The Incident Where I Realized My Car Should Be On Hoarders

Oh. My. God.


I was halfway through an incredibly busy day. We ran around all morning, including a stop at the park and lunch, then I dropped the kid off at day care while I went into work for a few hours to prepare for school starting (good time to point out this was LAST week, before I started school. I swear, when school is in session, I go all day. Promise.)

So I had stuff in the car for the library, the park (which included water play, so bathing suit and towel), his lunch, day care, post day care snacks, plus my stuff. And since we're potty training, lots of extra clothes and underwear.

After taking him to day care, I was sitting in the drive through line (don't judge, it was 1:30 and I hadn't eaten since 7 am, but had only packed food for the kiddo) and started to glance around.

It was then when I realized: my car could be on an episode of Hoarders. Easy. No, you say? It can't be that bad, you say? Let me prove my point with some fine cell-phone photos.

Front seat. Mom bag, bag of school stuff, lunch bag, 2 bags of dried fruit (1 spilled leaving little crumbs on the seat), 3 CDs from library, some random mapquest papers, and my water bottle. What you can't see is the 2 tampons that fell out of my mom bag and are on the floor.

Back seat floor part 1. Towel from park, his water shoes, empty basket, bags for used diapers/pee clothes. What you cannot see are the ball pump (don't ask), jumper cables, and kleenex box.

Back seat floor part 2. Stack of CD's that belong in the empty basket as seen in the picture titled Back seat floor part 1, penguin puppet, monkey pillow. What you cannot see are the cereal and dried fruit crumbs that cover the seats.

Seriously, stuff piled INCHES deep. I need to hire those Hoarders people who come in with the shovels and just start chucking shit.

Before I was a mom, I swear on a stack of vacuums my car was clean. Now, I could clean it every day and it still wouldn't be clean. This is just another thing to add to the list of 3829478 other things people don't tell you about having kids. When you have kids, you car will become one giant duffel bag/garbage can on wheels.

If the Hoarders people don't come soon, I might just get a new car. Seems easier.

The Incident In Which School Started

I've been back teaching for 2 days now. Yes, we start school in July. We're funky chicken like that.

Anyways. The start of school has pretty much made me want to curl up in a ball and sleep for a week. It's been good, but damn. I might as well be cat wrangling.

And if I ask "Are there any questions" to have it be answered with "Over the summer, I went to the water park with my cousins" one more time, I might lose it.

Really, teaching is just good acting. I decided that long ago. But no matter how hard I try, I just cannot act like I care about your damn water park trip!

Teaching is also being a superb organizer. I'm not shitting you, these are just the classroom donations that came in on the first day. This does not count each kid's individual supply list.

Ok, I KNOW how lucky I am to work at a school with such fantastic parent support. So I'm NOT trying to sound ungrateful in any way, I swear. But seriously? When 26 kids and their 26 parents walk up to you on the first day of school and ALL try to hand you bags and bags of pencils, paper, baggies, kleenex, pens (both correcting and sharpie), wipes (both cleaner and baby), binders, folders, dividers, and who knows what else, it's enough to make a teacher want to build a little hut out of kleenex and baggies, then use a sharpie to make a sign that says KEEP OUT.

I applied the age old 'shove it all into a closet' technique. Thus far, it's working well. Just glad I keep my flask in my desk where I can still get to it easily. That flask is a cat wrangling essential.

The Shoe Closet Incident

I figured out the BEST way to clean out my shoe closet!

Step 1: Pick a pair of older, cheap shoes and wear them to a concert.

Step 2: At said concert, walk a really long ways from public transportation to the venue.

Step 3: While there, consume large quantities of alcohol.

Step 4: Forget most things that occurred after that, but notice at some point the bottom half of on the shoes is gone.

Step 5: In the one and a half remaining shoes, trudge the really long ways back to the public transportation, while being supported by two very dear friends who are putting up with a VERY drunk you. The same you who may or may not smell like vomit.

Step 6: Get home and kick off what's left of the shoes as you run quickly to the bathroom to vomit. Again.

Step 7: While attempting to sleep it off the next morning, overhear your son say "Mommy's shoes!". To which your husband will reply "Ummm, they were....". Shout down the stairs for him to just throw them out.

Step 8: Your husband, knowing that you would gladly embrace death at this point, and being far too smart to ask questions like 'what the fuck happened to your shoes?', will oblige. Voila! One less pair of shoes in the shoe closet!

