Transitions

HI~ I write this 90 minutes after coming home from being gone for 3 days. Like, OMG, what a totally dedicated blogger! I was in Colorado for a training session, which was quite interesting, I must say. I believe I am a training junkie. I love learning the new concepts and seeing old colleagues and meeting new ones and having a break from my usual routine. Work, kids, sleep, lather, rinse, repeat. It is good for my sanity to have a change of scenery, climate, people for just a short time. I feel invigorated and refreshed, ready to take on the world! A little brainwashing is healthy! I drank the Kool-Aid, I tell ya!

Miss Mary Sunshine mentality, still coursing through my brain cells, I hopped off the uneventful, ninety minute flight, grabbed my bag, which was one of the first off the chute, went outside to catch the shuttle bus to take me to the airport parking garage, which waited for me to cross in the cross walk and get on. My shuttle stop was the very first stop in the route, I gleefully hopped off and found my car immediately. I was humming "Zippity Doo Dah" as I climbed in my car, zipped home in 25 minutes. Home sweet home.

I couldn't wait to see the kids, of course, but I had a few things I couldn't wait to do when I walked in the door. I was really needing to remove my contacts that were like little slivers of glass, stuck to my now weary eyes from the recirculated airplane air and I had to go to the bathroom and ensure I did not get toxic shock. Food would have been high up on my list of wants vs needs at that moment as well.

But those needs on my immediate to do list were fleeting. The two seconds in the door were greeted with Cole bursting with happiness and pure joy to see me and show me everything that I had missed in 3 days. It was a giant, excited run on sentence of what his homework was and kickball stories and a presentation of a little apology note he had written to me because he had accidentally broken my little crystal snowflake on my desk. Oh, and his book report project is due Friday and we need to do it now. Right. Now. Like, let's do it this very second. Mom.

So, with my suitcase in the door barely, I was promptly gluing and cutting with my contacts blurring and the toxic shock risk rising and the tummy growling loudly. Game on. Back to mommyhood with no visible transition whatsoever. My training brainwashing fresh in my mind, it was a do-able transition this time, and a welcome one.

Fingerprint Necklace~ I LOVE IT!!!

Hi! How are you? I know there are crickets chirping as I write this, but I feel I at least owe those few insects out there who might have hopped around accidentally and landed on this blog, an explanation of why I haven't blogged in weeks. I really don't have an legit excuse once again. Laziness. Apathy. Not motivated to write anything. Busyness. Life just getting in the way. Work stuff. Ok, enough? Good.

Well thanks to Facebook, that my sister, Marcy made me, kind of forced me to join, I have reconnected with lots of friends from grade school, high school and college. It has been insane how people just pop up out of the nowhere. I know you might be thinking I'm too old to be on there, and I'll defend myself in a separate post next time, maybe.

Anyhow, I was fortunate enough to be contacted by my dorm pal, Tina Steinberg. I came to find out that she designs jewelery, really cool jewelery on her site: www. tinasteinberg.com. She takes vintage pieces and turns them into really amazing and unique creations. Each piece is made by her own two creative hands. I just got my fingerprint necklace a few days ago and I LOVE IT!!! She took impressions of my kids' fingerprints and made their little prints into a necklace. Check out her website to see what I mean. I am going to order more stuff from her soon. I just wanted to give her a sincere shout out, since I truly love, love, love her work! Please take a look-see, you'll be impressed!

Working Mom Girl

Flashback to the 80’s, when Madonna was more meaty, and less religious, with no sign of a faux English accent. She donned the hot pink satin strapless gown and matching long gloves with oodles of sparkling diamonds, in her Material Girl video, a Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend takeoff. Got that image in your head? So, please sing along to the tune of Material Girl:

We are living in a stay at home mom world, and I am a working mom girl
You know that we are living in a stay at home mom world, and I am a working mom girl!
Ow, Ow, Ow!

These made up lyrics I sing (to myself of course) mostly every day. There is some small happening each day that reminds me that I am odd man out, or in this case, odd mom out.

Every morning, I drop off Cole and Patty at school, before I head to work. It is extremely hectic to get out the door in the morning, as most households with small children all across the globe are. Backpacks zipped. Water bottles filled. Snack packed. Lunch in backpack. Blue ice in lunch. Library books packed. Shoes tied. Teeth brushed. Hair brushed. Homework in folder, in backpack that is zipped. Name on homework.

Dishes on table from breakfast, washed. Flat iron unplugged. Lights off. Tatum’s bowl filled. Lap top. Cell phone. Headset. Bottled water. Mascara? No time.

We arrive at school and are greeted by various kids, moms, teachers. I walk each kid to their classrooms. Big smothering, wet, clingy kisses and hugs from Patty. Kind of a high five, but not too much contact from Cole.

The bell rings. The kids scurry. The moms are left. Moms begin to congregate to chat it up. I love this time since I get to feel like a “real mom”. The difference is the chatting time is limited for yours truly, because I need to get my butt to work. The stay at home moms get to stay and leisurely talk. For however long they want. One mom holds a coffee mug from home, not a travel mug with lid, but an open topped, porcelain, kitchen mug . As if this is a casual, easy morning ritual. Looking like the girl who overdressed for the party, I stand out amongst the casually, comfortably clad moms, the only one dressed to go to work.

How I long to stay and talk about the kids, school stuff, share funny stories, be leisurely. I want to be in this stay at home mom world, and I cannot. I do not live there. Cuz we are living in a stay at home mom world, and I am a working mom girl…

Stuff the Stuffed Animals

My purging tirade is still at its peak, and I can't blame pregnancy or PMS on this obsession. I have been cleaning out overflowing drawers and closets during the past few months, and I must say, I find it quite enjoyable, yet clearly understand that this translates into having no life whatsoever. I have accepted and embraced its connotations.

This time I targeted a collection of seemingly cute and cuddly stuffed animals, taking over Patty's bed. This child has been sleeping in the fetal position in order to accommodate her army of soft, synthetic, useless friends. Does she play with them during daylight hours? No. Does she cuddle with any of them while she slumbers? No. She does sleep with one mini-teddy bear, which fits snugly in the palm of her five year old hand, which she has named Hannah. I wonder what over-sensationalized tween pop-star she got that name from? Hannah can stay because she is teeny and won't cause Patty to have sciatica in her future.

I took a gander at the heaps of dust collectors just festering their airborne filth into my sweet daughter's pure lungs and knew I had to eliminate a majority of the little bastards. How did they trickle into our home? When did they accumulate to such a large number, a fleet numerous enough to defend a small country if given weapons? Baby gifts, birthday presents, souvenirs from business trips, winnings from the grimy, sleazy state fair.

When Patty was playing elsewhere, I quickly gathered up about half of the evil animals, and shoved them heartlessly into a suffocating garbage bag to donate them another home, where another overwhelmed mother will one day get sick of looking at their phony smiles, and quasi-puppy-dog eyes and stuff them into yet another garbage bag to pass them along once again. Break the cycle. Limit these useless stuffed animals. There. That's my Green message for the week.