This is the most recent somewhat flattering photo of me with the kids, taken last October. Because *I* am the photographer in our family.

People often ask me “Terry, what do you DO as a stay-at-home mom?” And I struggle to answer, because every single day is different and has its challenges and triumphs and disappointments. Every day has its beautiful moments that fill my heart with joy. And moments that make me feel like going through the want ads for a high paying job and a childcare provider! So I thought I’d give my readers a little slice of life, on an ordinary day in May.

As I sit here, eating leftover ice cream while my son circles my chair in the stinkiest diaper ever, I think about today and the high hopes I had for it.

At least I changed out of the work out clothes I had put on this morning. It would have been ridiculously hypocritical of me to nom on the frozen dairy treat while wearing my spandex and ambitious work out bra.

The plan was to go to the Y, then run by the store for milk and toilet paper. But I needed to get Andrew’s hair trimmed in there somewhere. So I waited for the baby to wake up this morning after getting the girls off to school. I did some writing and checked my email. I switched around the laundry. I did some dishes. Finally, he woke up at 9:30, so I put on the black spandex pants and the hot pink sleeveless tank, and I pulled on my sneakers. But Andrew wanted a long, leisurely bout of nursing. Both sides. So, 30 minutes later, I’m getting him dressed, his shoes on, his sweater buttoned. And I realize I am STARVING. I cannot work out if my stomach is aching. I put some Fage into a bowl and drizzle some maple syrup over it. I take my one-a-day vitamin. I hand Andrew some cantaloupe to play with. Finally, at 10:30, I am out the door, hand in hand with the 19 month old. I decide to get the boy’s haircut done first, so I can concentrate on my workout. So I head to Snip-Its, where I’m told there is a 30 minute wait. Grrr. I wait. The boy’s haircut takes about a half hour. A long shag, with short bangs that hit his eyebrows. My boy can see! He looks like an 80s pop star. I think Rick Springfield is looking for his hair style!

Haircut!

It’s now 11:45. I head to the YMCA. I figure I’ve got an hour to do the full circuit on the weights and maybe a little time on the elliptical, and then I can run by Trader Joe’s to get milk and toilet paper, and then head home to get the girls from school. This can work!

As I’m turning into the driveway of the Woburn YMCA, I check my rear view to see what the little guy is doing. And he is asleep. Passed out. I turn around. There is no leaving a cranky, tired baby in the child watch area while I get in a workout. No way I can go by the store.

I drive to my house and park in my garage. I turn off the car and check my email on my phone while the baby snoozes. I play Solitaire on my phone, snickering at the irony. I let him sleep for 45 minutes. It’s now after 1, and I am still in my spandex. I carry the toddler inside, try to ease his sleepy little body onto the bed to snooze a little longer so I can have a few minutes to feed myself and maybe do some stretching. But he wakes up completely and wants my undivided attention. I nurse him and hold him for about a half an hour, and then I change out of my spandex and into some jeans. Then I find a few minutes when he is distracted with destroying the kitchen, and I stuff food into my face. Leftover yummy chicken from last night’s dinner. Check. Some delicious bread with the healthy spread. Check. Fresh fruit. Check. Oh, look at that! Some grape-flavored ice cream cake with chocolate fudge layers, leftover from Jess’s birthday party? Huh. That’s taking up needed space in the freezer….Check.

And now it’s time to get the girls from school and afterwards to host a baby playdate; and then it’s reading and homework time, followed by dinner prep, feeding kids, and kid bedtime routine. With a baby nap to fit in there, and nursing/changing him, and more laundry to fold and dishes to wash, and cleaning the dining and living rooms, and school forms to look over for tomorrow, and a glance at email and my calendar for tomorrow’s activities.

And I end the day exhausted, having had no time to exercise, still wearing my jeans and a  shirt smudged with chocolate and the dinner that didn’t make it into Andrew’s mouth, with no milk for my morning coffee. And nothing with which to wipe.

Are these flowers glaring at my camera, or is it just me?

Yesterday, I might have seen The Grim looking down at me ferociously from a cloud.

I was fretting about it when the shape all of a sudden dissipated with a wisp of breeze. I felt relieved until it reformed into a seriously evil-looking Siamese cat with huge fangs. Right before feeling panicky, the cat morphed into what looked like a terrier. *sigh of relief* Terriers don’t have it in them to be evil. I began to calm down a bit. OK, Terry, maybe we should change our perspective? Perhaps we shouldn’t go looking for signs of doom in fluffy white clouds on a perfectly gorgeous blue-skied September day?!

