Recently I met a fellow busy mom (to clarify, ALL MOMS are busy moms,) for a much needed coffee-and-catch up session. The craziness of Jr’s 2nd grade school year has combined with an amazing year of challenging and fulfilling growth for me in my role at work, and all the other stuff-of-life that we all experience, creating a whirlwind that carried the whole family from late summer and into the holiday season in a blink.
I was glad to stop and take a breath and spend some time with my friend and a large sugar free hazelnut latte, and somehow our conversation turned to school fundraisers, which quickly led into fundraiser prizes, which brought us to the dreaded goo ball.
Do you know the goo ball? My dear friend, who always seems to me to be the textbook example of composed super-mom, started into a story about her daughter bringing home this racquetball-sized squishy, sticky ball made of a material that allowed it to stick to whatever it was thrown at, and crawl down slowly.
“OH THE GOO BALL!! ” I shouted, probably a little too loudly for the quiet of the coffee house we were in, “I know the damn goo ball…. I have A Story about the goo ball!!!”
“I HAVE A STORY ABOUT THE GOO BALL!!” she exclaimed (also loudly… I bet they don’t wish we could come in every day at that coffee shop.)
Both of our stories involved the aforementioned goo ball becoming stuck, seemingly permanently, to a very high ceiling, and the ensuing circus that unfolded in an effort to get the damn thing down.
Mine was a harrowing tale involving The Mr at the tippy top of an extension ladder trying to swat at the devil ball with various poking devices while I held the ladder up at the bottom. Spoiler alert, I can’t hold The Mr up and the ladder slid all the way down, taking my legs out from underneath me as The Mr rode it the whole way down the wall until we were both in a heap trying to see if the other was ok.
Fun facts to know and share – goo balls stain. Significantly. Along with the dark goo smudge on my ceiling, I also have a front entry table with “goo ball marks” all over the bottom shelf… a greesy reminder of hard-learned goo ball lessons.
As we told our stories and described the many and varied household items we used to try and dislodge the nightmare “prizes” from our respective ceilings, we howled with laughter and clutched on to each other, caught up in the camaraderie created by the mutual understanding of such a ridiculous situation.
It was just what I needed. It was perfect.
Over the coming days as I told other moms in my world about the conversation and how hard we laughed and how perfect it was, I learned that having a goo ball story is actually FAR from a unique experience. Turns out those suckers have haunted the homes of almost every mom I know. Somehow knowing this gave me an even bigger sense of renewed connection within my mom village.
Momming (yep, it’s a verb,) can be isolating at times. It can feel like no other person is going through just what you are going through as you guide and root for and love and prod and sometimes yell your offspring through their days… everyone else seems to have it together. It can SEEM that way.
But really?
Really we are all just trying to figure out how to hide our goo ball stain.
Reluctantly Suburban 