Oct 25 2005
How DOES she do it?
I am a mother of five (and even though two of them don’t live at home, you’d better believe I still leverage the power of that ‘mother of five’ statement to the max!) and I work full time. I have a house and a dog and two cars and a husband and they all need to be serviced very regularly. Some people ask me how I do it.
Badly, really, is my answer.
In years gone by, I have made some huge mistakes in proper family management that haunt me to this day. My oldest daughter wasn’t allowed to start her senior year on schedule because I had not provided proper proof of the Hep-B (or was it the Hep-C?) and so I was scrambling all over to get her the shot and the proof so that I wouldn’t RUIN her LIFE (again. it was really getting so tiresome by that time, ruining, ruining, ruining - I needed a nap). I was thinking of that scene from Raising Arizona where Holly Hunter is going all crazy on Nicholas Cage over the baby getting a pediatrician because the baby’s gotta have his dip-tet, Hi! (and if you don’t appreciate the genius that is Raising Arizona, then maybe you shouldn’t be reading my blog… there, I said it!)
Sidenote: you’d be better off just MEMORIZING the damn immunization information for your kids. Evidently, everyone needs to know this information every fucking year. It doesn’t matter if you gave it to them LAST year and it hasn’t changed. They still need you to give it to them again. School? Sports? Camp? Scouts? They ALL need it. Sheesh, I’m surprised the doctor’s office doesn’t make me provide the immunization record to them before I can schedule a meeting to come in and get a copy of the immunization record. I’m thinking of having each child tattoo’d with their DPT and MMR dates. Just to make my life easier…
I have forgotten to pick up a child from a Girl Scout meeting once or twice. I’ve not signed permission slips on time. I’ve run to the 24-hour Walgreens for poster board late at night more often then I’d care to admit. Just yesterday, my 9 year old had to ask her teacher for cotton balls for the cloud project because (say it with me) MOM FORGOT.
I suck. Equally at home and at work. But not nearly often enough in the ‘good way’ (according to the Horniest Man in the Universe). In other words, I even suck at sucking.
So, do you want to know how I do it? Barely. Minimally. Precariously. Forgetfully. Last-minutely. Poorly. Imperfectly. Inadequately. (Yes, and now we all know that JustLinda knows how to use her thesaurus.)
This morning, I was dropping the 3-year-old off at her preschool. There we were - me, having chosen the tactic of HAIR CLIP rather than blow-dry and style. Me, having shaved my legs just up to mid-calf since I was wearing a long skirt. Deciding that today, the natural look (meaning no time for make-up) was sufficient since I had no meetings. My daughter, with her new haircut doing a clear Alfalfa kind of thing up on top since I didn’t take the time to wet it into submission. She is clearly not all the way awake as I hustle her into school for the thank-god-they-provide-breakfast-to-my-child meal of the day. Me, already late for work. Her, with her almost-matching socks, wishing she could have watched Mr. Rogers (didn’t he DIE? why won’t his creepy television show GO AWAY???) and had breakfast at home. The J! We still haven’t done the J. We were supposed to take the purple construction-paper-cut-out letter J and fill it with pictures of Jadie and her family. I suck. Again.
Then I see them. The family.
A mom, perfectly groomed, hair, make-up, wearing an autumn-themed sweater and pumpkin earrings. Two boys with no Alfalfa hair at all. Twin girls who still had long locks because their mother didn’t get their hair all chopped off to avoid the Battle of the Brush. The children (FOUR of them) all fresh and smiling, in coordinating clothes and the girls each with matching bows in their perfectly coiffed pigtails. AND IT’S NOT EVEN A HOLIDAY! The mom had on pants but I was sure that she shaved her legs all the way up. And, plus, I’d put money on the fact that the kids were all wearing matching socks.
In an instant, I also knew her house was clean, her checkbook was balanced, and that she had never once forgotten to pick up the girls from their Girl Scout meeting. That bitch.
If I wasn’t so tired and late for work, I think my resentment of them might have forced me to lock them all into the broom closet.
Who are these women? Are they ALIENS? When I lamented all this to my husband, he said “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself – she’s probably doing lines of coke every morning just to get through it.” And, sadly, the thought that maybe she had the baggage of an expensive and addicting drug habit that could potentially make her perfect life fold like a house of cards DID make me feel better.
I remember being a child and how slowly time passed. That month between Thanksgiving and Christmas? It took for-ev-er. Getting to be old enough for pierced ears? Sheesh, a lifetime. But now I’m old and time does pass more quickly. Much more quickly. This helps, really, because I can look at my one-year-old and repeat a mantra to myself “Just seventeen more years, just seventeen more years, just seventeen more years.”
I think I can make it.
