Tag Archives: family

August 25, 2016 · 3:48 pm

One of the crowd.

Well, we are in week 2 of Jr’s kindergarten adventure and we have all managed to get where we need to be with all of the crap we need to have, including pants (no small victory,) in a timely fashion every day.

So I guess we are all going to survive the switch, (but reading of any heartfelt ruminations is still on hold until further notice, TYVM.)

I did come to a semi-jarring realization yesterday, not about Jr, but about my own role in this whole daily drop off scenario.

Years ago I made a vow — through gritted teeth with narrowed, shade-throwing eyes — to the baseball-capped, yoga-pants clad, latte-toting super-star suburban mommas piloting their perfectly organized MUVs in and out of the preschool parking lot – and to myself.

I wasn’t going out like that.  See, I proclaimed it in my very first post.   “Walk among them, don’t become them.”  (Thank you Suburgatory, for the best line ever.)

Look, we can pretty much agree that I lost my “cynical Keri” street cred a ways back now… probably around the time I started skipping through the local café giving everybody the winky finger guns and trying to hug an entire town.

winky jesus

Winky Jesus loves you, and so do I, Hometown.

But what I saw yesterday, when I glanced at my reflection in a window of the school while standing on the kindy playground, made me gasp audibly:

Note look of horrified realization.

Oh.

My.

Damn.

That is legit the ACTUAL textbook image of what I had described as being “them”  just a few years ago.  AND I QUOTE, “… yoga pants and performance fleece and pony-tails sticking out of baseball caps; with perfectly lined eyes…”

(Well, I suck at eye make up so that part is NEVER going to be me, but  still… I mean, come on.)

Whoa.

WHHHOOOAAAAAA.

Holy athleisure wear, Batman.  I was the creature I feared all along.

Even more fascinating – I totally get it now. Momming of school-aged kiddos is intense, yo.  Jr’s start time is a full hour earlier than I used to drop him off at his previous daycare/school.  Two minutes late? Too bad. Your kid is tardy, thanks a lot, Mrs NOT Mother of the Year.   That early ass roll-out time means that I have kissed my pre-dawn TV workouts buh-bye; we are already in full-on morning prep mode at that time of day now.  AND GUESS WHAT – if I put on the clothes when I get up, then I actually get a workout in right after I bid Jr adieu in the kindy yard and low-speed it out of the school zone. If I am wearing something else?  Nope, I end up putting off the putting-on of workout wear, and it just never happens.

ANDPLUSALSO – there are ample pockets for my stuff, it is toasty if the morning is cool, and if I notice a smudge of WTF on Jr’s face right as we get a foot on the playground, I don’t have to worry about jacking up work wear using my sleeve as a face wipe. (Yup, I said it.)

It’s like wearing a suit of mom armor.  I can’t hide it – I am converted, and I hadn’t even noticed the change.

The truth can hurt, Keri.

But it can also set you free.

:::raising giant Starbucks cup :::

Here’s to being “one of them.”

one of us

 

 

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August 10, 2016 · 1:18 pm

Not a “Kindergarten Mom” post.

I mean, just ♡♡♡♡

As Jr’s start date for Kindergarten looms ever-closer, friends and family and fellow moms have sent me links to many “open letter” type articles and blog posts…

Posts with titles like “On your first day of Kindergarten,”  and  “To my baby as she goes to school” and “The day my youngest started Kindergarten” (none of these are exact, but you get my drift, yes?)

In the past I have read these offerings fondly, I have even sent them on occasion as parents who have blazed the trail before me sent their respective littles off to Kindy and beyond.

I am here to tell you that I love each and every one of you who have sent those pieces… and I love and respect those who have so eloquently written them.

But people, I can’t read that shit right now.

Straight up, yo –  I am like, barely hanging on by the grace of God and Chardonnay and  a substantially unhealthy decent amount of denial.

It brings “I can’t even” to a new level.

Monday Jr started his last week of Pre-k at the day care center he has attended since he was 1.  I cried my “waterproof” mascara off  TWICE before 9 a.m. that morning. (I haven’t bothered trying to put it back on since.)

I woke up at 3 a.m. today, and I went into his room and turned on his soother and just sat in the glow watching him sleep.  (How much would that mess him up if I was THISCLOSE to his little face and he happened to wake up!? Screw saving for college, we should save for therapy.)
And this is just me, left to MY OWN thoughts on the subject, which are always scattered and fragmented and not all organized and beautiful and all of the things that the authors who wrote those posts and articles offer up so amazingly well.

If I read just one of those heartfelt examples, I have zero doubt that I would be reduced to a simpering, sobbing puddle of mom who runs to find Jr and tackle him in a heap of smother-hug on the floor, and NEVER gets my mess of a self up again, forevermore.

Because I think part of what is (barely) keeping me from losing it just now is that I kind of CAN’T put all of this into words….

