The 21st Century SAHM

Riding Big Waves in Kansas City: Our Visit to Oceans of Fun

June 28, 2017

***KC Parent Magazine provided my family with complimentary admission tickets to Oceans of Fun in exchange for this post.***

In bloggerville, we’re offered products all the time. Try our yogurt! Can we send you free socks for your kids if you write about them?! Here’s some free coffee! Because mommies love coffee! And while we love free stuff, (especially coffee), what’s even more exciting is getting to have an experience and make memories with our little buggers. That’s exactly what I was able to do with my kids last Wednesday, on a 92-degree day, here in Kansas City. We got to visit Oceans of Fun for the first time. And it did not disappoint.

If you have 3 kids close in age, and/or if you have kids of both genders, you know that finding a source of entertainment for all of them can be a challenge. Impossible, really. We have 2 boys and a girl. Our boys are 8 and 4; our daughter is 6. Each is a daredevil in his/her own way; each has fears that the others don’t have. We knew, based on recent vacations, that Continue Reading

When Even the Family Calendar Can’t Save Us

The 21st Century SAHM

3 Comments

May 30, 2017

We’re late! Let’s go! We are late. AGAIN. Hurry up! You can go potty when we get there. Tie your shoes in the car!

This was me, this past weekend, as I realized at 1:38 p.m. that my daughter was supposed to be somewhere at 1:40. And that somewhere was 20 minutes away. Shiiiiiiiit.

While driving like a bat out of hell across town and silently chanting “Are you fricking kidding you mother fricking what the frick…” every time we hit a red light or got stuck behind some grandpa doing the damn speed limit, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw three frightened faces. Mommy doesn’t usually drive like this. Mommy is mad. Mommy is frustrated. With us? No. Mommy is frustrated with herself, which is far worse for her to deal with than when we screw up.

Because Mommy is a perfectionist. Mommy doesn’t make mistakes. Mommy doesn’t forget to pick us up and she knows which day is library day and she makes us eat fruit with lunch and brush our teeth extra when we eat candy and always makes sure we have clean underwear. Mommy knows the schedule because she has a giant family calendar and 3 marker boards (one for each kid) and an intricate system of post-it notes all over the house for extra reminders. And her phone dings at various times throughout the day to make sure she gets it all done.

So how did she mess up? How on the earth is it possible that she forgot? Well I’ll tell you. As I was praying for green lights Continue Reading

I Am the Boss.

The 21st Century SAHM

no comments

May 21, 2017

They say bossy girls get shit done. And I agree. I have always thrived on being the boss. To be honest, few things in life give me more pleasure than telling other people what to do.

Growing up I, like lots of little girls, often played house (of course I was always the mom, telling everyone else what to do). When I grew tired of house, I transitioned to playing school (where I was obviously the teacher, also telling everyone what to do).

As an adult, I achieved my childhood dream by becoming a real life grownup teacher—the giver of As through Fs for 100 students. With a stroke of my red pen, I could determine a walk across the stage at graduation. Or summer school. I was drunk with power.

Well into adulthood, my obsessive compulsive tendencies were allowed to flourish. Saturdays were for laundry and scrubbing the apartment spotless. Sundays were for grocery shopping and cooking. No deviation from this plan was permitted. Towels were color-coded in the linen closet, folded into perfectly symmetrical rectangles. Shoes were lined up on the shoe rack immediately upon entry. The bed was always made. Nary a speck of dust could be found. If it sounds a little OCD, it was. But I was the boss, so it was okay.

Then I had children.

You know where this is going. Continue Reading