Ding! You’ve written 50 posts. Whu WHAT?

This morning I surprised myself with a short yet brain tickling little post on resiliency.  A short time after, my notification *ding* brought to my attention that I had accomplished writing 50 posts.  I didn’t really every start out with a goal of how many post, in any certain amount of time, I wanted to write but Wow!  That’s cool.

As the day went on, it occurred to me that I’m actually kind of shocked I have written 50 posts in three months.  I have managed to wrap words around 50 different of my very own ideas.  I was all “Go Me” for a second.  It also made me want to dig into my archives a bit.  Is it bad that I cracked myself up on several occasions?  Does the fact that I literately rolled my eyes at myself too kind of balance that out?

I pulled up the stats on my overall most viewed posts and I kinda am, but not really, surprised by the results.  A naughty toddler and vulnerability seem to bring the noise for me.  Here’s the top five most viewed:

Little Man

Tom Gauld

Depression and Motherhood: This is My Truth.

Walking in my husband’s worn out work boots.

Nat Geo Boobs: A “perk” of being Mom.

Life changing words.

Happy Re-Birthday To Me: A Sexual Abuse Survivor’s Coming Out Story.

It’s pretty apparent the things that are most important to me are my kids, my husband, my boobs, my story and my brain.  Are you surprised?  Either way, I think it reflects a pretty good glimpse in to my big, beautiful brain.  Thanks to all the bloggy friends that have stopped by, commented and shared their own stories with me.  You guys seriously rock.  And a huge smack on the cheek to my family, personal friends and Facebook friends.  You guys encouraged me to take blogging on and then helped support my ego enough to get elbows deep.  Much love.

Do you have a favorite post I’ve written or one that stand outs the most in your mind.  Is it a funny one or one where I get my deep thinking on?

Cheers to 50!

Chasing My Inner Fergie.

I need to jump out of a perfectly good air
plane.  I want to have a precocious conversation over
expensive, red wine with like minded people. I want
to bring sexy back, channel my inner Fergie and dance on
tables (no cameras please).

What I look like on any
given day.

I. Just. Want. To. Break. My. Momma. Mold.
My daughter gasped the
other night when I came down stairs with my hair straightened,
wearing make up, a pair of jeans and a
semi plain cute top in preparation
for a NYE get together with another couple.  I was flattered,
don’t get me wrong, but the realization that 30 minutes
spent on myself made enough of an impression to make my child
gasp was…well…a tell all.

My sister kidnapped to me
today.  We went to lunch and decided to get our day drink on
with a little mid-day margarita.  All of a sudden, Prince’s
“When Doves Cry” came over the radio.  I had to physically
stop myself from pulling out my signature moves and vocally
assassinating this song.  It’s one of my favs.  It
seriously hit me, much like the realization that I’m old enough to
be in love with a song by Prince, that I need to get out
more.  I need to have a tad
more fun in my life.

Fun. Fun? What is
that anymore?  I’m not 30 (something) and jaded or
bored.  I’m just at a point in my life where I have to cram
me time in to 2 or 5 or if I’m luck 10 minute
intervals.  If hubby and I can afford
decide to get a babysitter, trying to figure out what to do with
ourselves is almost as annoying as 6am on a
Saturday.  Why is that?  I remember when a good time,
whether it was 2 people or 10 or 20, was a simple formula
of alcohol, music and time.

It doesn’t help that I have a bit of
the eye twitching, walls closing in on me,
why-do-I-live-in-Upstate-NY winter fever.

Yes. This is for
real.

Nor did it help that I went to put a picture away
today and ended up looking at a photo album circa 2002 for about an
hour.  It took an hour because I have a four year old addicted
to detail.  I was 21 then and learning how to channel my inner
Fergie.  The smiles on my face were genuine, mischievous
and eager.

Please do not mistake that observation for a woman
who is unhappy in her life now as a 30 (something), wife and
Mother.  My glass is most definitely half full (of
rum).  I just mean I saw a smile that owned excitement.
Maybe putting that kind of smile on hold is because
it has been in exchange for other things.  Things like great
joys in little people and shared moments with my husband.
Perhaps complete abandonment of random fun-ness has made me
appreciate that pee a little in my pants (I’ve had two kids), laugh
out loud moments that no doubt happen when we get together with
friends.

I’m not wishing I was at an earlier point in my
life.  Lord knows if I tried to shake my humps and drop it
like it’s hot these days, something would get left behind.
Most definitely it would be my pride.  I just need a temporary
fix.  A hit of life.  A hit of anything would be really
great right about now, I’m not gonna lie.