I look at him this week and I see the eyes that have glanced curiously back at me, color matching my own perfectly, since minutes after he was born.  I hear echoes of his in-utero heartbeat on my stork radio monitor,  feel the cozy calm of his nursery enveloping us with the city bustling  below our beloved highrise “treehouse,” his first home. I smell his tiny baby lavender bath wash, taste every tear I have cried in fear and frustration and joy for him- all in an instant.

I see also in those eyes his entire future. The first inklings of his hopes and his dreams.  The challenges he will face, the obstacles he will overcome…. The love and the loss and the joy and the pain and the terrifying, beautiful BOUNDLESS promise that lives in that 40 lbs of human whirlwind.

I see it all.  And  I lose my words.

And I think it is saving me to know that for now.

I swear I will start a Pintrest board for all of those (no doubt awesome) posts, and I will read them around Halloween, when all of this is normal and routine and I can be only a semi hot mess mildly teary and slightly nostalgic about the next few weeks.

Right now it is way,  WAY too much.   Right now words aren’t tools, they are weapons coming at my tender mom-heart.

There is room in my little corner if you want to join me for denial, prayer, and Chardonnay, my fellow Kindy moms…..

No Kindergarten mom articles allowed though….  We don’t have enough tissues or box wine for that shit.

 

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June 27, 2016 · 12:26 pm

Dat Workin’ Mom Lyfe. Just Sayin’.

I spent 4 long days traveling for business last week, a topic that I have rambled shamelessly on about touched on briefly in the past. (You can read about all the deodorant failing, seat companion farting, 40000 ft cocktailing magic here, should you be so inclined.)

It has its positives and negatives, for sure.  I love my team. I love my boss.  I dare say I even love getting to experience Boston.

But I HATE leaving Jr.  Like HAAATTTEEE it.

So after 4 long days away, I was SO excited to see my offspring – imagining all of the cuddles we would share as he drifted off to sleep on my lap, not wanting to let me go for even one second after being without me for so long.

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Playing with the crab hat I brought him, shortly before becoming a different kind of crab.

All of that lasted exactly 2 minutes “in real life.”

Then he decided he wasn’t tired, wanted to rip his room apart instead, and spent the next 2 hours yelling through his door how mean I was, and that I should go back to Boston.

Queue the horrific mom guilt with a side of Chardonnay and a few tears.

Mom life is HARD, yo.

Just sayin’

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May 25, 2016 · 2:26 pm

Corn Dog Shit Show

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Just so we are clear, breading separation of this level = no longer edible to 5 year old

Being the ginormous food hog foodie that I am, I have always been very proud of the wide variety of food that Jr enjoys.

Until recently, that is.

If 4 years old was “the age of the questionable decision” (and oh, how it was,) then 5 is turning out to be “the age of the shrinking palate.”

Jr’s newest meal time battle cry has become “I don’t like that anymore.”

And people, let me tell you right now – mama ain’t down with it one damn bit.

After Jr tried to declare that carrots and broccoli (our last two approved true veggies) were now on his “do not eat list,” I went so far as to implement a “if you liked it when you were 3, you can’t unlike it now!” (Sorry, dude, but if 3 year old you would easily have eaten it, 5 year old you has to eat it too.  Because hashtag momlogic.)

Even with my MOTY rule in place, dinner time is substantially more hellish  eventful than it used to be.

Case in point, last night’s dinner… or as I immediately  took to calling it “The Corn Dog Shit Show.”

I gave Jr a prompt Heisman pose on his attempt to decide that he no longer liked the Morning Star Farms Corn Dogs that he loved as a 4 year old – because evidently vegan junk food is the hill that this mama decided was worth dying on.  Go figure.

Anyway, it worked and the kid decided that they were not only cleared for serving again, but actually his new-again favorite thing ever.  So for dinner last night when I offered a Corn dog instead of  the low carb Cheeseburger casserole thingy that The Mr. and I were having, his agreement was a level 2000 on a scale of 1-10.

Perfect, awesome, fantastic.  1 corndog, some grapes, and a yogurt tube (Simply Yo-plait ONLY, as he has decided that the Horizons tubes no longer meet his refined tastes,) coming up.

Except I wasn’t watching…. And if you overcook a vegan corndog, it blows up.

:::pause to de-corndog microwave:::

Round two is a success, and after a play session with the neighbor kid and a bike ride with dad, he was HUNGRY!

A corndog requires a 5-7 minute cooling time, which can be sped up by sticking the cooked dog back into the freezer. Skip this step and Jr’s delicious dinner becomes a molten mass of meat substitute lying in wait to scorch the taste buds off my offspring’s tender tongue.

All steps accomplished and we all sit down to din.

A third of the way through said perfectly cooled corndog, Jr decides to attempt to remove it from the stick, and half a blink later, it is on the floor, Potter has promptly wolfed it down, and Jr is has that pre-tantrum quiver in his lip.

RED ALERT!!!

I distract him with the yogurt tube and launch into emergency corndog prep procedure, cooking for 10 seconds, checking the temp, and going again – so as to produce a replacement that will be cool enough to eat PDQ, but not still a veggie-product popsicle in the center.

