Tag Archives: bad mommy alert

Forget glue guns: Metallic Permanent Pens are the only things you need…

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This was the post I meant to compose this Saturday, right after I rushed the kids off to the Religious Education class kindly provided by the Catholic church.  Especially helpful since their mother is a Heathen.  As usual, we were late. But this year the teacher is nice. She never once gave me the evil eye for stomping into the classroom with my unbrushed wet hair and my youngest sipping on milk box (NOT juice box, mind you. I am a good mother) while holding a half-eaten cereal bar.  She is not like this other teacher that my oldest once had who admonished HIM and not me directly, “Your mother should really try to get you here on time every Saturday.  She should also take you to Mass every Sunday.”  And later, the same teacher caused my oldest, at the age of 6, to fear that my husband and I would be going to Hell because we are not regular church goers.

But I digress. This post is not meant to discuss the complexities of talking/teaching about religion(S) in our mixed-faith household. I can only fall into Psychotic Ranting once a week, at most.  Or, I try to ration myself.  This post is about the other joyful aspect of parenthood (fuck that. It is ALWAYS the moms that have to do this. So why bother? I am just going to use this word) Motherhood, Arts and Crafts.

If you are one of the loyal followers (Seriously, people. I love you and I worry about your mental health…) of my descent into Inferno, then you have come to learn my ineptitude in making anything with my hands and my faith in Glue Guns.  Imagine my surprise when I found a notice from the RE class, wedged into the corner of my youngest’s backpack, about some Decorating a Christmas Tree For the Zoo thing. Deadline:

TODAY! (November 7)

Are you kidding me? First response.

Cough cough. “Do you know about this thing from your Church School?”

Boy nodded.

“How come you didn’t tell mommy?”

“I did and you put it on the refrigerator!” while pointing to the incriminating evidence.

Ah. No wonder I ignored it until now….

“Uh. Right! Okay! So… Do you still want to do it?”

“Yes… If it is not too much trouble…”  complete with Puppy Eyes.

Gosh darn it! Why can’t he behave like a brat at this moment.  I hate it when they are all considerate and stuff.

Second response:

rosie_the_riveter small

I threw every arts and crafts thing we own onto the table.  (Although I am not handy and don’t spend quality time with my children, I have hoarded a lot of arts and crafts material AND kitchen gadgets AND nice cloth napkins for when the time comes… The time when I would fulfill my destiny as Super Mom…)  What to do?  What to do? Yes, the CD craft idea!

We didn’t even have time to warm up the glue gun. Fortunately I found FOAM STICKERS!  Thank you Michaels! Although yours is a store full of crap, I am very grateful for the crap I routinely buy from you. AND….

Metallic Permanent Pens!  I have a set of 4 colors! YEEESSSS!  I brought them back from our last visit home and have forgot about them until now.

This may require some explanation: My husband and I are weird. We get excited over pens. Not the fancy Montblanc, but inexpensive, yet “fancy”, cheap chic, pens that you can find in PEN STORES in Taiwan and Japan.  Yes, people, they have stores dedicated to PENS over there. Your regular ballpoint pens. Roller ball pens. Mechanic pencils. Coloring, note-taking, highlighting pencils. Permanent markers. Jelly pens. White board pens. 0.1 mm. 0.3 mm. 0.5 mm. 0.7 mm. 1 mm. And the colors. Oh, the colors.

I spend a lot of time browsing, lusting after, choosing, and purchasing pens whenever I go home.

Because of my foresight of hoarding things which are otherwise totally useless, I was able to complete a kickass Christmas ornament in 15 minutes.

Metallic Pens ROCK

 

Quickie Xmas Ornament

Even more impressive is that I was not fazed at all when I saw the fine print:

“Please make sure your ornament has a religious theme to it. NO Santa Clause or Rudolph the Reindeer please.”