With these simple, easy to follow steps, you too, can relish in the joy of a cleaner shoe closet.

I dearly wish I had a picture of the remaining shoe and a half (which really were not that cute and I am not that broken up about losing), but they were, indeed, thrown out before I emerged from my hangover fog.

At least it was a kick ass concert!

The Incident Where I Attempt To Brainwash My Kid

We've been listening to Aerosmith all week. He sings along to Steven Tyler. So, when I opened up this little surprise in the form of a tshirt, I actually squealed with excitement. Thanks to the sender! My husband sends you the biggest eye roll ever.

Yes, my child will love Aerosmith, too. Even if it means brainwashing him, I'll make it happen.

The concert? Tonight. My dates? Two great friends. And several bottles of fruit juice and vodka for the BART ride over.

Now I just gotta figure out what to wear. The shirt is a 4T. My chances of fitting into it are pretty slim.

The Water Park Incident

My summer is winding down. Being determined to cram in a few more 'fun' things with the kid, and get some more use out of our season pass, we spent Sunday at the water park, just him and me.As we pull in the parking lot, he waivered on the edge of sheer joy and total sadness.

He was torn between complete excitement to go down the slides and utter despair that our usual water park buddies weren't going to be coming.

Once we made it in to the park, I waivered on the edge of sheer panic and total shame. The water park is a hard place for me. I hate wearing a bathing suit. Hate. So, disgust at my own body is a common issue for me while we're there. The place is teeming with teens who have yet to have their metabolism take a nose-dive and haven't pushed a watermelon-sized child through their vaginas. Cute bodies in bikinis everywhere. Killer. Good times, good times.

We were there for 7 and a half minutes before the kid rubs sunblock in his eyes. Sigh. There went the next half hour! He frantically raked at his eyes, crying 'owie, owie!' and there was so little I could do, except remember when I had done the same thing last October while in Florida with some wonderful women, thus ruining my afternoon. I can only assume that the tendency to rub sunblock in ones eyes is genetic, and that I have cursed my son by bestowing upon him my genes.

Fun was obviously put on hold for a bit while we sat in the bathroom rinsing his eyes out. Maybe some people would consider that fun, I suppose. I am not one of those people.

He recovered, and decided he wanted to go to the wave pool. Let us pause for a WOOT WOOT moment!!!!! The wave pool is my favorite place there. Partially because it has the warmest water and partially because there are no colorful structures with obnoxious water spraying out of them.

After a gleeful time in the wave pool, we hit the kiddo slides. At one point he stopped and smiled at an elderly Asian man next to us, who spoke no English. The kid started laughing hysterically, and the man laughed back. I had a brief 'smiling really IS the universal language' moment and my heart was warmed. I experienced a moment of harmony. I liked it. Immediately turned around to see a mom accidentally run into a kid and knock him over. Less harmonious, but pretty funny. I liked it.

Then, I watched my kid run up the stairs to conquer the slide all by himself. He got halfway up the steps, then looked over his shoulder at me with the biggest, goofiest grin on his face. I had a brief 'my kid is totally happy right now, doing something completely on his own' moment. The beats of my heart alternated between complete euphoria in seeing his joy and utter despair in knowing he didn't need me to achieve said joy.

After a quick snack, him eating while pushing through pure exhaustion, we prepared to leave. I put him in dry clothes, and he promptly peed in them. Awesomeness. I no longer have emotions for potty accidents. There is no point to have emotions towards them. So I opt for the acronym coined by a friend: FFS (for fucks' sake). Yeah, pretty much sums that up.

Anyways, so he was in his wet pee clothes, I was in my wet bathing suit, and we headed to the bathroom as quickly as possible. Which means, it was inevitable that we would be stopped. And stopped we were. By a former student and her entire family. Sweet. There is nothing like chit chatting with a family from school while wearing a bathing suit. With my kid in pee clothes. I kept thinking to myself "Is this really happening?" The answer is yes, yes is was.

Made me look forward to school starting when I get to chat with students and parents while fully clothed. In clothes that don't have pee on them.

Best part about our water park visit? He fell asleep pretty much the second we walked in the door and napped for 4 hours. I was able to get past the sunblocked eyes, pee clothes, and parent conference in my bathing suit, and relish in my quiet freedom, fully clothed.

