Mommin' It Up!

March 9, 2015March 9, 2015

The Slacker Mom’s Guide to Throwing a Minecraft Birthday Party

As I mentioned last week, Joshua just turned 11. I was way behind on his birthday party stuff because of the crazy, sad February my family had. Plus, despite being a working mom for a full 6 months now, I cannot figure this working mom thing out. My work-life balance is non-existent. But oh well! I love it, and I just signed a year contract so that is happening!

Anyway. As you may or may not know, I gave up trying to make my kids fancy birthday cakes years ago! Until…Jonah and I both went gluten-free. I also have a nephew who attends all these birthday parties who is gluten-free, so that means making either cupcakes or cake from scratch. For this party I made GF cupcakes, and since Kroger doesn’t do licensed Minecraft cakes and my time and resources and quite frankly energy was limited, I turned to Pinterest for the “real” cake. I know what you’re thinking – STEP AWAY FROM THE PINTEREST! IT WILL ONLY MAKE YOU FEEL WORSE!

No worries. I put my “I am only looking at the easiest possible things” blinders on before I went to Pinterest. IT worked! I found an easy cake and cupcakes and felt no shame. So, I present to you, a slacker mom’s minecraft birthday party creations. Step. By Step.

Step 1: Go to Pinterest. Find easy things.

Step 2: Find a picture of a creeper face, download it and print it x 12.

Step 3. Attach cut out creeper faces to toothpicks with tape.

Step 4: Insert into cupcakes with green frosting.

Step 5: Return to Pinterest. Look for a full-sized cake that even a kindergartener could decorate.

Step 6: Bake a rectangle cake, cut it in half, and slap some frosting between the layers.

Step 7: Frost it creeper green. OR, in my case, whatever green a capful of green food coloring yields, because you AIN’T GOT TIME TO MIX THE PERFECT SHADE OF GREEN. Gah!

Step 8: Have your husband cut up a Hershey bar and arrange it in a creeper face pattern on the cake, because even though it’s easy enough for a kindergartener, you’d still mess it up, and you only bought two Hershey bars, and you are NOT going back to the store for another one.

Step 9: Whine on Facebook about how you are terrible at this party theme thing and make sure and say what theme you are doing because people will give you their ideas! Complete with photos!

Step 10: Rip off the easiest idea

Step 11: GO to Google images and get images of minecraft supplies that correspond to the snack items you have purchased for the party.

Step 12: Download and print pictures.

Step 13: Attach them to snack bowls and fill them with snacks.

Step 14: Take a picture to show everyone how amazing you are! Post it on ALL social media channels.

Step 15: Relax and enjoy the party! Make sure and cut people off in the food line so you can sample your own hard work before those ingrates eat it all.

The. End.
You’re Welcome!

January 29, 2015January 28, 2015

Pop Quiz

I think I am having an identity crisis.

Last night when I was saying goodnight to Joshua as he climbed into bed I got really weepy. I mean, he will be eleven years old in a month. And laying there in his bed, he looked HUGE. And he was kinda just like, “Ok lady, tell me good night and get out of here.”

Instead I told him a story, a true story about how when he was a baby, once he really got communicative, between say 6 and 18 months, and he was SO sweet, I used to say to him ALL THE TIME: “Joshua, I hope you always love me as much as you do right now.”

Because he LOVED me. SO much. Unabashedly. With abandon. And he was just indescribably sweet. His babyhood for me was much easier and more enjoyable than Sophie or Jonah’s, both because he was an easy baby and because he was the only one. I was his and he was mine, completely.

And now he loves Minecraft and friends and watching Agents of Shield with Daddy.

And he’s almost 11 and I’m 37 and…when did this happen? I still feel like I should be 26 with a newborn.

So…pop quiz: who am I, and what am I supposed to do with this giant man-child who could take or leave me?

Anyone have a cheat sheet?

November 21, 2014

Working Mom Brain

Up until this past August, I had been a stay-at-home mom with teeny tiny bits of part time work here and there for years.

Now, I am a work-at-home mom with LOTS of part time work. I work close to 30 hours a week, but since my off-work hours are filled with preschool runs and carpool pick-ups, I don’t really feel like I have a part-time job, because I quite literally have zero downtime during traditional working hours, and most nights I work an hour or so after the kids go to bed.

But it’s not bad. Really, I am enjoying my job SO MUCH. So much that sometimes I feel guilty about it!

I’m still trying to figure out how to balance all this, and it’s recently gotten a tad more difficult because our carpool for the big kids fell apart. Before, I would try to be done working by the time they got home at 3:30 (on days I don’t have a sitter), but now since I leave the house to pick them up about 2:15 or so, I am usually not able to be done working. This is because for the previous four hours I’ve had Jonah home with me and after I get him from school I take about an hour to do our work time together on speech and make and eat lunch. Then he’s running around playing while I am working. So it gets accomplished more in drips and drabs on these days, but I am not ready to have more childcare yet. I only have Jonah home with me for so long before he will be a “big kid” too!

Anyway, so, it’s going fine. But it is different. It’s much different than being a mostly stay-at-home mom, and the biggest difference is really that my brain is more stressed than ever. I’ve claimed “momnesia” for years and “pregnancy brain” when applicable, but now I definitely have a new phenomenon going on: “working mom brain”. Because now I am acting like I have dementia in areas both personal and professional.

Here’s a prime example: this morning I came downstairs to find that my coffee was not ready and the dishwasher was full of dirty dishes. I always set the coffee pot and run the dishwasher before I go to bed, and in my mind, I totally did these things last night. So I was confounded when they weren’t done. “I could’ve sworn I did this last night!” I said to Bobby. “Well, you did them the night before…” he offered. And it’s true. But dangit it’s like I remember doing these things last night!

Another great example: everyday I write up a few things for the For Every Mom newsletter (which you should totally sign up for, it’s an email list of our top stories for the day – so convenient!) so yesterday I was writing Sunday’s newsletter and I put in not one but TWO stories I’d ALREADY FEATURED in today’s newsletter! It’s not like I featured them a week ago. I had written that newsletter less than 12 hours before. But already forgotten that I put those stories in. Two out of four stories. Luckily I caught my error before I sent it on to be published. YEESH. Maybe I shouldn’t be admitting these things out loud…#dontfireme.

In any case, I am hoping I can get my brain functioning a little better soon. I know work-life balance is a myth. Especially when you work at home and you have to kiss boo-boos and change peed on clothes (not mine) and make snacks while you’re in the middle of something…

But if I start trying to start the car without the keys in it, or forget to pick the kids up from school – something’s gonna have to give!

Got any advice for me? Besides buying ADHD meds off the street? Because I’m not doing that.