What is a Momma
to do when she begins to feel like a shell of her old fun
self?  What “hit of lifes” have you taken that gave you that
“I still got it” feeling?  What self affirming challenges have
you taken on when the days just start running in to one
another?

Feminism and Cookie Dough.

“I have to get dinner started because daddy will be home soon”.

I have said this to the kids before but something about the way I said it this time hung in the air and I can’t seem to shoo it away.  It made me chuckle.  I suddenly had a vision of me in a pristine housewife dress draped with a wrinkle free apron, perfectly shaped hair, standing next to a vacuum cleaner with a slightly over-medicated smile on my face.  What led me to write about this, is the surprising attraction to and immediate revulsion of what just occurred in my head.

I’m no June Clever.  My version of being a wife and Mother more resemble what an offspring of Danny Tanner and Peg Bundy would look like.  Literally speaking anyway.  I love my family and will tackle any issue (cue cheesy 80’s tv background music) that life throws at us but I’m not winning any mother of the year awards either.

I’m a clean up after your self, unless there is blood I don’t want to hear whining, give a spanking when necessary because time out is usually a joke kind of Momma.  And as far as a wife…well I married the man I did for a reason.  There is no hierarchy in my marriage.  My inner angry Lilith Fair groupie wants to jump start a riot every time I’m at a wedding and the words “to obey” are still left in the woman’s part of the vows.

I’m usually back in sweats by the time hubby gets home.  I’ve never worn an apron and the only time I’m smiling while vacuuming is if I’m goosing my son and daughter with the vacuum hose to keep them laughing and out of my way.

However, I did choose to be a SAHM so I do feel somewhat responsible for the day to day chores in the house. Yes, I just dry heaved gagged a little.  I never, ever thought I would be a SAHM and I NEVER thought I would “conform” to the roles a woman is “suppose” to take on but here I am.  This is where life, in all its humorous irony, has led me.  And I’m happy to be here.

I’m lying if I deny that there is something very satisfying and somewhat sexy about having dinner smelling up the house and a somewhat clean house ready when the hubby gets home.  Having him walk in the door, hug the kids who have run up to him, give me a kiss on the cheek and maybe a little squeeze of the ass puts a smile on my face.  I feel very strange admitting that though…like I just sold myself out.  A little piece of my old 20 something self just died a little if I want to be melodramatic about it.

It’s comical really…five yrs of marriage, two kids and a surprising decision to trade my 9 to 5 for raising babies (and a slightly increased wine and coffee addiction), half my days are spent preparing or planning to prepare meals.  This coming from the girl that said something like “Just because I have boobs doesn’t mean I have to cook dinner every night!” shortly after getting married.  Once again, I find myself in a place I swore I would never be.  Consumed with wearing hats I tried so hard in my 20’s to avoid even touching.

Back then, I was so hell bent on NOT conforming that it never occurred to me that I might actually enjoy activities that fit the standard mold like baking.  I can bake the shit out of some cookies now and I enjoy the hell out of it.  It blows my mind that I bake, that I have any desire at all to make home made cleaning products, that I attempted to make homemade Halloween costumes this year, that at least once a week I even think about trying to be in something other than sweats when my husband gets home because I want him to see me without boogers, oatmeal and flour streaked across my clothes and hair.

To say people don’t change is just plain naïve.  Not that people always change for the better but they always change…it’s called growing.  Life has forced me to change and add to my own perspective and thank God for that.  I can own my views and not feel like I have to present my self in any one sort of way in order to be true to them.

I carry feminism and cookie dough in my arsenal now.  Imagine that.

Walking In My Husband’s Worn Out Work Boots.

“Every day I come home to a frazzled wife, a messy house and whiney children.”

I’m not mad at my husband for saying that. It was out of frustration, in the midst of a healthy morning argument. Ok maybe I was a little at first…or maybe a lot. Maybe, initially I took it as a personal attack on how I run this house and wanted to fly across the room, matrix style, and connect my foot with his jewels. But after grabbing the keys, spinning the tires out of the driveway, going for a ride by myself and stewing over it for at least 24 hours…I got it. I would be lying if I said I didn’t already know he felt this way. Some days, it’s written all over his face when he walks in the house.

