Our Mom is totally losing her cred here....

This week, I fail at being a conscientious reusing/reducing/recycling citizen. You can take away my GREEN card. I am sorry, Mother Earth. Give me my time out. Make me stand in a corner. I’ve been a bad girl.

My ambitious plan to live a more simple life is becoming more and more complicated as I flail about, try to figure out how to best reuse things, pass along our used items, and produce less waste to be transported to a landfill. In my defense, it’s also summer, and I have almost NO time to spare for the implementation lately, and not enough attention for following through with most of my big objectives.

Still. It sucks to feel like you’re failing at something you were so motivated about initially.

My big idea for back-to-school shopping involved figuring out which of my friends have older/bigger children than mine, and begging for their cast offs. This is not working, as it’s rather hard to procure twirlable dresses for the 6 year old and t-shirts with robots and/or puppies on them for the 8 year old. Buying from a consignment store is better than going to Target, right? Except that the prices are either the same OR HIGHER at the consignment store! Yeah, right, and then I’ll replace our toilet paper with twenty-dollar bills! I really can’t do something that is so financially wasteful. So it looks like I’ll be hitting the sales racks at *insert department store name here* and trying not to beat myself up too much about it.

I have even failed lately at putting the organic waste into the compost bucket in the yard. Mostly because, ahem, COMPOSTING IS UTTERLY DISGUSTING *wretch, hurl, ewwwww, icccckk*. We use a small plastic bin to temporarily store the compostables until we can bring them outside, but it stinks when I open the cover, and it keeps getting dropped onto the floor, to the jollies of the ever-present fruit flies, who hover in my kitchen’s corners like crack-addict buzzards. No one wants to continue the composting experiment we started at the beginning of spring with such high hopes. My kids, who LOVE science and bugs and getting dirty, have gone on strike over the disgusting chore of emptying the compost.

And lastly, I have items that are seriously worn to nubs, and I don’t know what to do with them. Like the bathrobe Allen got me in 1998. Or the 15-year-old stompy platform shoes that are too worn out to pass along. I’m sure there are clever uses for these much-loved but worn-out things, right? Martha Stewart could probably transform that robe into a sassy winter wrap or a spiffy looking blanket. She could make delicious meat-free burgers from the worn shoe leather of my stompy shoes. I, on the other hand, threw them in a trash bag and “stored” the bag in my basement.

And speaking of basements — mine is where clutter lives in perpetuity. What I want to do is rent a dumpster and be less sentimental. But that would also mean sending stuff off to the landfill instead of being conscientious and thoughtful about my refuse. I should put things on Craigs List and Freecycle, have a yard sale, advertise my cast offs on the town’s list serv.

Should. It’s a word I use too often these days. I should do something about that.

What do YOU do when you have too many “shoulds” but even more “don’t wannas” and a serious lack of time/motivation/energy to get stuff done? Should I just get the ADD diagnosis now, eat more bran, drink more coffee, have a beer, get a life?

She's serious in her B&W!!

Currently, in my closet, I have the capacity to dress as a hoochie mama, a hippie freak, a transient, a 14-year-old boy, or an exotic dancer.

I do not have the clothes of a professional photographer.

What does a professional photographer wear, you might ask? Well. I have no idea. You see, I am not a professional photographer. I am a poser. A dreamer.

I am an unemployed stay-at-home mother of three who has neglected her appearance for too long. I have no idea what is even fashionable right now. I have a pair of khakis in my dresser that I bought in 1995. I consider them my new khakis still. Most of my jeans have holes in them. Oh, and also, all of my pants are loose on me right now, so I need to wear a belt. Unfortunately, my husband is also downsizing, and he’s wearing MY belt. We have ONE nice leather belt between us, and he is wearing it. The other belts are crap.

You know, it’s not that we’re poor. We’re just distracted.

My professional clothes, leftover from an era when I was earning a good wage in the marketing/publishing industry, are all huge on me. I am quite a bit smaller now than I was when I had things like direct deposit, a 401 plan, and self esteem.

