I’ve Been Busy

I haven’t posted a blog in a few days.  Five days, to be exact.  Hopefully you’ve noticed because you’ve been waiting anxiously for the next post, but hopefully you’re not mad.

Nothing terribly exciting has happened over the last five days.  In fact, it’s been just the opposite.  I’ve just been busy being a mom with no relief from my pesky (and adorable) kids who always seem to be within inches of me begging for snacks, tattling on one another, or wondering if I want to play Duck Duck Goose.  (I kinda sorta don’t.)  As much as I wish I could get rid of them for a while so I could sit at my computer and write, I would have nothing to write about if I didn’t have these crazy, hide and seek and spelling-obsessed children circling me like sharks in desperate need of a tissue or two…or ten.

Sidebar A: At what age do children (1) become aware that there is an enormous booger dangling from their nose and (2) have the motivation to wipe it themselves?  I don’t know the correct answer, but I know it’s not five.  Not in my house, anyway.    (I snuck in a word problem.  It’s Wednesday!)

Sidebar B:  You know when someone is not a mother when upon seeing an enormous booger dangling from a child’s nose, she frantically grabs a billion tissues.  Either that or she has a deadly booger allergy and carries an EpiPen in her purse.  Boogers are gross, I know.  But there’s worse.  Way worse.  One time, a friend’s kid projectile vomited into my hands.  That was gross. 

Since my last post, Spelling Bee, I’ve been very busy spelling.  In addition to this ongoing torment with no end in sight, I’ve been going to birthday parties, cooking for Rosh Hashanah, cleaning the house for Rosh Hashanah (there is no better motivator to tidy up than the prospect of having seven adults, four children, and three dogs over for dinner), Halloween costume shopping, wiping noses and wondering if Riley’s cough merits a trip to the pediatrician (not yet), doing laundry (reason #87 that two children is enough), and volunteering in Dylan’s classroom.

Sidebar C:  Did you see this recent New York Times article, “It’s O.K. to Skip That Bake Sale”?  It’s an interesting discussion about how parent involvement in schools has changed in a generation.  Are you overwhelmed by what’s expected of you in your child’s school?  Feel free to weigh in the comments section below!

The paradox of being a mommy blogger is that my creative inspiration (and the source of my worsening insanity) is what periodically keeps me from being able to publish as often as I would like.  Like yesterday.  Instead of spending some quiet time jotting down notes and ideas for new posts, I did approximately 700 loads of laundry, including sheets, to get rid of the booger plague that’s taking down everyone in my house.  I also had to explain to Dylan that it’s not okay to say “Oh shit” or ask me to spell “O-h-s-h-i-t” when the DVD player doesn’t work properly.   Ironically, after asking him to put on his sneakers this morning for the tenth time, watching him do everything but put on his sneakers, and blurting out, “Put on your stupid sneakers,” he chastised me for using a bad word.  (He was right, by the way.  Stupid is way worse than shit.  I apologized.)

So, I’ve been busy.  What have you been up to?