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face. Andrew was playing in the grass, getting some fiber, and he crawled over, giggling, to attack my exposed belly with playful-hey-I’m-hungry nips. I glanced over to see what the girls were doing. Kelsey, Laurel, and M (a former classmate of Kelsey’s) were playing under and up a tree right off the bike path. All was well. I looked again up to the sky for portents. And there was the biggest, fattest, fluffiest unicorn cloud that ever floated in any sky, ever. Going back in time. I mean, this unicorn wasn’t just chubby.

Comforted, I rolled over and offered Andrew my breast, trying to minimize the nipple-view for passing commuters who were gaping at the scene while walking home from work. I smiled at a red-haired woman who was staring in wonder, hoping to convey a sense of peace and rightness while also feeling a bit exposed. “Everything is OK. Yes, this is a baby and a mother, snuggling on a Mexican blanket. Yes, this baby IS on the breast. Yes, they are nursing in a soccer field.  Move on. These are not the droids you are looking for.”

Andrew rolls over, a little stream of milk running from the side of his mouth. He crawls over to munch on some clover (moooooo). I look up, and there is Laurel, looking at me with a question in her eyes. “Can I jump on you?” she asks. I tense my abdominals, awaiting the 46 pounds of enthusiastic first grader. She’s stopped leading with her knee, for which my spleen is quite grateful. She pounces, and we snuggle for a few minutes. She is smiling–her little body is recovering from weeks of gastrointestinal pain. Her agreeableness meter is operational again.

Laurel wanders off to play. All three of my children are involved in play or eating grass on this gorgeous day as I lie here in this field, enjoying the leisure that seldom, lately, goes along with my job. I’m feeling more at harmony with the world around me today. I’m moving at some kind of rhythm with the universe instead of against its sync. I no longer feel like the out-of-tune violin in a symphony, creating a cacophony of negative vibrations. I’m in tune, but still a little behind in tempo.

I pack up our stuff and declare that it’s time to head back to the house. M’s mother will be along soon, and I need to figure out dinner, and move everyone back onto the schedule we’ve set up for balancing the needs of getting homework done with the needs of kids’ having personal time. Allen is working late, so I need to be on. I need to be the one enforcing the schedule, kissing the boo boos, holding the freaking out baby, gently moving the girls toward bedtime. There will be time later for being up in my own head.

I think I will forgive the clouds their silliness. I will take my signs from the more rational, reasonable energies that float down from my brain. It was a good day, and sometimes that is enough.

But maybe I’ll *knock on wood,* just for the hell of it.

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.

My infant is sleeping.

I am in the kitchen, cramming breakfast in my face, awaiting the cries that tell me he is awake. I finish breakfast and HEY, there’s my computer right there, on the kitchen table. How convenient! I go online to check my email. I have TIME to do that, and then to check out the news. This is my fantasy life!

And then my brain does this thing, some of you might be familiar with it, or, hell, maybe it’s just me, all alone and psychotic:

“Oh  my gods, he spit up while on his back and CHOKED TO DEATH, AND YOU HAVE KILLED YOUR CHILD BY BEING NEGLIGENT AND EATING BREAKFAST AND WASTING TIME ON THE INTERNET!”

I do what many  mentally sound parents of an infant would do. I run like a crazed running thing to the bedroom, visions of horror running through my mind.

Of course, the infant is on his side, sleeping peacefully. His little body is making those tell-tale signs of a normally breathing little human.

And then I breathe.

Many have written about Mommy Brain. I have, myself, I’m sure, although I don’t have time to take a romp through the archives and show you. Because, you know, it’s been almost 6 years since I’ve had an infant. Here I am again! Wheeeee!

I’d write more, but he’s now crying to be fed. Bye, bye Internets. See you between the next feedings!

Leaving me to wantonly finish off the last of the coffee ice cream in PLAIN VIEW in the kitchen.

And getting to eat ALL of my Easter candy that a friend bestowed upon  me? All it took was explaining to the five year old (who caught me nom noming a bunny ear) that this was GROWN UP candy. And, stunningly, it worked. Hooray for sneaky!

As for 3 month milestones and such, I’m over the nausea and happily in cravings land. Emotions are running a bit high, especially when I’m starving or alone in a room with Laurel, who is going through some challenging developmental milestones of her own.

On the AWESOME side, my appearance has changed! The mirror no longer reflects a first-trimester sallow, discheveled mess with bags under her eyes. Mother Nature has been kind to me this last week. My skin is glowing, and I have rock star hair.  I am spring! Witness my body swelling with new life. I am fecundity!

