Heather Balog's Blog, page 35

I’ve Reached the Breaking Point

Warning: the following is a RANT. Do not expect humor or deep profound musing here. There isn’t any sort of reasonable thought process to follow. I have officially cracked. Seven hundred and fifty hours of being trapped in the house will do that to a girl.

I’m a Jersey Shore kinda girl, not a snow slopes kinda girl. I prefer flip flops and tanks to Uggs and hoodies. I’d take sweating any day over my toes being cold. So it’s understandable when I say, tonight and Saturday’s forecast is making me shudder.

Ok, ok, it’s only supposed to be a little snow. Maybe 6 inches. But it doesn’t matter. It could be 6 centimeters for all I care. I’ve reached the breaking point. I. Am. Done.

I have been pretty good about not complaining this winter. Those who know me will attest to the fact I’ve been pretty laid back about the cold, not even flinching when it is 9 degrees in the morning and a high of 32 feels like a freakin heat wave to me. But I have reached my breaking point with Mother Nature and I cannot hold my tongue any longer. Enough you bitch!!! Stop! I’ve had enough; I am done with winter.

I am done with my house phone and cell phone ringing and that stupid recorded voice telling me school is closed. I am done with snow days, stuck in the house. I am done with organizing my closet, staring longingly at my sun dresses. I am done with not being able to run outside because nobody shovels their sidewalks. I am done with baking cookies and reading books and drinking f’ing tea. I am done with the dogs crapping on the deck. I am done with the four foot high mound of dirty snow on my front lawn. I am done with the icicles precariously hanging like threatening daggers from my gutters. I am done with warming up my car, scraping off my car and climbing on my car so my 4’11 1/2 a$$ can scrape off the roof of my car. I am done slipping on the ice. I am done shoveling. I am done layering up just to get the paper from the driveway. I am done with feeling sluggish and slovenly. I am done with my kids hanging around inside ALL THE TIME because it is too cold to go out or they are afraid they will get lost in snow drifts. I am done with not being able to get my garbage cans out of the yard.

I cried the other day because I opened the car door and snow fell in my lap. I have LOST it.

Yeah, I know people in Maine and friggin Colorado and all those cold places have it ten bizillion times worse. They choose to live there just like I choose to live here. But I didn’t sign up for blizzards and shoveling by living in New Jersey. I signed up for the sand and the waves and the margaritas in a beach chair. I want HOT. I promise, I will never complain it is too hot ever again. Even if the summer humidity causes my hair to frizz. So Mother Nature, get your $hit together and stop this nonsense. I want summer and I want it now! And also, another margarita. I feel much better now after ranting. And five margaritas.

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Why I Hate Snow Days

thebadmommydiaries:

Here we go again….where is spring???

Originally posted on The bad mommy diaries:

It’s snowing…AGAIN

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A Little Baileys in the Coffee Makes the Medicine Go Down

I’m starting to hate my house. No, that’s wrong…I’m starting to hate being TRAPPED in my house. This is the fifth snow day and I’m slowly starting to unravel. At least I think it’s the fifth…I put Baileys in my coffee so I’m not quite sure. It’s no secret I’m not a winter fan, per Se, but this is winter hopped up on steroids. It reminds me of the winter of the year I graduated high school. It seemed like the phone rang every other morning telling us not to bother to come in. I remember being excited the first couple times at the prospect of a snow day, but then, excitement turned to tears as I just wanted to get it over with!

I’m starting to feel like that again. Every time that ominous school announcement number flashes on the phone, I start to shake. I actually want to go to work. I WANT to get it over with. I feel like we’ve been stuck at the half way point of the year for decades now. Our spring break is getting wiped out one day at a time and there’s another storm looming on the horizon. True, I have a ton of editing and rewriting to do as I hope to have a book coming out in two weeks, but I don’t even want to do it. I have piles of laundry I should do before we lose power from the ice storm, but ehhh, that doesn’t sound fun. I am sooooo unmotivated right now. As you can probably tell from this crappy blog that is merely a diversion so I don’t have to do what I’m supposed to be doing.

