few weeks after I saw the photograph, they were four and five-years-old.

When I got to the house, I stood on the porch for about 10 minutes before walking in.  I knew I was about to meet my daughters for the first time and I was terrified.  When I finally walked in my youngest bounded at me with an enormous smile on her face.  My oldest hid at the top of the stairs and peered down at me though the railing.  I have a picture of the two of them on that night, they are dressed like princesses.  I keep that photograph in a locket, a moment frozen in time.  The moment the three of our lives changed forever.

When they came to live with me they had the clothes on their back, a couple of stuffed animals and lice.  They had been kept alive, but they had not had a good life.  They had never had a haircut, never woke up to presents under a Christmas tree and they had never had a mom.

Their father and I were married after dating for 9 months.  This was a terrible idea! He literally called me at work and asked if I wanted to go get married.  He and I were happy then and he knew I’d fallen head over heals for the girls and wanted to adopt them.  The fact that I was able to adopt them is one I still ponder.  It took three years and lawyers in two states to make it official.  The girls and I celebrate “Gotcha Day” every year on June 27th as if it is everyone’s birthday, Halloween, Christmas, New Years and Flag Day all rolled together into one giant love burrito.

If I didn’t tell you my girls were adopted, you would never know.  They are my daughters and I am their mom.  But it is important to understand this relationship and history, because it is a part of us.  I stopped telling people my girls were adopted a few years ago. Mostly, because people are idiots and would often ask me, “do you ever think you’ll have children of your own?” Or, once they knew, they would constantly find ways to mention my daughters’ bio-mom, a woman who hasn’t seen them in over a decade, and refer to her as my girls’ “real mom”.  Let’s clarify two things right now:

1. I do not need to have children “of my own”. I have children and they are all I will ever need
2. I AM THEIR REAL MOM

I may be a bad mom, but there is nothing about what I do that is fake or artificial.  When they are scared at night because they think the invisible flesh-eating-bugs (Vashta Nerada) from Dr. Who are under their bed, I’m the one flopping around on the floor pretending the bugs are eating my arm.  I’m the one who tried to resuscitate “Athena” the gold fish when she went belly up. I’m the one banging her head on the table after 3-hours of math homework with my oldest.  I’m the one who sat at a completely cleared dining room table every single night with my youngest until she finished her dinner.

I noticed while at the Children’s Museum one day that the other adults all looked happy but exhausted.  Then I realized that’s how I look, all the time.  Real parents look this way, fake parents look two-dimensional because they’re on TV or in a magazine.

The weirdest part of being a mom, is you’re not a mom until you are one.  Which sounds on the surface like the sort of obvious statement that doesn’t need mentioning.  Except it is SO true.  When you first become a mom, you worry about everything, you second guess everything, essentially you become a total paranoid and neurotic nutcase.  But you don’t really become a “mom” until you figure out what kind of mom you really are.  Eventually, you find your own rhythm and you have done enough trial and error to know which all-natural stain remover actually removes stains and exactly how many grocery bags you can carry in addition to a screaming child.  That’s when you are really a mom.

It is the best and worst feeling in the world being a mom.  You love more than you ever thought your heart was capable of loving but that “worry” you start off with never truly goes away it just morphs into a sixth sense and gains squatter’s rights in the pit of your stomach.  Being a mom, a real mom, is different for every woman.  Unfortunately for my girls, I am a bad mom.  The kind of mom who will absolutely help you get your coat unstuck from around your head…I just need a photograph first.