The Houseguilt Incident

I go back to school in just over a week. Well, if you count teacher work days (both paid and voluntary), it's in just a few days. So, my summer is officially ending. I'm sad. Not for the normal reasons though. Most people are sad because they'll spend less time with their own kids, have to get up early, have to work all day.... Yeah, I'm mourning those things as well, but my real reason for feeling melancholy is I'm ending my summer with with houseguilt.

Houseguilt? Yes, it's a word. As of right now.

This summer, similar to what happens during all breaks, I let my house down. Things that I wanted to get to, I just didn't. And what really sucks, is I worked my ass off around here this summer! But still, there are things I'm leaving undone. And am feeling houseguilty about.

#1? Plants. I have whatever the opposite of a green thumb would be. A red toe, maybe? Anyways, in the past few weeks, my plants have become suicidal. I swear, they see me coming and shrink back in fear. I have such good intentions. Water, food, massages, long walks on the beach...Yet, my patio plants now look like this:

They are as gray as the siding! Yipes. I should add, for whatever reason, they have looked like this for weeks, yet I continue to water them. Sigh. Living on a dream, clearly. Time to throw in the towel.

My kitchen plant:

Sad, right?

Even my easy to grow, no maintenance bamboo plant in the ugly put with the stupid heart (end of the year teacher gift) is beginning to turn yellow:

See the yellow leaves in the lower left? Seriously, who manages to kill bamboo?

I have guilt for killing them, sure. But my houseguilt is because I've just left them there. Either dead or dying, I leave them in their pots. Partially as a reminder that I kill plants, partially because tossing them is just something I haven't gotten to, yet.

#2? Pet grass. I feel horribly guilty that I kill all my pretty plants, yet somehow my stupid pet grass is thriving. Seriously, I need to get my priorities straight. I also feel guilty that the pet grass gets things moving for our kitty and then causes her to vomit. Usually on our bed.

#3? Our cupboards. I swore I was going to clean them out. When our baby became a toddler, we all of the sudden had a wide variety of colorful, plastic dishes, bowls, utensils, and cups. Yet never did I make a place for them, and now have houseguilt. Our cupboards look like this (and this is on a good day):

#4? Magazines. I read several books this summer and did some writing. But my stack of magazines simply continued to grow. I had good intentions. Really. It just didn't happen. So, I have like 4 months of Glamour (which I feel REALLY guilty about since the subscription was a gift from a lovely friend), a stack of Teaching K-8, a bunch of Parents, and several American Baby (which is really lame cuz I don't have a baby anymore). So yeah, I feel pretty houseguilty that I have this stack of magazines cluttering up my house, but I just cannot bring myself to get rid of reading material.

#5? Cross stitch. The baby this is for is about to turn 1. Yeah, how much do I suck? I've worked on it, I swear. But each night I intended to sit down and continue working on it, I got sucked into another project. I see it sitting on the coffee table and feel houseguilt for not getting to it.

#6? DVR. When I told my husband I felt guilty for having shows on our DVR for months that I haven't watched, he pointed out that I bring guilt to a whole new level. I guess I could delete the half a season of Amazing Race. But I feel bad. Well, I feel houseguilt. I really like the show and want to support it! Like anyone having anything to do with the show would have any clue. Or care.

#7-100? Everything else! The laundry room floors, the pantry cleaning out, the top of the fridge clutter, the unorganized Tupperware cupboard, the broken push toy, the messy desk-corner, the unorganized cards, the untouched scrapbook, my son's closet....the list goes on and on.

Notice how I don't even mention all the other stuff I did accomplish. Houseguilt is like blinders. It blocks out anything productive one does and allows you to see only what you didn't get to. Pathetic, no?

So, in a few short days, I go back to work permanently (already been there off and on for little while), full of houseguilt, which also seems pretty permanent. The inevitable question of 'how was your summer' is coming. Over and over. And I'm pretty sure answering it with "my summer was houseguilty" isn't gonna fly. I'm thinking the vague answer of 'Oh, it was good....' might be the way to go!

The Incident In Which I Planned My Music For A Week

It's a little hard to see, but it says AEROSMITH!!!!! With Sammy Hagar. Hello?????? I must confess that I'm so freakin' excited I can't even stand it. 7 days, baby, 7 days.