And the kids. Oh my God. They were cheering the first couple of days, overjoyed to play in the snow. But not now. They’ve had enough of playing in the snow, shoveling the snow and sleeping in. They’ve watched every movie and played video games for seven hundred and fifty two hours straight. They have the energy of caterpillars in cocoons. I guess that’s good. At least they’re not fighting. They’re just staring at me. Right this minute. Like I can magically make something entertaining happen for them. I told them to clean their rooms. They chuckled at me and went to forage in the cabinets for food.

We are all eating too much out of boredom. I made cookies the other day…correction, I made cookie dough the other day. We all ate it before it made it to the oven to bake. I guess I could make a healthy meal for us to eat. Nah. There’s frozen pizza in there.

I’m just going to make more coffee. Here’s a tip for all you moms (and dads) trapped home with bored kids. Put Baileys in the coffee. And dream about palm trees and Sandy beaches. They’ll be here soon enough. Right? Somebody please tell me there is an end to all this cold and snow in sight!!!!

Filed under: parenting humor Tagged: hating the snow, losing my mond with snow days, trapped in the house

Dear Lord, Not Another Birthday Party Invitation!

My kids are 12 and 8 and over the last eight years or so, I’m pretty sure between the two of them, they have been invited to and attended close to 50 birthday parties of classmates. In fact, I’m sure that number is a low estimate but for argument’s sake, let’s make it 50. Now of those 50 parties, how many do you think I have attended and how many do you think my husband has attended? Figure out the answer any way you’d like, percentages, decimal, fractions…whatever floats your boat. Got an estimate? Did you write it down? Good.

If you answered 100% for Mom and 0% for Dad, you’d be correct! Gold star! Yah!!!!!

I have been to every sugar infused, headache inducing, whine fest my kids have ever gone to. Every. Single. One.

When I was a naive new mother, I looked forward to birthday parties. When my oldest got his first birthday party invitation on cute little race car card stock in kindergarten, I said “Awwww” how cute…can’t wait! When the second and third and fourth followed shortly after, I wondered how on earth we would afford it, but still, thrilled that my child had this opportunity outside of school to interact with his peers. In fact, I looked forward to being able to socialize with parents outside of the school environment. It was going to be a fun Saturday afternoon.

Sucker.

First off, the party was a bowling alley which is fine in itself. But add a class (yes, the entire class) of five and six year olds (some let loose without parental supervision) hopped up on goodie bag candy and permission to throw heavy balls at things and you have a recipe for disaster. The poor mother of the birthday child looked like her hair was being pulled out by its roots as she dashed all over the place, keeping kids in line and making sure everyone had the right meal and the peanut allergic kid didn’t go near the cake she had made with peanut oil not knowing that the kid was allergic to peanuts. I didn’t want to bother her, so I glanced around to see who else I could pass the time speaking to.

You have a variety of parents at these parties, as I soon came to learn. First off, you “the clique”; mothers who have known each other for YEARS (sometimes because they have older children that have been in school together). These mothers will huddle together with their Starbucks, laughing and whispering amongst themselves. They will see the other parents scattered throughout the birthday party and ignore them completely. God forbid you should try to join in on the conversation or even ask them a question, they will glare at you like you are a complete moron. (I’d also like to point out if you encounter any of these moms on their OWN, they will latch onto you like a leech and pretend they are your best friend).

At every birthday party there’s Fun Mom who is literally on floor with the kids, thoroughly enjoying the birthday party. I mean, she’s REALLY into it. Maybe she likes to bowl or roller skate or play laser tag, but I wish she would stop because she’s making the rest of us look like the bad mommies we are, ignoring our children.

Nearby this mother is usually Photo Mom, the one snapping fifty million pictures of the kids in various poses, completely missing the point that this is a PARTY and the kids are supposed to be having FUN, not creating collages of them pretending to have fun. This mom is also present at all baby and wedding showers, stopping the mother to be/ bride after she opens every gift and getting a cheesy picture. She is singlehandedly responsible for making these showers four hours long. Fortunately, they stopped opening gifts at kids birthday parties years ago, foiling her attempts to extend the birthday party to a day and a half.

She actually better than Bragging Mom who catches your ear to tell you every wonderful thing her kid has done in the last month. If she could, she would probably gush about the fact her kid has regular, solidly formed bowel movements every day at 4pm. This is the mom whose kid will never do any wrong and it makes me nauseous because every time I’ve met the kid, he/she is a little $hit.

