Ms. Mommy Poppins: Practically Imperfect in Every Way

Forgive me, friends. It has been 13 days since my last confession, I mean, blog post.  Some days… Okay most days, I am about five minutes late. Or ten....Or just running behind in general. To church,   to school, to soccer practice, to life.   Unfortunately, when I am even more behind the eight ball than usual, I have been up to 30 minutes late. Gasp. I know.  Yesterday was one of those days where it seemed like nothing was coming together. I needed to get a TB test for future employment (yes, I feel so grown up!), and so I went to the hospital (or "to hospital" if you live on the other side of the pond) on our military base. I held my head high as I smartly grabbed a ticket at the pharmacy. Surely I would have plenty of time to make it back before they called my number so I could fill a few prescriptions. I had been putting this task off for a few months now. Oh they were just refills, pish posh. When I went to the sixth floor I soon found out that the TB tes...

Sometimes I think I have more conversations with myself than I do with other people throughout the day. (Does that make me crazy?!!) On the more frustrating days, I have a constant diatribe of arguments in my own mind on what I should have done better. Here are some random samplings from my own brain housing unit: You can't seem to get your preschoolers to school on time? Really? How hard can that be? Other moms seem to do it just fine, and they have more kids than you do. What's your excuse?  You lost your cell phone again? Seriously? Just put it in the same place everyday, depending upon the room you are in, and this won't be a problem. It's that easy.  Ok, lady, who forgets that it's their kids' show and tell day? Oh, you? That's ridiculous. That's more than ridiculous. It's sad. Quite sad. Are you sure you even love your son? By your forgetfulness, apparently not. Do better. P.S.- Running selected object into class ten minutes after the p...

Let's be honest here. There are many days as a parent where you just want to cry.  What type of tears, do you ask? Is it the happy tears of watching your daughter at her first ballet recital? Aww... But,nope. Is it the tears of joy when you see your son walk across the stage for his highschool graduation? Again, nope. How about the tears that well up in your eyes when your brood of children are playing quietly together and giggling? That is quite the precious moment which I adore, however, that is not the type of tears I am referring to at this time. Is it the kind of tears where it seems that nothing has gone right all day and you feel like you must be the worst mom ever? Well folks, I think we have a winner! Well, you happen to have caught me on one of those days. Surprise, surprise. ;-)  Here are some clips from my highlight reel that you may relate to: 1) I let my preschool son skip his morning of higher education today only to realize later in the afternoon that it was ...

Just another Saturday afternoon at the local children's museum today. You know, the kind where you have a panic attack about three times throughout the funtivities. You start thinking that your child must be abducted, because you can't seem to find the child you claim as your own, amongst sea of colors, flashing before your eyes. (I always try to put my kids in brightly colored clothing to spot them easily, but it seems like other parents must be stealing my memos from iCloud.) It's always a relief when you finally hear a squeal that you recognize in another room, and finally lay eyes on them. Your chest, rises and falls, in a sigh of relief.  Am I the only one who experiences this? We have "only" three. I can't imagine having a greater head count at this stage, but I suppose that the older they get, the more sets of eyes you have to help look out for the little people who like to chase shiny objects in another room. It's difficult to not feel rather cl...

My 20 month old daughter, Ellie loves shoes. She lives and breathes shoes. She wakes up in the morning saying "Shoes, shoes, shoes," over and over. "Shoes!" And over.  One day last week, just out of pure curiosity, I counted how many times she said the word shoes. 100 times. So I do not exaggerate when I say that she perseverates on shoes.  My precious shoeaholic wants to put them on immediately when she awakes. Tonight she actually went to bed with her light metallic pink Mary Janes on her feet, sans socks, per her request. This tiny demand was even after her bath, mind you, and so we have that out of the way for tomorrow.  Oh, wait. She will want to change into another pair that she comes across in the morning. So, disregard! For those wondering, I tried to sneak them off of her, when she was almost asleep. In her dimly lit room, she grabbed my wrist, and grunted her displeasure. And so I stopped. You win, Ellie, you win.  All shoes are up for grabs with this ...

"Egad! Our house has been ransacked!!"  This is what I want to exclaim, just about every time I walk in the door to our house. As a kid, I watched the movie, Home Alone , more times than I would like to admit. Boys especially seemed to love the painful booby traps that Kevin had cleverly devised for the robbers, Harry and Marv. They are classic slapstick moves, that I'm sure my sons will love to watch one day soon. If I can only find an old VHS tape player... Mother-in-law to the rescue!! :) Similar booby traps have been set in my very own home, though rather unintentionally. As you may have gathered, we now live on an Army post. Marine Corps friends around the world are now throwing up in their mouths- I have been trained to say "post" now, not "base," NOOOOO!!!!! ;) Anyway, while living on a military ... property, I often let my guard down a little more than I probably should. Thankfully, my confidence is reestablished, when I think about the pit...

Living on an Army post, there are a few perks. One being, that you are within walking distance of quite a few choice locations. When I am feeling naively optimistic, I pretend I'm a sherpa and load up two kids in my double jogger and one on my back, and we head to the Burger King for ice-cream cones for a mere 50 cents per cone. Sounds ridiculous, you say. Well, I am just that motivated to save that extra 50 cents per cone. Darn it. Ok, most of the time we just drive, but it paints a much better word picture. ;) Another place where I can practice the gift of being bipedal is the commissary. For those civilians that are not sure what a commissary is, I will inform you. It is a military  grocery store where you don't have to pay a sales tax and you can get some pretty sweet deals. However you do have to  avoid pay day like the plague, and have cash on hand to give the bagger a tip, because you are informed on a very intimidating sign that, "Baggers work for tips." And...