I could get my panties in a bunch about this and start ranting about all the unknowns I do in a day that prevent me from keeping my house clean and how dare he blah, blah, blah. The truth is, I know my husband has the same love/hate relationship with me being a SAHM as I do. He’s just graciously refrained from saying it…until now.

Here’s another truth I stumbled upon this morning: A man so candidly stating he hates living in a dirty house, dealing with whiney children and a psychotic (insert nervous laugh) wife will no doubt have a mob of angry, duck faced women, shaking their heads and wagging their fingers (yep…right there with them!). He would be a total asshat that my girlfriends and I would crucify over coffee while our whiney, ungrateful kids create more of a mess around us. It occurred to me that I complain about those things on the daily to my girlfriends and if I didn’t have that option, I would implode in to a hot mess worthy of electric shock therapy.

Believe me, it feels weird to be defending men so vigorously, but this time it’s personal and I’m connected to it by my heart strings.

This is not a post for making excuses for the chauvinistic, only a father and husband on paper kind of man. I know that man. I know women that are unfortunately married to that man. That man doesn’t deserve the effort his wife, unbeknownst to him, devotes to him.

This is a post about putting my self in a hard working man’s worn out boots. Steel toed boots that carry a man who always puts his family first and says thank you after finishing a supper I cooked, whether he loved it or not. A man that vacuums the stairs and washes the windows because he knows it’s hard enough for me to stay on top of the “normal” chores. A man that brushes his daughter’s hair before bed and snuggles with his son when he is sick. A man that rolls over and reaches for me in his sleep. My man.

There are countless blogs full of stories about the struggles of, and the thankless job that is being a SAHM. And I will probably write another one next week, but today I want to just say thank you. Thank you to the Men that raise their children, that are true partners for their better halves. To the ones that bite their tongues when they come home and can’t quite understand how the house looks like a bomb went off, but choose to acknowledge his family instead of the mess.

The little yellow couch

The little yellow couch cradling our beginning.

Let me take you back about five or six years to a time of freedom and carefree-ness, a.k.a before kids.  My husband and I had this little yellow couch in our living room.  It was a very small, old, slightly smelly hand me down that I both appreciated and loathed.  My biggest complaint at that time was it was too small.  I always felt like my husband and I were right on top of each other.  Throw in our dog, an entitled Weimaraner who believes she is way above sleeping on the floor or even an expensive dog bed, and we were literally on top of each other.

Pre-kids, exhaustion didn’t take over at 7pm, so we had time to enjoy watching movies.  Even though the couch was small, we somehow managed to lie down together.  Hubby would lie down first, as far against the back of the couch as he could and then I would push my back against him as close as I could so that we both lay “comfortably” snuggled and ready to watch the movie.  Most of the time, he would have his arm wrapped around me as both a gesture of love and simply to save me from falling off the couch.  I loved it but still continued to joke and complain about our pitiful little couch.

When I got pregnant with our first child, the couch stayed it’s same small, smelly self but I got bigger and bigger.  There came a point where us lying together became a laughing matter.  It simply could no longer happen.  I clearly remember our last attempt.  I tried to lie in front of him and my big belly (about 7 or 8 mths worth of baby in there) would literally hang off the couch.  I crack up just thinking about it.  It was not happening.  So life goes on and we just watched our movies sitting up.  Or hubby would lie his head on what was left of my lap and our very active little girl in utero would practice her soccer moves with his head.  But still we “had” to be so close to each other.

The little yellow couch is now long gone and was replace with a bigger, slightly nicer hand me down couch that offers more room to put between us.  That yellow couch has been on my mind recently because I’ve noticed how little my husband and I actually touch each other lately.  I don’t mean in a sexual way but just literally, simply touch each other.  Two kids later, I could die my hair red, he could grow a beard and I’m not sure either of us would notice until days later.  We’re busy.  We’re distracted.  We’re tired.  We’re comfortable.  We’re creatures of habit that now sit in “our” spots to watch tv or play mindless Facebook games after the kids go to bed.  It’s a habit that I’m realizing will take effort to break.

I have a very close friend and family member who recently has had the opportunity to buy a bigger house.  We were discussing how very awesome it is and how grateful she is to be able to own such a nice home.  One thing she said has stuck with me.  She talked about how strange it is to not have the chaos that is her three boys around her all the time now.  They now have their own area up stairs.  She said this was bittersweet.

I can equate that to my little, old, smelly, yellow couch.  It’s nice to have added space but that previous lack of space is now seen differently.  It’s missed.  It’s appreciated.