Then, you have Weirdo Mom, the one who brought her knitting and insists on trying to draw you into a conversation on the dangers of commercially manufactured shampoo. She wants you to join her group the next time they picket the styrofoam cup manufacturing plant. The piece of lint on your shirt suddenly becomes fascinating.

Next to her is Bored Mom, the one looking at her phone every thirty seconds in desperate hopes that something exciting has popped up on the screen since the last time she looked. She is avoiding human contact as best as she possibly can, sometimes fake writing a text message so that she doesn’t have to talk to the person who is approaching her with their mouth opened to speak. I must admit, that has become me lately, but mostly to avoid our next guest…Lone Dad.

Oh yeah. There’s always one and quite honestly, he should stick to talking to Weirdo Mom. But usually, I’m his lucky target as he yammers on about gardening or football dry wall or something manly. Even if I care about the subject or Lone Dad is actually interesting, I really, really don’t want to talk to him. Because when you’re talking to lone dad, the “clique” will eye you up like you’re planning on dragging the guy to the back of the room and making out with him. And you can be certain they will report it to his wife.

Even more amazingly, even if there is someone that I know at the birthday party and whose company I enjoy, for some reason, sitting at glow in the dark mini golf or Chuck E. Cheese renders me unable to carry out a coherent conversation. The noise level is too high or the lights are blinking, enticing me into a seizure. So I will usually sit for the excruciating long one and a half to two hours staring at a book or my iPad, desperately wishing I was anywhere but the birthday party.

Until it is time for us to depart with the fake smiles plastered on our face as my child clutches the goodie bag full of candy bought in bulk and plastic crap that will break before we even get home and remain under my backseat until summer.

In the next few weeks we have three birthday parties, all on Sundays, my day of rest. I begged the hubby to go, in exchange for a variety of favors (wink, wink). He wouldn’t bite. I’ve offered the kids money not to go. I’ve even considered hiding the invitations. But nothing works. So if you see me at one of those parties, just know, it probably isn’t coffee in that Starbucks cup and I’m not sharing. Go get your own.

Filed under: parenting humor Tagged: Birthday parties, Moms at kids birthday parties, surviving kids birthday parties

Will I Ever Have Nice things Again???

I’m looking around the house and it’s making me sad. I’m convinced I’m never going to have nice things. Oh sure, I can afford to go out and get nice things but that doesn’t seem to matter. Because once the things come into my house, they’re never nice again.

The kids are almost 9 and 13 and I have finally gotten to the point where I buy something, I show it to them with the caveat, please do not touch, break, destroy, etc. etc. and I have about a 50% chance that they will honor this request. I feel that percentage is likely to go up in the next few years (besides,of course, anything pertaining to the car). But it is not the children who are responsible for the majority of the destruction in our humble abode any longer. It is in fact, a furry, four legged resident that is slowly reducing my home to rubble.

Ever since we got married (17 loooooong years ago) we had cats. In fact, we STILL have one of those cats. Cats are notorious for clawing your crap. We discovered this the hard way by coming home one evening to find two of our cats hanging from the curtains like it was an amusement park ride. However, simple solution…declaw them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah…please don’t give me the bleeding heart in humane speech. I’ve heard it. What the cats did to my curtains was in humane. Besides the fact all of our cats have been indoor ones and they have no need for claws.

Cats also spew bodily fluids on places bodily fluids should not be. They pee on carpets when they are upset about something and hack up hair balls in your slippers (yes, I have slid my foot into a hairball lined slipper in the middle of the night). We had one cat who had explosive diarrhea and would completely miss the litter box 90% of the time.

Yet, for all their faults, cats cannot even BEGIN to scratch the surface on destruction like our newest addition to our family.

Colt is a 3 year old German Shepherd. In those three years, he has wrecked more havoc on our home than all our cats, our other dog and every child who has ever visited our house, combined. In fact, he probably broke that record in his first six months of life.

Colt is not an aggressive or vicious dog. He is a VERY happy dog. But he is also a BIG boy. He is almost 100 pounds and greets you with HIS ENTIRE BODY. He lumbers towards you full force, tail wagging, thrilled to death to see you. He loves you…he doesn’t care if he just met you, he can smell that he loves you from across the room. He will land on you and it doesn’t matter if you are a 400 pound body builder with the balance of a yoga instructor. He will flatten you. And then he will sniff your orafices with sheer olfactory delight. All of them.