So today, I’m going to rock the 14-year-old-boy-who’s-also-lactating-look, with the exotic dancer belt and the hoochie mama shelf undershirt, with my long hippie hair put into a braid. And I’m going to put Andrew in the backpack, sling my awesome Lowepro camera bag over my shoulder, and try to act like a professional.

I’m so nervous I might hurl.

Not my most flattering photo

I’m not Terry. I’m a befuddled, sleep-deprived, tousled-hair, dried-up, coffee-needing, starving husk of woman whose baby is not taking in nourishing breastmilk all night long, but instead sucking brain cells OUT THROUGH HER NIPPLES.

And I know I’m not the only one facing her morning with barely the ability to brain while giving the cheery, gurgling, bright-faced little baby the hairy eyeball. There are millions of us out there in the world, a veritable army of zombie moms and dads wanting BRAINS, mostly their own. Parents unable to access that trembly grey damp sponge lying dormant in their skull-shaped soap dishes.

Those mornings when you make 10 cups of coffee when there are only 2 coffee drinkers in your family. The mornings when you find yourself yelling things like “You are SO… goddamn cute,” instead of the list of expletives you would like to use when he pulls treasured books from the bookcase and begins gnawing on the covers, little hands wanting to tear tear TEAR the pages like some mad, possessed smiling demon.

And then, in a wisp of addled inspiration, you find yourself at the laptop, staring blankly at the fresh rectangular writing box of your preferred writing program, Notepad++, having almost swallowed a Cliff Bar whole and gulped a 12-oz shooter of orange juice, trying to come up with something witty to say on your updated-thrice-weekly blog. And ending up crying/laughing, head in hands, as the words dangle just out of reach like… dangling unreachable things, and you have to use those inferior words, the ones closer in proximity.

And then your husband, the one who gets to sleep, laughs and says something about irony, and you aren’t sure if it’s fantasy you or real you who punches him in the face.

I can’t believe I just said those words.

And to all the moms and dads out there who do (or did) this single parenting thing full-time, all the time: you are amazing. *salutes you* (Yes, Mom, I include you in this, so you can lay off the guilt trip in the comments section)

I am an extrovert. It’s who I am. I can do the taking care of my children, the long hours of keeping myself occupied by housecleaning, packing, reading a book, doing laundry. I am extremely competent, reliable, responsible, and independent. But my brain needs feeding. I haven’t had a conversation that didn’t involve either poop or washable crayons for DAYS. I am almost to the point of stopping strangers on the side of the road to strike up a conversation. Pretty much anyone over 46 pounds will do.

My neighbor just ran from me in the midst of a somewhat inane conversation I was struggling to prolong, saying over her shoulder that she was letting me go so I could make dinner for my kids.

“Kids?” I say, the note of desperation bordering on creepy. “They don’t need dinner. I have granola bars. Would you like some Cabernet? I have …cake???”

The morning routine does not go well. Both girls fight getting out of bed like ferocious nocturnal things. I had to drag kids fighting and crying down the stairs to breakfast, coerce and threaten them into dressing, including forcing a skirt on my younger child’s body, who is enraged that the skirt is not a sun dress. It’s 35 degrees out. Tights and long sleeves today. She hits me. I scream at her. Because I don’t hit. I compromise on a wardrobe piece, and we move on to the next challenge: shoe choice. *sigh*

It takes the older child 10 minutes to slip on jeans and shirt. And 5 more to get socks and shoes on.

Meanwhile, I am taking the dog out, feeding her, getting my computer ready to go, making lunches, cleaning up breakfast, making sure the house looks nice in case they bring people to look at the house today, getting jackets and shoes, packing the car with our stuff, grabbing something for myself to eat on the way out.

The girls are ordered out the door. They slowly do so.