And now, back to the freezer, to finish off the Neapolitan ice cream. Because the kids are STILL distracted!

That last sentence is now copyrighted to me. You can only use it if you send me $5.

So, anyway, I thought I’d use this space to find out just what “normal” means to those who read my blog. What is “normal” anyway, to you? It’s a relative term, subject to interpretation within whatever particular subset of society you live within. Or outside.

To help, here are some questions I came up with after much *scientific research. Answer quickly with the first thing that comes to mind. Please email your responses to me, and I will post the results on Monday! Send to terry@mothermirth.com

The how $normal are you QUIZ!

And remember, this is for posterity, so be honest.

1. Is there a TV in your home, and if so, how many hours of television do you watch per day? The, umm, TV has to be plugged in and ON, and cannot just be a flowerpot. If you have used a sledgehammer on your TV, or put your foot or other object through the TV, you may skip this question and skip right to question #6.

2. Karl Rove is a douchebag? Yes  No  Discussion?

3. What does your bumper sticker read?

4. On the morning of election day, what will you be having for breakfast?

5. Can you snark in more than one language? Pig Latin totally counts here.

6. Humble pie, or Schadenfreude Pie?

7. Cake or death?

8. What would Sarah Palin’s 6th child be named?

9. Could you, would you, with a fox? Discuss.

10. What’s the weirdest thing you recycle/grow in your yard/create using art/call a hobby?

-Terry
Not weird enough for Facebook.

*”Scientific research” is also a relative phrase. My next quiz will thoroughly explore this fact. And the one after that will fully explore “fact.”

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.

That’s love, right?

Despite what Disney convinced me in my youth, I’ve learned that love is a whole lot messier, MUCH more disturbing. Here is a picture of me and the spouse in the marriage bed. I just cleaned my dirty feet with a diaper wipe, and I’m surfing porn in bed (for research purposes only — I’m looking for an apt metaphor for what our president is doing to the country). The husband surfs the sports news, reading up on next year’s NFL draft.

In 6.5 hours, our older child will jump on me and grab my ears in a comfort gesture, while the younger will pull my hair until I promise her a cup of orange juice. Her diaper will leak on the cotton sheets after.

No one ever told me love would be this grand!

If you get it, if you understand that sometimes your husband, or your lover, or your *insert significant other’s title* will say something that will just blow you away, and if you can see the funny in it, you’re safe. YOU understand that you share a level of intimacy with someone that allows for the exchange of even the stupidest of remarks. You can even use such remarks to your advantage, get some use out of them.

In the dynamic with my husband, such exchanges happen. He is my best friend, and I understand that, between guys, there are fewer filters. Guys, when talking to other guys, can say things that are downright insulting with total impunity. So I know that sometimes my adoring husband will treat me like he would treat one of his guy friends and just let something fly verbally that wouldn’t normally be allowed past his lips. I can forgive him when he says things like “It seems like you’re always on your period” (from December of 1999) or “Those pants look a little small on you” (October 2001) or “Wow, you are SO boobylicious” (when my breasts were humongously engorged after the birth of our first child in March 2002).

I never forget. And I keep a running tally. But the important thing is that I can giggle about it. It’s damn hard to put up with sharing your space and your life with another human. The fairytale weddings end in ugly divorces mostly because two people can’t make all the components to a functional intimate relationship work, by seeing marriage as an adventure AND as something to work on. And, most important, as a source for intimacy and an endless font of things to laugh at.

And Kelsey is basically the team cheerleader, disguised as one of the players. She follows around after the kids who have the ball, on whichever team, just to be in the fray, in the moment. Just digging the grouping, flocking herding of like-sized bodies, the craze of inexplicable direction changes (The ball? Where’s the ball? What ball?). She stops to hug a teammate. She asks a fallen opponent if he’s OK. She looks to the sideline and gives me a thumbs up! I melt and laugh and wish I had video.

Next spring it’s T-ball. And then, next fall I’m thinking cheerleading. Because, really, every sport I put her in is going to end in cheerleading, whether it’s conscious or not. Because my child is the cheerleader. And since I am her driver, as my father-in-law so sensitively informed me, it appears I’m going to be a cheerleader mom. I can see my future. I’m sure it involves a minivan. But, damn it, I’m keeping the long hair, the hippy skirts and the hemp necklaces. I might get a tattoo even, to proclaim my uniqueness in this new cookie-cutter community that wants to make me just another bland sugar cookie.

I am NOT a cookie. I am a fantabulous trifle. Or a T-licious sundae.

Just kidding about the tattoo.

Rah, rah.