When we first got him, he was very timid, scared to go up and down steps and scrawny and malnourished. He never chewed a thing and was on his best behavior…other than peeing and crapping 87 times a day in the kitchen. I remember being on my hands and knees scrubbing the grout in the floor with bleach at dawn…crying,”WHY have I done this to myself?” I cursed my moment of weakness when the children and the hubby batted their eyelashes at me and SWORE they would take care of him. For the record, apart from occasionally letting him outside, none of them have honored that promise. But it doesn’t matter, Colt only wants mommy to take care of him anyway. *sigh*

Colt is very needy. He’s whiny like a toddler and follows me around (nose literally up my a$$) like a hemorrhoid all day long. He scratches at the door and cries if I try to change my clothes alone in the bedroom and he waits for me at the bathroom door. He will bark at me and nudge persistently if I try to sit down on the couch and relax. No mommy, no break for you, chase me around the kitchen table! He lays ON me at night only to wake me up at 3 am to chase neighbor cats around our backyard. ( He’s very insistent about this…standing next to me and woofing quietly to wake me. He wouldn’t DREAM of waking up Daddy).

But I can put up with that. It’s the destruction I can’t take.

We had a tiny hole in the couch cushion, about the size of the point to a toy sword (hmmmm, suspicious). One day, I was getting dressed for work and I came downstairs to discover that tiny hole became a hole big enough to fit a person in. And, what’s more, the other two cushions were also people sized holes. The puppy, thrilled with the new toy he had created of cushion stuffing leapt around the living room, tossing that stuffing in the air. He had EATEN THE COUCH. We found the pooped out foam around the backyard for weeks.

Okay, okay, we learned our lesson, right. Nope. A few weeks later, on a beautiful 60 degree spring day, we left him outside with the other dog for an hour or so. He barked. He whined. He begged to come in. There was no reason for it, so we ignored him. Stupid us. I poked my head out the window sometime later and saw him trotting around the yard with what looked like a piece of siding. Yup…he ate the siding off the house.

He has chewed more shoes and boots than I care to think about and he has also munched his way through three or four comforters, countless stuffed animals and pillow. He has helped himself to a variety of garbage can cuisine including entire chicken carcasses and empty peanut butter jars. He has LITERALLY eaten my daughter’s homework on more than one occasion. He ate my husband’s brand new Cowboys hat that he never even wore once. Yesterday, my husband caught him with my eyeglasses. There is no rhyme or reason to his madness. He could ignore a pair of socks laying right next to him on the floor to go and take a library book off the kitchen table to snack on.

He’s laying on my new couch right now, smashing in the top cushion. It’s ruined. It’s never going back to the way it was. The sun is streaming in the window and I can clearly see his nose art all over the front window that I JUST cleaned. I just discovered a pair of my underwear that he took out of my hamper, all chewed up in a ball. He’s three and it’s not getting better. Everyone keeps telling me, “they grow out of it”. But I’ve resigned the fact that I have a perpetual toddler on my hands and…I’m never going to have anything nice again.

Filed under: parenting humor Tagged: dogs destroying your stuff, dogs who chew, needy dogs, needy pets, puppies

Why I Hate Snow Days

thebadmommydiaries:

It’s snowing…AGAIN

Originally posted on The bad mommy diaries:

I hate snow days. In fact, I loathe them. Okay, that’s a little harsh. I don’t actually LOATHE the day. It’s not the day off from school that I hate; in fact, getting a day to sleep in unexpectedly is wildly intoxicating. Not to mention the rare opportunity to get a jump start on cleaning, laundry, etc., etc. Even the kids being home isn’t the problem. The problem lies within that one word, SNOW.

Ugh, how I detest that word. Yes, yes, it’s pretty as it dances gracefully from the sky and we watch it all cozy in our jammies, clutching our mugs of hot cocoa and coffee. And we ooo and ahh as it lays on the ground in the moonlight untouched by footprints and tire tracks. But that’s where it ends. Because everything beyond that is just plain torture.

Oh, where to begin on why I hate the snow. Okay, first of, it’s cold. Yeah, I know, duh, of course it’s cold. But you must not understand, cold and I don’t mix. I am a beach lovin, poolside loungin, margarita sippin, flip flop wearin, heat miser. I like it hot. The hotter the better. I consider any temperature less than 70 degrees, frigid. Apparently, I was born in the wrong season, my birthday being in January. I also hate January, by the way. Way too much snow. And cold.