I plan on listening to mostly Aerosmith for the next week to get me really pumped. So if any of you plan on stopping by, be ready to rock.

Ok, back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

The Panties (ARG! I HATE that word!) Tag Incident

So, I bought new underwear the other day. It was on the clearance rack at Old Navy AND was 30% off of the clearance price. Have I mentioned I'm cheap? Anyways....

I needed new underwear. Desperately. So, I picked up 2 packs. Wasn't too picky about the pattern. I figured as long as there were not any holes (besides the 3 that belong there) and overstretched elastic, I was good to go.

I get it home. I take off the tags. I notice what it says:

"Brand new panties, brand new you :)"

What the fuck? Ummm, new underwear makes me a NEW PERSON??? Oh REALLY? C'mon Old Navy. Who are you kidding? So new underwear magically causes me to lose 20 pounds, clears up my skin, and gets rid of my gray hairs? New underwear changes my attitude, wipes out my financial worries, and destresses me? New underwear will help me make new friends, accomplish all my life goals, and get my kid to stop throwing temper tantrums in parking lots? Fabulous. Best news I've heard all week.

Have I mentioned how I freakin' HATE the word panties? Like, HATE. There are few words I hate. Panties is one. It sounds as if the garment is being referred to as something cute and cuddly. I have several issues with this. A) I'm not 5 years old. B) The area covered by the garment isn't really cute, at least in my opinion. This could explain why I'm not a lesbian. C) During that oh so fucking special time of the month, there is NOTHING cuddly about them.

Overall, the word panties? Demeaning. Some man came up with it decades ago in an effort to make money by selling cart loads of underwear. I hate it.


And trying to convince me that they somehow transform me? Such bullshit.


They should just advertise it like it is: "Here are some clothes you wear underneath your other clothes. Be sure to wash them regularly."

If any ever tells me to quit getting my panties in a bunch, I will bust out my can of whoop ass and show you who wears the pants around these parts.


You should know that after washing and putting on the brand new underwear, I felt exactly the same as I did two seconds before putting them on. Maybe to really get a brand new me, I need new bras, too.

The Fabulous Sugar Doll Award Incident

Thank you Hannah for giving me this award! I'm pretty new to blogging and find the whole awards thing to be quite amusing (in a good way)! The Fabulous Sugar Doll Award comes with some rules. Write five things about your self and pass the award on to five fantastic bloggers. I kinda suck at this. A lot. But who am I to not follow the blog world's rules?

1. I'm the oldest of 5 kids. I have 4 little brothers. It was a unique, bruised-filled childhood.

2. I grew up doing music. Played flute, piano, taught piano lessons, sang in a whole lotta choirs, performed in musicals.... My brothers and I were all like that, and so was my mom. My dad was not. He dreamed of us being like Jackson 5, where he could be our manager. He came so close. 2 of my brothers have an actual band with actual CD's and play actual gigs. 2 out of 5 ain't bad.

3. My musical childhood led to me being in colorguard (tall flags) for years, and I now coach 5th graders. It's interesting. 5th graders have a hard time with tall flags. But think they are really cool. So therefore, it's fun. If not also bruised-filled.

4. I have never owned real bedroom furniture. Only passed-down stuff that is falling apart. I get serious furniture-envy when I visit friend's houses and riffle through their underwear drawers. Oh wait, was that my out loud typing?

5. I hate coffee. And peanut butter. UnAmerican. I know.

And today, I shall award it to....

The Zany Housewife (cuz she's a funny girl!)

http://bkfamily-andthentherewerethree.blogspot.com/

Fletcherville (cuz our lives seems quite similar!)

http://fletcherville.blogspot.com/

MamaKiss (cuz I love her madly)

http://mommakiss.blogspot.com/

Sherri (cuz she's sweet like sugar!)

http://www.herrandomthoughts.com/

Angie (cuz she probably knows how to cook without sugar!)

http://angieshealthylivingblog.blogspot.com/

The Ricky Martin Incident

My 10th year of teaching elementary school begins in a few weeks. If I've learned anything over the last decade it's that A) Teachers are really just good actors with a lot of materials and B) Everyone thinks teachers need a lot of materials, which means that everyone gives teachers all their old crap on a regular basis.

Oh, intentions are always true. "Every classroom needs more books!" "With budget cuts, the school could really use this bag of half-used pencils." "This bag of 10 randomly shaped felt pieces can surely be put to use in a classroom with 26 students."