The fight continues in the front yard, where I have to comb my older child’s hair, as the only comb is in the car. She whines and fights and cries that she is cold. SHE had refused to put on her coat, and she was dealing with the consequences. Or rather, I was. I finally finish, get both kids in the car, get older kid to school. I find out when we get there, 20 minutes later, that the younger child was not buckled in the entire trip. She decides to tell me once we’re there. I thank all that is holy that I was driving in the right lane when that guy slammed on his brakes in front of me. Because if I had been in the left lane, I would have a very hurt preschooler. I berate myself internally to the point of tears while waiting for my children to get out of the car.

The older child is the opposite of speed to do anything this morning. It seriously takes her 5 minutes to get out of the car. I get to cry quietly to myself for 5 minutes without anyone seeing me, so go me.

We’re 4 minutes late for school.

I snuggle clingy older child, get her to join circle time, and dash out, carrying reticent younger child. Bring younger child to school. I place her in the classroom, pry off her fingers, turn to dash, and she jumps at me like a cougar, clutching at my sweater and hair as though I were a limb and she were a … drowning cougar. Teacher behind her grabs her and then, inexplicably, lets her go, to almost send me flying, and resulting in my child bashing her head on the door frame. I request a cold compress for the goose egg popping up on her forehead, and I sit in the hall at school, applying cold to the swelling. I try again to separate from her, but there is no one to help me transition her, and she is beside herself with sadness. “But if you leave, I’ll be all alone” she says.

I take her home.

Happy husband jumps online from his new job 800 miles away to tell me he’s happy, with exclamation points!

I want to break something with a hammer.

My gall bladder sucks big stinking monkey balls.

I’m back on the fat-free diet in my increasingly rather masochistic desire to keep my internal organs intact. AND I just started antibiotics to combat a particularly nasty bout of bronchitis. So I’m coughing my guts out, and said guts are already rather ouchy.

Now is NOT the time to tell me I have to soon relinquish my older daughter to some impersonal school system, trust in people whom I don’t know, happily. When the principal begins her well oiled tirade on Sunday night regarding how best to insert my precious li’l kid into the beaurocratic machinery of grade school, she may just find my well sharpened clog protruding from her trachea.

This mood swing is brought to you by Benzonatate, Doxycycline, Tums, and NOT ENOUGH FOOD IN MY BELLY TO KEEP A FUCKING SPARROW ALIVE.

I apologize profusely for being late for work this morning. It’s the 3-year-old’s lion’s special book’s fault.

*blink*

OK, here’s the long story: I frantically jetted out the door at 8:30 this morning to go to the post office to send a package to my mother for her birthday, PLANNING to be home in time for work at 9. I won’t even go into detail about how I bent the laws of physics and a few speeding limits to get TO the post office in the first place.

The reason I’m late is that Alex the Lion lost his very special book.

It seems that his owner stuffed a very small Hello Kitty notepad (from a Happy Meal) that had all kinds of important markings in it between the cracks in the glass display case at the post office.

It was a true crisis. With tears. Alex the Lion’s owner was crying, so I felt it prudent to at least attempt to recover the lost very special book. Postal workers were informed of the situation, and various keys were procured. I’m not sure when the last time the display case was opened, as there were products on display with the 32-cent stamps advertised therein.

It took 3 postal workers, a handful of keys, and about 30 minutes to finally open the display case and recover Alex’s book.

Perhaps I should just tell my boss that I overslept?

But the tragedy? I seldom ever have the time to use my iPod. I can’t rock out with my ear buds on around the house, as the kids will stage a coup. What I need, I’ve decided, is a full-size iPod, and a Bose iPod SoundDock Music System, so I can listen to my playlists AND stave off the toddler revolution at the same time.

I’m justifying the owning of devices that I don’t really need, aren’t I? I mean, I could always play CDs on my DVD player and have my music play in through the TV. OR, I could just invest in a cheap CD player and plug it in anywhere. But it doesn’t sound as… appealing. It’s undignified. It’s just far too 90s.

Yeah, I’m caving in to mindless consumerism, propelled into the buying of tech gadgets I don’t need in some eternal pursuit of quality and geek cred. I admit it. Just point the way to some obscure holiday so I can justify buying my household an electronic treat, and witness the demise of my hippy counter-culture idealism.