Secondly, snow is messy. Well, not the snow itself. The salt and sand and the kitty litter everyone throws down is messy. And it gets tracked into my house, eating up my new hardwood floors. Sure, I’ve screamed and ranted and raved “Take your shoes off at the door!”. I’ve put towels out and left slippers for them at the entrance. Do you think that matters? Of course not. The kids all just step over them and tromp all over the house, melting ice and evil salt dropping off their shoes en masse. And I scream like a lunatic and drop to my knees with a rag trying in vain to save my precious floor while they stare at me like I’ve recently escaped the insane asylum. Which is exactly what I feel like when it snows.

Then of course, there’s the whole “mommy can I play in the snow” to begin with. That sentence makes me cringe like no other on the planet. This morning, I heard my daughter approaching me from behind in a stealth manner that could only mean one thing. I ignored her the first time she said it, closing my eyes just like our cat does when she doesn’t want you to see her. Maybe if I close my eyes tight enough, the kid wouldn’t see me.

Nope. She found me and started tapping me. “Mommy? Mommy? I want to go play in the snow.” I kept my eyes closed even tighter. Maybe she would walk away and forget about the whole thing.

No such luck. She began to shake me and shout in my ear. “Mommy did you HEAR me? I want to play outside!”

I threw my hands up in the air and wailed, “But why?”. Because I know exactly how this is going to go down. We will spend 17 minutes looking for a matching pair of gloves that the dog has not chewed a hole in. We will spend 8 minutes arguing over hat versus earmuffs. (I will win that argument and she will wear both…it was 5 degrees this morning). We will spend another 6 minutes in an argument about a scarf in which I will also be victorious, but only initially. I will find the half chewed scarf in the yard in April. After that, we will spend 11 minutes stuffing her into her snow pants which she has grown out of since last winter and then another 9 working on the boots for a grand total of 51 minutes in preparation to go outside. I will then shove her out the door because I don’t do cold. After fifteen years of shoveling, I finally have a kid old enough to do it for me when the hubby is at work so technically, there is absolutely no reason for me to even step foot out the door. I have remote start and for a price, the kid will even clean off my car.

Anyway, remember how long I said it took to get the little one ready to go outside? Subtract 42 from that number and that’s how long she will stay outside. Which makes a hour out of my life that I will never get back again. AND she will track snow through the house as she seeks me out to stop what I’m doing (most likely shoving the previous batch of wet snow clothes in the dryer) in order to demand hot chocolate. Which is why I suspect is the only reason she wants to go outside to begin with. What’s more, we will repeat that process at least four more times on a snow day.

I’m looking at my friends’ pictures on Facebook as I sit in my cozy, warm house. Most of them are sledding or building a snowman with their kids and everyone is smiling and happy with their blue lips and pink cheeks. I feel a twinge of guilt about being a bad mommy because I refuse to play in the snow. Mommy doesn’t want to make a snowman or sled down a freaking hill at dizzying speeds. I don’t want my hands or feet or nose or any other vital part of my anatomy wet and frozen. But then I think, I’m a summer girl. I’m not a bad mommy in the summer. I’ll take you to the ocean and splash in the waves with you any day. I’ll play Marco Polo in the pool and run through sprinkler with you. We can build a sand castle or dig to China on the beach if you’d like. But please, dear child, don’t ask me to go outside with you in the snow. Shouldn’t you be in school, anyway?

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Get Off Your A$$ and Stop Making Excuses

I know I’m going to tick people off with this blog but I’ve GOT to ask this question. Why do we have to give up ourselves to be considered good mothers? Why is it that mothers who take care of their own needs too are seen as “bad” by the rest of the world?

I just saw one of those annoying memes on Facebook, you know, the ones with cute pictures of puppies and babies and kitties with some witty saying allegedly by said puppy, kitty or baby? This one was a picture of a relatively newborn baby and it said “I know you won’t be able to wear your bikini again Mommy, but I promise you, I’m worth it.”

Really???

So let me get this straight. Motherhood instantly causes women to only be able to wear one piece bathing suits but that’s okay because you shouldn’t care anymore because your child is more important than anything else?? Ugh. Please excuse me while I throw up a little in my mouth.

