Really?!

All this time writing a blog and all I had to do was try out for the Ben-Gal Cheerleaders!
Dag Nabit!!

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/NFL-8217-s-oldest-cheerleader-will-have-her-lif?urn=nfl-wp574

When life hands you lemons...

I hate this expression, because life has never actually handed me lemons, but it has handed me a big pile of ...

This story is life handing you lemons
http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201103/blind-leading-baylor-player-fights-through-freak-injury
and Melissa Jones made lemonade.  Good for you Melissa!! Thank God you will get your sight back.

Unfortunately, we have had a recent barrage of sad news from friends and loved ones regarding cancer, surgery, and or a big move.  I guess that's why this expression has been rattling around in my head. We have two friends, our age with young children, who are battling cancer.  One neighbor who is probably in better health than me, that just had prostate surgery and awaits results.  Two friends, whose parents have been battling cancer, are ending the fight, a third is already resting.  My friends daughter who was born with physical and developmental delays will be undergoing yet another (#60?) surgery for a brain defect that is causing headaches.  My best friend is moving 6 hours away, and two more from school who are moving this summer.

I'm sorry life, this no longer feels like lemons.  Besides I can't drink lemonade because of the ulcer I know have in my stomach!

Try as I might to look at the positive side, like when I am standing at the sink and want to bitch about doing dishes for the fifth time in one day I say to myself, "I have a house to clean, and food to cook, and a family to cook for, everyone is healthy..."

There is just no way to spin this, it just sucks.  Every time I turn around I am on the verge of tears.  When I go into my children's room at night to tuck them back in, I sit on the edge of their bed and cry.  I know that I can't cry forever, I know that life must go on, but right now I would like it to stop - for just a minute.

Maybe it's not lemonade that I'm suppose to make when life hands me lemons, maybe it's turtle soup?

Ode to Dr. Seuss

Oh the hunches you'll think when I Gertrude McMom won't get up, so please go away!

I Gertrude McMom I'm the Queen of this house!
Queen of the chaos, this mess, and this mouse.
I'm taking a day to just stay in bed
No work will be done I am resting my head!

My hair is quite crunchy cuz I don't get to showers
I just spray more perfume, now I smell like dead flowers.
My armpits need shaving the hair I can braid,
my leg hair has bugs, can I just use the Raid?
The make-up I put on three weeks ago Monday,
is making me look like a big DQ sundae.

Oh, the things I will do in my bed there all day,
the things I can think, I can do, I can say!
Oh the beauty of solitude - just me and my pillow
and movies and ice cream and my batteried friend Zillow!!

My dear friends, must I say what I'd do
with a day without watching Thing 1 and Thing 2-
and the biggest and hairiest and loudest of all
the husband thing- stands just 'bout 6 feet tall.

I wouldn't make breakfast, lunch, and then dinner
I'd go to the gym and make myself thinner.
I wouldn't be referee, judge, lawyer and jury
I wouldn't be rushing somewhere in a hurry.
I wouldn't be running to store and to errand
No milk in the house - Look! See if I'm carin'!!

Yes - I Gertrude McMomy am taking a day
to tell everyone - everyone - please Go Away.

I'm not Crazy!!

OK- while the jury may still be out on that one, here is one thing I do know - I am not alone.

While walking and talking today with girlfriends, commiserating about kids, life, husbands, work, etc...I found people saying exactly what I sometimes think.  These are people I respect as women, mothers, friends.  And they too sometimes feel like sending their children to military school. Thank you!!

I am not alone. I have found that place where it is OK to say, "I love my children, but I don't always like them."  What I have found as a mom is that there are very few places, and fewer people where I feel safe saying, "This job sucks! and so do I!"  Other women seem to have time to organize a clothes drive for the homeless, volunteer in the classroom, and bake bread while making dinner from scratch.

I have trouble feeding two boys breakfast cereal, while packing a nutritious lunch, and getting everyone out the door with underwear on.  And by everyone, I am including myself.  Many of my friends are very dear, I truly love them, but they are not who I call when I need to say Supercalifragilisticexpealodocious!
( I trying to somewhat observe lent and give up cussing- let's see if that lasts 5 minutes.)

I revere that generation before me.  The women that fought so hard so that I could have maternity leave and still have a job.  The women who gave up families to break the glass ceiling and especially those who did both.  My problem is they have set the bar so high.  Somehow, someway my generation bought into an idea that we can do it all.  And God love you sisters - some of you can.

I can not.  I have a common and mediocre disease called normalcy.  It causes a person to just be average - a C.  That's me.  But I'm consistent.  I will consistently plop my butt on the couch on Tuesday night to watch Parenthood, even if one of the children is still up God forbid.  I will forget at least three major milestones a year i.e., Birthday, yearly Dr.'s Appt., or school function.  I will bake two dozen cookies for the school carnival every year, rake old man Schneider's leaves every fall, and make chicken chili for friends as needed.

I will vow to go to church more often, scream a lot less, and spend quality time with my husband.  I will try to get to the gym to workout only to see an acquaintance who's been diagnosed with cancer and spend an hour crying together.  I will pray every night to be a better, thinner, kinder person - starting tomorrow.  I am average.

So ladies, find those friends, who will walk with you and talk with you and let you be exactly who God made you to be -even if it is just average.