Which is why I recently acquired 4 bags and 3 huge tubs of stuff from various sources, including my mother. Who, for some reason, thought my classroom needs 350 small white paper bags.

The bins came from an ex-teacher who, no doubt, had acquired most of that stuff from other teachers. I always have wonder how many teacher's hands that math worksheet book has passed through, or what district originally issued that atlas to some 4th grade classroom.

Anyways, it took me 4 hours, but I went through everything and either found a home for it on a shelf in my classroom or in the 'free crap' pile that I'll put in the staff room in a few weeks. Right next to a tray half full of cupcakes, no doubt. Teachers' staff rooms are totally the place where junk food goes to die. Cupcakes, brownies, cookies, Christmas candy (in August), Halloween candy (in February)...it's bad.

Anyways. Again.

So one of the items I acquired was a good sized, laminated world map. I decided I actually had a use for it and began to unroll it to hang it in the front.

Now, a lot of random, unexplained things have caught my attention over the past few days. The two paperclips on our stairwell. The fact that I washed large amounts of Kleenex in 3 loads of laundry in a row (it looks like it snowed in my house). The nursing bras I found in my bra drawer (ummm, my kid is almost THREE). The morning my son made me talk only to his stuffed polar bear, not him. But, the randomness that slapped me across the face as I unrolled the map was, by far, the most random randomness.

Attached with old putty on the Caribbean Islands, sandwiched between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, was a 1/2 inch picture of Ricky Martin's face.
It was all I could do to not start singing "She Bangs" at the top of my lungs.

I can only imagine the events leading up to my find. Ricky Martin was hot, what, like 5 or 6 years ago, maybe? I have to assume that some 7th grader was obsessed with him, knew enough geography to know he's from Puerto Rico (and where the island is), was completely bored during her history class one day, peeled putty off of something else, took this picture off the front of her binder, and affixed it to the map. And, for whatever reason, the teacher never noticed it when taking it down and putting it in the 'free crap' pile in the staff room. Probably next to a plate littered with brownie crumbs or half a pizza.

The map? Taped to my whiteboard. The picture? Has a new home in the garbage can. The randomness? Continuing. While playing with his firetruck, my son just informed me that horsies are loud. Clearly the only appropriate response to that was "She bangs, she bangs".

The Comedy of Errors Incident

A friend and I had noble goals today. Go to 6 Flags with the kids, and have fun. Sounds so easy, right?

You can hear fate chuckling, right? Evil bitch.

You name it, it went wrong. My child woke up in a wonderful, but uncooperative mood this morning. He didn't want his breakfast (hello, homemade waffles? WTF?), was unhappy about having to hang out in the bathroom while I showered (so therefore, didn't), and naturally pooped as we were trying to leave. I couldn't figure out what to wear (a common theme when you hate your body, I'm learning), spilled a full glass of water all over the counter, turned on the faucet to refill the glass to find the handle on the sprayer was stuck and watched water spray ALL OVER MY KITCHEN...you get the idea.

My favorite moment was after all that other shit, I decided I need my morning tea with milk, and go to get the milk out of the fridge. It was in the back. The contents of our refrigerator resemble a Rubik cube. You move one thing, and a whole bunch of crap somewhere else shifts. So, I try to get out the milk, and like 8 things fall to the floor. One of them being a bottle of 'veggie juice' (that V8 fusion shit or whatever it is). So, while I'm trying to fit everything back in and get my tea started so we can leave, my son of course has to have veggie juice. Cereally?

Anyways, we hit every light red on the way to the freeway, but otherwise get to my friend's house unscathed. 35 minutes late, but in one piece.

After wrestling 2 car seats into her back seat, we were off. We are on the freeway off ramp outside of the park (her daughter is in the back shouting "Marine World! I see it!") when my friend realizes her wallet is at home. With her pass to the park in it. So, we tell my friend's daughter "Yes, you DO see it! Wave hi!" as we turn around and go back to the house.

Approximately 22 minutes later, we pulled into the park. Sweet. Here. Time for fun. Right?

Ha! Please. You remember the evilbitchfate I referred to earlier, right?

So, my friend gives the parking attendant her pass. Its scanned through and doesn't work. After a bit of back and forth, it's determined that something is wrong with her pass and we'd need to pay full price for parking and get a refund at guest services.