I swear. I did not make this up…

I grabbed one of the metalic pens and wrote, under the Christmas Tree,

Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!

p.s. Of course, now I am looking at my masterpiece again, and wondering whether Baby Jesus would ever need gloves and snow boots (’cause that is what that red thing is. It ain’t no Stocking for what’s-his-name to put presents in!) where he grew up. It’s all desert there, eh? What with the camels and all. Tell me there are camels! Our porcelain camel is our favorite from the Lenox Nativity set that my mother-in-law gave us.  (Well, “favorite” after Baby Jesus of course…)

p.p.s. Seriously, Lenox people, are you sure there were GEESE and ROOSTERS in that manger the night baby Jesus was born?

p.p.p.s. You know what is the best part of this whole Decorating the Christmas Tree ordeal? I rushed into the classroom to give the teacher the ornament. She looked at me like I was crazy. She had forgot. All the kids screamed, “What is that? What is that?” NONE of the other kids turned in the ornament.  Heathen: 1

Things I should be doing instead of agonizing over falling behind for NaBloPoMo…

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I know myself only too well. I already missed the 8th post for this NaBloPoMo thing I decided to participate in. Deadline yesterday. But I am going to cheat by turning time backwards through the magic buttons on my blog dashboard.

It is not because I am a religious person and I don’t believe in working on Sundays.  That would have thrown a giant monkey wrench in this whole A Blog Post EVERY Day thing. For that conundrum, Pajamas and Coffee had an ingenuous solution. It would have been due to a religious reason if Laziness counts as a religion.  I didn’t write a post yesterday (which is today if you look at the date on this blog) because I actually had lunch with a group of friends and afterwards had a friend over and we finished an entire pot of Spiked Rum Apple Cider.  Social life is very inconvenient when you are an aspiring blogger… Just sayin.

So to make up for the missing day (which is today in case you are confused), I am going to insert a filler post called, “Things I should be doing instead of agonizing over Not Blogging” since that was what I did, inside my head, when I was still sober, the whole day yesterday (today, I mean… Ok. You got it…)

  1. Blogging. Duh.
  2. Doing Quicken. I haven’t touched that baby since July. All of our Credit Card accounts have automatic payment set up, so I have been slacking on reconciling the statements with actual shit that I ordered online.  I am sure by now there have been numerous fraud purchases charged to my litany of cards now.  Well, here is what I am thinking: I HOPE, if there is any fraud charge, it is of a pornographic kind. THAT would be a hilarious topic for my blog to help fill this void I call My NaBloPoMo Idea Bank…
  3. Doing the laundry.  I can’t see the floor in my closet any more because there is a mountain of dirty clothes.  That should be a sign when you need to hurl yourself over the mountain to get to the other side to reach your clean clothes.
  4. Folding the laundry. I HATE HATE HATE folding the laundry. Probably because it means I cannot be on the computer when I am folding the laundry.  There are currently three baskets (the record was five. I love buying laundry baskets) on the family room floor, waiting for me to pay attention to them.  My kids have learned to look into the dryer to find clothes to wear in the morning. Did I tell you that I have the best kids and I love them?
  5. Grocery shopping.  There is no milk nor bread left: The common barometer for how well a household is faring. No milk/no bread = Irresponsible mothers = Ignored kids = Repressed anger = Serial killers

Nope. That’s not an oversight on my part. Believe me, it’s always the MOTHER’S fault…

So there you go. A filler post. Tissues in my bras. White tube socks in my pants. 99% of the stuff found in hot dogs (which I feed my children with. Thank you very much).  The thing they injected into Octomom’s lips…  Oh, you get the idea.

“How you should behave when you grow up”: a primer for your kids

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My 6 year-old, at the end of sugar high, launched into a campaign for something that he thinks my husband and I should offer to him and his older brother.

“A program.  A program for ‘How you should be like when you grow up‘,” he said.

“Mom.  I think you and daddy should give us a program so you can teach us what we should do when we have our own kids.”

“What do you mean?” I was intrigued, with caution.

“Well, you see.  You and daddy fight a lot. You don’t want us to grow up like you, do you?  So you and daddy should give us a program called What you should be like when you grow up, to show us what to do when we have our own kids.”

