Moment of Joy

I'm not getting a lot of joy out of life these days. Mostly because of stuff I don't want to get into on the blog, so I'll just sum it up with this: I need more money and less paperwork in my life.

Anyway, I just experienced a moment of joy sitting at my desk. Since it's usually the site of more bad news these days, it feels especially sweet.

Inspired by my Bandmate Cindy's journey to minimalism, I decided to start cleaning off my desk. It's about 4 times the size of my old desk and yet I have managed to drown it in paper and crap.

Not sure mom would have given me her gorgeous old roll top if she'd known what I was going to do to it. But I do love the desk, I swear. 

So instead of writing yet another parenting for dummies type article yesterday,  I started cleaning. You may note that I have not finished. But this is an improvement. Before I had kids, I was so organized, you have no idea. My teacher desk never looked anything like this. Well, except for when I came back from maternity leave with Ironflower. But that was the sub's fault, not mine. I had my desk back to normal within the week. Now, I'm ashamed to admit how long my desk has looked like this.

What was I talking about? Not my organization failures. Oh yeah, my joy.

My joy came when I threw away some school fundraising forms. I hate the stuff they sell for school fundraisers. I hate asking people I know to buy products that are crap - that's why there are hardly any sponsored posts on this blog.* Okay, not all the products are crap - but the prices are. Normally, though, I feel guilty when I don't try to sell stuff for the school. I mean, the school needs money, right?

But this year I realized something, as I paid all the organization dues and spent a bunch of money at the Book Fair and wrote checks for over $75 for three fancy field trips and remembered my property taxes and signed up to volunteer in the classroom and recalled that parents send in extra supplies and party foods and reward prizes and craft projects.

I'm really okay with how much we do for the school. So I'm not going to buy or sell any over-priced wrapping paper this year. Or next year. Or the year after that. I mean, if I was good at selling shit, I'd have gone into selling real estate (thus justifying my obsession with House Hunters) or pharmaceuticals (thus making a shit ton of money). But I'm no good at trying to sell things I don't love and the truth is, my kids' school doesn't need more money, it needs all teachers to differentiate instruction, but that's a different post.





*Unless someone starts offering me six-figures for sponsored posts. In which case, screw my integrity.

I Am All Kinds Of Wrong

It's wrong to laugh when the women on Real Housewives of Orange County cry, isn't it? I mean, they're people too. Sort of. They have feelings. But whenever one of them cries, I giggle.

And isn't it wrong to believe that I've never, ever started a fight with Hot Guy? I mean, wouldn't that be statistically impossible?

It's quite possibly wrong that I feel joy knowing that all three of my children are sleeping at this minute. The joy is not from the fact that are getting recuperative sleep to help them get better, either.

And it's definitely wrong that this whole c-section infection/gaping wound thing now ITCHES. I mean, it's much better than horrible pain but for the love of God, can't I just feel normal? And if I can't, couldn't they at least have done a tummy tuck while they were in there?

What's wrong with you?

On Motherhood

I love being a mother. I love my children more than I thought it was possible to love anything. Every day I get to see them and talk to them and hug them is a day that I am very lucky. When Ironflower says, "I love you, Mommy" or Lovebug gives me a hug I am filled with a happiness that I only thought possible with the benefit of prescription painkillers.

But when I hear a mother say something like, "Every moment is a joy," I want to smack her. Not only does that statement indicate that the doctor did a lobotomy during her c-section, it's a nasty thing to say around pre-mothers. You hear enough statements like that and you feel like there's something wrong with you when, as a new mother, you wind up crying at 3 am along with the inconsolable baby.

Every moment is worth it. Every moment means you are lucky. But some moments still suck. My children are real, fallible little human beings, not perfect little dolls dropped from heaven, and when they throw up on me I don't feel joy. (In fact, no children are actually dropped in from heaven, they all make mistakes and have flaws and it's better to accept it now then when the school is calling about your child's bratty, bullying behavior for the second time that day) I suspect that no mother actually feels joy when her child is sick because even if s/he is not actually throwing up on you, the kid is SICK. There's no joy when something is wrong and you can't fix it, let me tell you.

So, new and future mommies, take heart: not every moment will be a joy. And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying, or on prescription painkillers. No child is perfect, except in that s/he is a perfectly flawed, complex little creature. Sometimes you will wish you believed in spanking. Sometimes you will wish you could just have quiet for one minute. Sometimes you will imagine torturing The Wonder Pets. But that's all NORMAL.

And stay away from the competitive Stepford Mommies. As they expound on their joy in reading Hop on Pop for the ten thousandth time after they pick little Aidan after his French class where the teacher says he has such an affinity for languages never before seen in a two year old, know this: Aidan will be in reform school before his eighteenth birthday.