The answer: OMFG, what kind of parent are you? NEITHER!

Eh, screw it. I don’t know about YOU, but I parent in the real world. I don’t fart daisies and spread sunshine ALL THE TIME. Sometimes, I’m a cookie-giving, put-em-in-front-of-a-movie, darting-off-to-check-the-email kind of mom.

I went to Krispy Kreme with the younger child, whom I’m renaming “snot geyser,” and took some pictures while she played with her friend and they sucked all the sprinkles off their donuts . I tried to enjoy a mocha latte that tasted like it was flavored with rancid fat (add sugar to it–it’s potable!), and I caught up on some bitching-about-the-preschool with my numero uno mommy friend.

Her younger son is teh cutest thing evah. Well, next to my li’l red-headed Snot Geyser, that is.

Yes, I freely admit that I stepped into a Wal-Mart. A friend of mine who shall remain nameless, although her first name begins with ERICA, convinced me that this cool Wal-Mart in Reidsville has all the things I want, and cheap. Because of past experiences in Wal-Mart, and because I’m just a tad elitist, I’ve avoided the chain and haven’t suffered any horrible consequences thus far. But I figured I’d give it another shot. So there I found myself. In Wal-Mart. In rural North Carolina. On a Saturday. Now, maybe Wal-Mart is always like this. Or maybe I just happened to venture into this store on field trip day for all the crazies in all the state’s mental agencies.

One woman stood in my path when I was wrestling the 2.5 year old back into the seat in the cart while holding the 4.5 year old on my hip. She smiled crazily and said, “Oh, aren’t they pretty,” and I swear she was about to pinch their arms to see if they were fattened up enough to throw into her oven.

At this point, the kids become possessed. I have to battle my way through the toy section, detaching clutching fingers from trikes, threatening time outs, blackmailing, cajoling with promises of treats. I think there must be something in the vents at Wal-Mart. Some toddler consumerist stimulant piped in through the air conditioning, that made my normally very well behaved children act like spoiled ranting minions straight from the loins of Satan.

Sweat is starting to accumulate on my forehead and under my arms, and I can feel myself grinding my teeth. I lose my sense of direction in the vastness of this so-called SuperCenter, so I stop to ask a Wal-Mart associate for the location of the handbags. I think she may have been a zombie. Truly. There was this dead look in her eye as she pointed the way. And she could barely communicate the location, having, perhaps no word in her vocabulary like “aisle” or “row.” I expected her to all of a sudden come at me screaming “brains!”

So I’m off, after receiving some vague idea of where to go. But the voyage is long and wearisome. Where do these people come from who frequent Wal-Mart? Blocking my way in the aisles are people who walk side by side, in no particular hurry and completely unaware that there are, you know, OTHER people in the store who may have to travel in the same direction. People who stand in the middle of the aisle while reading the ingredients on a product, either ignoring me and my efforts to steer my cart full of wailing children around them or just being plain evil.

And THEN, as I’m coming out the door with tears streaming down both children’s faces, the 41 pound child in my arms and the 24 pound one clinging to my arms from the seat of the cart (barricaded in via the cart’s blessed leash), I see some woman CRAMMING two carts between her van and my Cherokee. I mean, PUSHING the carts between the two vehicles, scraping my truck! And when I finally get there, as I’m trying to get the lump of sobbing four year old into her seat, I see her back up and ALMOST HIT THE FUCKING CART MY BABY IS SITTING IN! Now, my cart was parked behind my truck, so she had to actually angle her behemoth of a van like a villainous idiot to even threaten the same latitude as my cart. So I run to save the child as the driver stops. I think, “Hey, she’s going to get out of her car and come apologize.” No. She stops, evidently to hand her elderly mother (in the passenger seat) a napkin FOR HER ECLAIR.

NEVER AGAIN, Wal-Mart. You keep your crazy. I’ll be saving my sanity in the Target around the corner.