I’m sorry, I find this deplorable. Yes, my children are THE MOST IMPORTANT THING in my life. As well they should be. But just because something is important doesn’t mean that you need to abandon everything in your own life for it. I have other things that make me who I am; writing, running, reading. I don’t want to give those things up just because I have children. Motherhood is all about learning how to balance those things. Abandoning any of those things would make me less of who I am. Of course if forced to make a decision between my children and never working out again, I would chose my children. But that’s not how life works, is it? It’s not black and white and all or nothing.

The “I will never fit in my jeans again, but it’s okay because I gave birth” excuse makes me spitting mad. You want to know why? Because it’s an EXCUSE. People who use this cop out are only doing it so they don’t have to feel bad that they won’t fit in their jeans again. They use their kids as an excuse why they’ve gotten out of shape and can’t get back to their old selves.

I know children change you and all of a sudden the seemingly superficial things don’t matter to mothers as much anymore. And what’s more, I know weight and how we look IS an incredibly superficial concept. But how we look IS important. It gives us self confidence and it is how the world sees us, like it or not. Even though we have much more important things on our plate, we SHOULD still care.

Why? First and foremost, being fit and in shape is important to being a good mother. Not only does being in good health mean you will be around longer for your children, it’s important for interacting with them. A mother who can chase after her toddler, play catch with her preschooler and roller blade with her middle schooler is a better mother than one sitting on the sidelines eating out of a fast food bag. And damn, it gives you energy to keep up with them. Even light exercise like walking the dog can improve your mood and make you feel less sluggish.

Sure, you don’t need to be in bikini shape to do those things, but why the hell not can’t you TRY?? Some mothers weren’t in bikini shape before they had children and that’s FINE. It’s NOT about being a supermodel or trying to fit in a size 6 dress when you always were a 10. It’s NOT about being this imaginary person you never were. It’s about staying true to who you were before you had kids and maybe even going out of your comfort zone to be better for them and for yourself. There is no law that says once you have a child, you are doomed to wear a mumu and cover up to the local pool for the rest of your life. And don’t shake your head and say “it’s okay, I’m a mom now, those rolls that are getting out of control don’t matter”. Screw that! Being a mom doesn’t mean you have to give up being a PERSON! That fun, smart, sexy person your husband, boyfriend, partner, whoever fell in love with. You’re not only sacrificing yourself when you throw in the towel, you’re saying they don’t matter either. For some people, weight loss is a huge struggle and I get that. But don’t give up on yourself and use your kids as the excuse to do it.

As you may have figured out, I didn’t throw in the towel after having kids. I work out several hours a week. And yes, it’s hard to fit it in and many times I don’t want to, but I make time because I know it’s important. I wake up at 5:30 and go to spin class. I run on the weekends. I go to Boot Camp with my husband and my son. It would be easier to hit that snooze alarm or not lace up my running shoes and sit on the couch with a half gallon of ice cream instead. I could say, “hey, I can do this, I’m a Mom remember? I don’t matter anymore”. Sure is easier to do that, right? There’s a million excuses I could use; too tired, too busy, too much housework. I have a friend who has two kids, works full time and still managed to lose half her body weight in the last two years. How are those excuses looking now?

I don’t do it just for myself even though the benefits of exercise and taking care of myself are very rewarding. I do it for them, too. I do it so that my son sees you can accomplish your goals, that age and ailments and disabilities are not an excuse. Not just in health, but in anything you dream of. I do it so that my husband has a wife he can be proud of, one he can introduce to people and not be embarrassed of. I do it so my daughter doesn’t hear the words, “oh God, I’m so fat” come out of my mouth like I heard constantly out of my own mother and grandmother’s mouths and become self conscious about her weight at age 8. I do it so that I can still be 24 years old and feel like I did when my children weren’t the most important thing in my world. I do it to relieve stress and burn off steam. And you know what? That doesn’t make me a bad mom…it just makes me a mom without excuses.

Now if you’ll excuse me, the Victoria’s Secret catalog just came and I’ve been looking for a bikini.

Filed under: parenting humor Tagged: losing weight when you have kids, Moms who work out, overweight after childbirth

Motherhood is a Bowl Full of Cherries…Laced With Arsenic