Ahhh, guest services. That became a place we knew well. Why, you ask? Well, dear reader, we spent about an hour there trying to figure out the season pass debacle. It was figured out, and my friend remained marvelously calm. Even though she pretty much wanted to jump down all the little workerbees' throats and pull their tonsils out to beat each one over the head with them.

So, after ALL that, we did make it in. The kids did have fun. The moms had as much fun as moms could have looking at elephants and riding on kid rides with their knees shoved up under their chins.

And, for anyone who is wondering what going to a theme park with a food allergy kid is like, lemme fill ya in. TORTURE. Ice cream, fried foods, pretzels, nachos, churros....you name it, it was there. Not just there, but around every corner there. And off limits. So, we had our fill of the food we smuggled in ourselves (yum, grapes) while walking by the Cold Stone shop looking longingly at it and leaving a trail of drool behind us as we worked off the grapes by pushing 35 pound kids in strollers up hills.

Really, nothing like a relaxing, fun day at 6 Flags.

See, we really DID have fun!

However, we decided our day was better than the foreign visitors who had parked next to us and locked their keys in the car. So, score one for us!

The Vacation Incident

We went away for the 4th. My parents have an amazing house on the beach in this dinky little town on the central coast of California. It's a great place to be, especially when my parents are there because they buy the food, do most of the cooking, and most of the cleaning.

They were not there this weekend.

So guess how relaxing MY 'vacation' was?

I was the first one up (well, after the kiddo) each morning. I either cooked, cleaned, or did both for every meal. I carried the kid during the massive amounts of walking we did to the parade and sand castles (he is scared of sand. don't ask. we don't get it either). When I bathed, I had him with me (even though he's scared of sand, he still gets covered in it. don't ask. we don't get it either).

I carried the kid here.

And Here

I did manage to eat a lot of junk though, so felt like this...

While other people in the house lounged around outside or played video games, I got to pick up thousands of bottle caps (does NO ONE know how to throw them away after opening a beer? SERIOUSLY?) and put away the dishes I had washed.

After fireworks, we made s'mores. While everyone else played a game, I roasted the marshmallows, made the s'more, and passed it off to whoever wanted it. So saying WE made s'mores is incorrect. I made them, they ate them.

I brought with me on this little trip 2 books, a movie I've been wanting to watch, and a photo album I wanted to finish. I never even opened the bag those things resided in.

On the way home on Monday, we had to stop by my inlaws. We had agreed to come by for an hour for lunch. After sitting through 30 minutes of their cruise pictures (you've seen one Roman ruin, you've seen them all, but yet they still took SEVERAL pictures of each broken column they encountered), they then go and START lunch. And at some point I was given a piece of cake in front of my son. Who of course is allergic to it, so couldn't have any, and threw a fit. What did they think would happen? Oh, and did I mention he didn't get a nap 2 days in a row? Yeah, Monday was a FUN day. And because our hour stop at my in laws was really 2.5 hours, we got stuck in super fun holiday traffic on the way home.

The ONE THING I wanted to do on my 'vacation' (besides crack open a book or watch a movie) was stop by a produce stand on the way home and stock up on local goods. Do you think I did that? Nope. Traffic and the longer-than-anticipated stay at the inlaws prevented that.

So now, we're home. I have the mountains of laundry, the fine layer of sand on my floor, and the empty fridge to prove it. I so need a vacation from my vacation.

The I Never Woulda Thought Incident

Recently, I was chillin' on Facebook (the ultimate time sucker) while killing time before my son woke up for the day and an instant message popped up from a mom I knew briefly online a while ago. Her son is the exact same age as mine. We chatted. It was pleasant. Until the subject of preschool came up.

Keep in mind, my child is speech delayed, rolled over, crawled, and walked late, and still isn't potty trained. When I give him his teddy bear vitamins, he promptly puts them in his ears. Every time. Clearly, we're not dealing with a genius here.

I'm not shitting you, this is an actual excerpt from our conversation:

"I know my son is more than ready to go to preschool, except for the separation anxiety. He's already reading. He's learning French from our neighbors and picks up EVERYTHING so quickly. Its crazy what he knows.He is doing math problems at least at a grade 1 level... he's adding, subtracting and some simple division. He writes his whole alphabet and knows his numbers to 100... likely more.He loves work books and I can't keep up with him! He says ALL DONE mommy I need a new one. He really has an aptitude for music too. He remembers songs after hearing them once and sings on pitch perfectly. " This is all about her TWO YEAR OLD.