“Ooookkkkkaaaaayyyyy.”  I hesitated.  My mind was racing.  Tickets in hand to take one LONG guilt trip.

I admit that my husband and I fight.  Although we DO fight, I don’t think we fight more than an “average” couple, judging from my conversations with other women, both in real life and online. We argue in front of the children.  From the beginning, I actually made a conscious decision to not hide our quarrels.  I don’t want them to grow up with a pair of rosy glasses with regard to adult relationships.  That being said, we do NOT call each other names.  (Well, not in front of the kids anyway).  There is absolutely no physical contact during these fights.  And I make sure that the kids see when we resolve our differences.

Perhaps this has been the wrong approach? I thought to myself.  How much harm has it done?  Is it too late to undo the harm? Panic.  Don’t panic.  I am not sure any more.

Later when I put him to bed, he brought up the subject again,

“Mom.  It is going to be just a private program for us.  Well, if [his older brother] does not want it, you just need to give it to me.”

When in doubt, be honest with your children and treat them like adults.  I tried to take his words seriously without overreacting (which in itself was against my natural instinct…)

“Well, I think you already know what should be included in the program, don’t you?  If you know it is not good when mommy and daddy treat each other badly, you know not to do it when you have your own children.”

Taking a deep breath, he turned to me, looking worried,

“What if I still do it even though I know it is wrong?”

This is my 6 year old.  Wiser beyond his age.  An old soul.  Although I feel blessed, I feel inadequate as a mother.  There is no witty ending to this story.  No closure.  Let’s file this post under “There is no manual for parenting” and “I don’t know how to tell you how you should behave when you grow up because now that I am a grown up, I still have no idea”.

What bacons look like after you soaked them in Vodka for 4 weeks…

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This post is Part 5 of a series of posts documenting an impromptu DIY project I took on when I done and gone nuts on one Sunday afternoon…  It is indeed very interesting that the whole thing started on a Sunday afternoon, don’t ya think, after I’d been alone with the kids for 2 whole days…  (And, I believe, it is mandatory by law, that whenever I complain about being with the kids for a long period of time, to add this, “…despite the fact that I love them dearly, and yes, I know I will go to the HELL designated for Mothers Who Do Not Enjoy Being With Their Kids 24/7”.)

You can see the Genesis of the Bacon-flavored vodka, my trip to Walmart for the ingredients, 12 Steps to making your own, what it looked like a week before (Hint: LESS disgusting and questionable).  Or you can just take my word for it.

So according to the recipe, I am supposed to soak the  bacon strips in da Vodka for at least 3 weeks and then put the jar in the freezer to separate the fat.  This is the 4th week, so I am doing ok.  Although I have no excuse for why it took me a whole week to perform the step of “Bringing the jar from the cabinet and putting it inside the freezer”.   “I have a full-time job with 2 kids and a husband” just does not seem to work in this case.

Anyhoo, here is how the vodka looks like today:

DRUM ROLL PLEASE…
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cat can sleep anywhere

Awww. Isn’t he (she?) cute? I just thought as an apology for showing you the disgusting picture below, I should reward you with a cute sleeping kitty picture.  Ok, here it is.  For real.  Are you ready?

Here it is…

…

Bacon Week 4

“I want to be an artist so I can be rich!”

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“Mom, what did you want to do when you grew up?”

My 6 year-old asked innocently. This question stirs a lot of anxiety inside me, but that’s another post, if you are unlucky enough, I may indulge myself in one day…

He’s been really concerned about his future lately. He has pondered on being an artist for a long time.

“I really would like to be rich when I grow up. So I’m going to be an artist.”

Oh, boy. I tried to think back to all of the things I have ever said to him, since he was a fetus inside me, things that I have done or not, Is it because I didn’t breast feed him long enough?, that have caused him to become so materialistic. Have we been living a life of too much comfort that somehow has instilled a sense of, oh gosh darn it, greed in the upbringing of our kids? PANIC.

Great job, mom. I said to myself.