Just as the last grape goes into Jr’s mouth,  I sidle up beside him and hold out my microwaved creation, at the perfect temperature for instant ingestion.  Mom achievement unlocked.

The pride I took in this victory was far greater than any I ever felt in a kitchen – even when I made perfect puff pastry from scratch to ace my dreaded baking exam in culinary school.

We also had a quick lesson in pointing our corndog DOWN toward the plate if we are shoving it off of the stick, instead of pointing it up and firing it off of the stick like a cornbread-wrapped pop-bottle rocket.

One mealtime battle fought and won….  One food saved from 5 year old snubbery.   (Is that a word?  I am making it one.  I am the MF-ing corndog god… I can do that.)

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April 28, 2016 · 3:18 pm

Glow sky.

So part of this whole “move out to the burbs” thing (which incidentally happened 4 years ago next month, 4 YEARS, people,) was my understanding of a need to force myself out of my comfy little urban safety zone.  For myself, but REALLY for my kiddo.

As much as I want Jr to love the city (and I really still do want that for him,) I wanted him to experience ALL the awesome that comes with being a Colorado kid.   Mountain adventures, of course… but also the wide high plains that spread from the base of the foothills; the history of the mining towns and windswept railroad stops turned suburbs; all the personalities and peculiarities of the different areas of our amazing home (hashtag native pride – sorry, I can’t help it….  I love my home state.)

Andplusalso, in general I want him to see his mom be brave. To break out and try things and have new experiences with him. To fill his heart and his mind with wonder and joy and excitement for everything.
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That, good readers, is what brought Keri to Colorado National Speedway on a windy afternoon last Sunday.  With The Mr and Jr in tow. To wait until WAY past bedtime.  And then light shit on fire.

ON PURPOSE.

Let’s back up.

In early March after a couple of glasses of chardonnay (duh) one night, I got a text from a friend that Lantern Fest was coming to the Denver area.  It had only ever come as close as Colorado Springs, and I was equal parts enamored and anxious seeing pics from past events.

Jr LOVES him some Tangled.  He is in awe of the idea of the floating lanterns that Rapunzle’s family sets off each year on her birthday.

I credit the wine and the conversation that The Mr and I had been having that night, along with a “ITS YOUR LAST CHANCE AT THIS PRICE!” FB notification, because before I realized what I was doing, I had The Mr’s AMEX in hand and I was buying tickets and signing waivers and planning a great big surprise for Jr.

Oh hey, I dread fire.

Have I said that before?  I think lighting shit on fire on purpose is crazy talk. I was the only one in Girl Scout Troop 1062 to not get her firestarting/safety badge.

I still cook on our electric grill – 4 years past us giving up a highrise patio where no other grill was really allowed.
Our fire pit “burns” glorified cans of sterno instead of actual wood.

So lighting things on fire and sending them floating into the sky seemed about as dumb as could be to my rational mind….  But chardonnay causes bravery and love for my kid above sanity, so we were going, damnit.

It. Was. AWESOME.
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The wind was whipping on Sunday when we arrived to partake in pre Lantern-launching events.  The first night of the event on Saturday had seen high winds and at the last minute the actual launch had been canceled by the fire marshal (understandable) so I was hesitant to tell Jr what the end goal actually was even as we staked out our spot on the motorcross hills inside the track. There were bouncy castles and dirt hills to run on and vendor booths to look at;  and a stage with hoola-hooping and dance contests and all kind of things to keep him busy.  Why disappoint with what might not be.

Except it was.

The sun started to set….. the wind was gone.
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Festival staff started to light fire logs in metal buckets spread out throughout the track infield.  We broke out the provided smores kits and Jr toasted his first marshmallows with his newfound friend from our firepit.  Oh my heart.
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He wrote his name on a lantern….. he ran around against the backdrop of the Colorado plains his momma loves so much in the dying light of the day.
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The crowd was big, but when the time finally came, and the last light left the sky, all was quiet for a few moments that stretched into eternity as everyone lit their lanterns.
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The Mr lit one of ours…. He held it not knowing what to expect, and then just as I was pointing out the flood of lights in the sky, up ours finally went as The Mr pointed at it.  Jr was fixated.
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We watched the entire sky light up and float off. He kept his eye on our family lantern, as it mixed into the crowd of lanterns and floated into forever.

Silly Keri teared all up, of course, and we all stood and just watched the lanterns turn to glowing dots in the vast dark night.
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Awesome.  Just awesome.

Of course there was the typical traffic jumble associated with any large event ending, AFTER we found the Mr Mobile which was much tougher to do than I imagined it would be on our way in.  But it just didn’t matter.  Jr chattered excitedly, not showing signs of the grumpiness that I was sure we would see 3 full hours past bedtime.   When we got home I stripped my sleepy, smiling boy of his smoky clothes and kissed his little head goodnight. His hair smelled like campfire…. like experience and adventure.

I can’t say for sure what those moments will mean to him as he grows; but in my mind and heart I will always have a little piece of him at 5 years old, in the glow of a thousand lanterns, silent and sweet in awe and wonder.

For that I will push out of my comfort zone always.

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