You can imagine how I felt. I wrote back with a few "oh wow's" and "that's greats" before saying I needed to go running before it got too hot. I KNOW she doesn't exercise and at this point, I felt the need to make myself feel superior about something, and it was all I had! Don't judge me. Also, don't judge me for copying and pasting part of our conversation. I know it means I'm going to burn in hell. I figure my chances of not are pretty slim at this point anyways. I always swore I would NEVER cut and paste an IM chat. I've seen it hurt people in the past. I never wanted to be that person. Yet, here I am. Ah hell, judge me if you want. I do.

So, I did go running, and reflected on that fucking DELIGHTFUL chat that I had copied and pasted. It kinda got me thinking about things I NEVER thought I would do. And I started a mental list.

1. I never thought I would be part of a chat board. Ever. But the relationship with the women I have on my mommy board is incredible. They are ALL my soul mates. No subject is off limits....sins, sex, alcohol, husbands, friends, work, kids, cupcakes, fupas, sharting, genius two year olds, peeing during zumba.....

2. I never thought I would be a runner. I've always been active and when I hit college and stopped being involved in physical activities, quickly blew up like a balloon. I figured that was just how I was gonna be. I knew I had too little self confidence to join a gym and work out in front of people (god forbid someone see me use equipment wrong, or see my arm pit sweat) and running did not appeal to me. Yet, I tried it and now do it almost daily. Not well, mind you. But when your only goal is to GO (not in a certain time, not for a certain difference, not using a certain technique), it's pretty hard to disappoint yourself.

3. I'd never thought I'd loose touch with some of the friends that I have. As I've changed, my friendships have changed. I know that's normal, but it also leaves me feeling friendless sometimes. Too bad my 16 soul mates don't live closer.

4. I never thought I wouldn't go to church. I grew up going EVERY Sunday. Church camps every summer. Birthday parties with church friends. Church church church. Upon moving out of my parents' house when I was 18, I realized not everyone in the world goes to church religiously. I experimented with that. And found I kinda liked it. Or at least, liked the sleeping in on Sundays part.



5. I never thought I'd write. Yet in the past few months I've filled up a journal and a half (of mostly rubbish) and started a blog. Who AM I? Don't get me wrong, I'm not kidding myself by thinking I'm any good at it or anything. I swear, no self-accolades here. If you've ever met me, you know I'm pretty much the last person to compliment myself.


6. I never thought I could be a regular at Starbucks. I hate coffee. Can't stand the taste and won't even eat coffee ice cream! But, someone introduced me to chai lattes a few years ago and ooooohhhh, the heaven. A little mouthgasm with every sip. Finally, the hundreds of dollars I've gotten in gift cards as teacher gifts can be put to good use! And I can be part of the cool crowd with the fancy Starbucks cups.

7. I never thought I'd own a dog. Grew up with cats, always thought of myself as a cat person. Yet, not 2 feet from me is a dog, sleeping peacefully next to his gigantic bed. How in the hell did that happen? Why would I voluntarily bring a creature into my house that sheds everywhere, chews on shit, needs to be walked twice a day, and whose poop I have to pick up? And yes, I'm talking about dogs, not kids. Though I could see why you might be confused.

My favorite ever pic of our furry guy

8. I never thought I would have to learn to cook twice. It was hard enough the first time. But when we found out about my son's food allergies, I had to start all over. After many botched attempts at milkless and eggless bread, pancakes, muffins, and cupcakes, I'm finally getting the hang of it. My favorite way to screw with my coworkers is to bring in a batch of treats, watch them get eaten and enjoyed, and then announce "They were vegan!". Better than putting their staplers in jello.

9. I never thought I'd marry the man I did. We were friends for a while before dating and I often said I didn't think I could kiss him without laughing. Amazing how a few drinks can change things.



10. I never thought I would be old enough to make an I never thought list. When in the hell did I get to be 32? Ok, 32 and a half, really. My TEN YEAR COLLEGE REUNION is in a few weeks. How is it possible I've been out of college for ten years? I never thought I'd be OLD!!!!!!

And now, I challenge you...what's one thing you never thought you'd do?