What to do? What to say? In my mind, I could picture myself running around like a headless chicken. Wings flapping. Cluck. Cluck. Cluck. Somehow this visual image of myself as a headless chicken or a deer with widened eyes is projected quite frequently on the back walls of my eye sockets…

“Hmmm. I don’t think being an artist will necessarily make you rich.”

How honest should we be with our children? Once again I wondered. Once again I had to make an uninformed split-second decision purely based on intuition, yup, the same one that helped me every time I purchased lottery tickets…

“Van Gogh was very poor when he was alive. I don’t think he made a lot of money by selling his paintings until after he died.”

Way to go, mom, for dashing your child’s hopes and dreams. Why don’t you just tell him to dream about being an accountant. Or an actuary. Don’t ever tell them to reach for the stars now Mary Poppins…

“Not even a house?” A look of concern crept up his face. “I just want to be rich so I can buy a house when I grow up.”

Ooops. Failed by overthinking again. Fortunately I am a champion in the sports of back paddling…

“Oh, yeah. Of course you will be able to buy a house. I would say though, you should do whatever that makes you happy and not worry so much about buying a house now.”

“Oh good. Because I was thinking that if I cannot be an artist, I would like to be a musician so I can be rich and buy a house.”

Oh, boy.  Here we go again…

Glue Gun, Pom Poms and Googly Eyes: Props for Mother of the Year medal

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That is: if your kids, like mine, don’t know any better…

My kids are ok.  They don’t know any other way of living.

I say this often.  Sometimes, I am merely being sarcastic, and self-deprecating.  (Ha. Like that’s a surprise…)  Sometimes, I am being dead serious…

I didn’t realize we were poor until the other day when I was telling my co-worker how I slept in my parents’ bedroom until I was in senior high because there was not enough room in the apartment.

“Oh, shit! We were poor!”

It’s like a light bulb went up.  It finally dawned on me.  But did I notice it when I was growing up? Nah. I simply didn’t know any better.

Similarly, my kids don’t know any better.  I seldom “cook”, cook.  So when I make biscuits from the tube-thingy, bake a cake from the boxed mix, or make cookies from the scoop-a-tub, they think I am making stuff “from scratch”.  If I have to cut up vegetables and make something that requires more than 2 pots and/or more than 5 ingredients, boy, we are having a “family feast”.  I am not proud of deceiving my kids.  All I can say is, “My future daughters-in-law are going to thank me!”

I do believe that every mom needs a glue gun at home.  And if you want to reach for the stars, an endless supply of pom poms and googly eyes.   Because when you have a rainy afternoon to while away with your kids (and honestly, the constant “We are so bored” whining litany is really getting on your nerves), you break out that glue gun, and then you glue those suckers onto ANYTHING that’s lying around the house.  ANYTHING.

All of a sudden, your kids are so wowed by their own creations that there are stars in their eyes, and they think you are as awesome as that gal from Trading Spaces.  And for a moment, you’ll believe you are.

Awesome.

Glue Gun: $7

Bag of pom poms: $1

Bag of googly eyes (the fancy kind): $3

Being Mom of the Year for one afternoon: Priceless

My mommy cooks. My mommy cleans. My mommy loves me.

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It is almost a month since Mother’s Day and therefore I figure it is safe to ruminate out loud what I thought when I saw these loving and lovable pictures drawn by my 6 year old, with lots of love, without the risk of being accused as mean-spirited, bitter, spoiled, jaded, or worse, unfit-to-be-a-mother…

Turned out that my 6 year-old was more excited about Mother’s Day than I was. The weeks leading to Mother’s Day they had made so many arts and crafts projects at school to celebrate this day, and he was instructed to keep all these projects a secret until THE day so he could surprise me. Bless his heart. I am surprised that he did not burst from all the secrecy, and the trouble of keeping a secret from your mother when you are only 6 years old.

We had gone to the store in April when he decided that he needed to get me a Mother’s Day present. He was rather upset since he couldn’t figure out a way of getting anything without my knowing it.

He burst into tears when I saw the bag of chocolate he’s holding.

“You are not supposed to see this.”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“This! This is your Mother’s Day present. Now Mother’s Day is ruined! And it is all YOUR fault!”

“Honey. How about this? Mommy will pay for it and then you can hide it and I promise I will forget about it.”

“No, it won’t work!”

It took me an hour to calm him down, to convince him that yes indeed, I would erase the memory of this exchange from my brain.

When he proudly presented me with the book that he made at school, a book comprised of “Things my mommy does, and therefore I love my mommy” vignettes, I was really moved. Really, I was. He was beaming with pride, and naturally, I was beaming with pride too.

But later, it did give me pause to think my role as a mother. How I see myself and how I am perceived by my children, others, the world.

1. After 20+ years of education, this is what I am boiled down to: cooking and cleaning.

2. My job sucks, at least in my child’s eyes. If I were a hod dog vendor, or a street musician, it would probably be easier for him to draw “What my mommy does at work.” Truth be told, and in all fairness, he has attempted many times to understand what I do at work.

“So you work on the computer… But what do you MAKE?”

A conversation with him about my job always results in days of self-doubt in me…

3. Perhaps in all fairness, cleaning and cooking could be what he sees me do all the time. Is it telling that he did not draw “My mommy does the laundry” since our floor is constantly covered with laundered clothes transported straight from the dryer? And bless his heart that he considers grilled cheese and mac&cheese straight from a box cooking. I guess it is true that what you don’t know will not hurt you…

4. On the other hand, what if this is his ideal of a mother? A mom that cooks and cleans, while wearing an apron with a BIG smile on her face. So happy. So content. Perhaps this is a mother that he yearns for and not the harried, reluctant one he’s stuck with? Staring at the big smile in these drawings, I somehow feel ashamed. Guilty.

5. This is the conclusion I am most reluctant to draw; it took me a whole month to admit to myself: Maybe, just maybe, I am not spending enough quality time with my children. None of the pictures showed me doing things with him.

If I had made more efforts in doing arts and crafts, if I were more willing in playing Go Fish, if I had offered to go to the zoos, the parks, the playgrounds more often, if I had said, “Let’s go fly a kite” out of nowhere.

If. Perhaps he would have something other than cooking and cleaning to draw with.

A volcano of love… tis the cross for me to bear

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“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
– Juliet

Always thought this is one of the most beautiful descriptions of what it means to really love someone. (By the way, Romeo is an idiot. Juliet clearly is a better poet. But I digress…)

When I became a mom, I was surprised by the truth in these words. The love I have for my children is such that it hurts to think of the possibility of ever losing them. And unlike other kinds of feelings, a parent’s love does not depend on reciprocity. We will always love our children no matter what.

But that love does not prevent us from getting impatient, annoyed. It does not stop me from becoming a mean witch from time to time to the boys. Stealthily self doubt creeps up sometimes: I wonder whether I do truly love my kids selflessly and unconditionally, whether I am fit to be a mother, after a particularly difficult day of dealing with bickering, whining, willfulness, obstinacy, and flaring up of the mild case of OCD, with too little time. My exhaustion more often than not stems from my youngest’s refusal to let my husband take care of him.

Mommy is the only person he always wants.

Mommy is the person he loves the most, no matter what.

In this regard, I feel extremely guilty and am deeply saddened since there are more than one person for me to make the same claim of. Juliet’s words aside, I lack the time to show the love equally to each.

On those days, when I put him to bed, I would hold my 6 year-old tighter and ask him to forgive mommy’s temper earlier. And Mr. Monk, my 6 year-old, who has a way with words, would say something that at the same time shames me and absolves me.

“I just want you to know that mommy loves you.” (even when she was behaving like a banshee…)

“It’s ok mommy. I just want to show each parent a volcano of love.”

Laughing out loud, I held him even tighter, trying hard to stifle the cry that’s surfacing from my chest.

Sometimes I believe that he loves me more than I love him. And it worries me so….

p.s. Yes yes I know. Wait a couple more years and then he would not want to have anything to do with mommy any more… I will write a new post then….