When I wrote that I wanted to talk about myself I reallllyyyy sounded conceited didn’t I? Well, I am an intelligent, charismatic, good looking, and a funny kind of gal. Humble too. But that really wasn’t the point. My life is awesome. I mean that honestly and sarcastically. It like a soap opera and a Coen Brothers film had a baby. In full HD.
Let’s move on to my hilarious hijinks of the last 7 days.
You will begin to understand what I am talking about…
This is what hijinks look like.
I may be a bit of an overachiever. I am the room mom. I really want to start composting. I have mastered the fierce eyebrow. I also gave myself tennis elbow on Saturday… again… and I definitely don’t play tennis.
I was doing my Saturday arm workout, I mean, I am not swole by any means, but… you know what, this is a conversation for another day. Back to Saturday… Which is when I first started writing this blog post.
I cleaned my kitchen after going to the gym, separated the laundry, hard-boiled eggs (kind of), dyed easter eggs with the kids, took my daughter to the instacare, watched an episode of Dexter with my husband. I even played with both kids, and sorted all the missing socks.
All after getting tennis elbow. Which I gave to myself. Again. (I may be a little frustrated…)
I got home from the gym. I could tell something was wrong, but ain’t nobody got time for that shit – the kitchen was a total disaster and behind the sink, a nasty food/hard water funk had been growing for weeks. I may have asked my husband to clean it a few times (LOVE YOU JAKE), but somehow it had slipped through the cracks. So I boogied around the kitchen scrubbing away and drinking my weird protein shake. (It was spinach and chocolate protein powder… hey, don’t judge.)
Like a boss, I decided to try multitasking, and attempted to boil eggs so we could dye them as a family in the afternoon. Attempted. (I may or may not have lost track of the timing on them…) I obliterated the nastiness throughout the whole kitchen (That’s a lie. Jake mopped. THANK YOU JAKE!), got the eggs boiled, ALL the dishes cleaned and even started on clearing the kitchen table.
At that point I was starting to really feel the elbow being a brat. (I have non-tennis-playing tennis elbow, remember?) So I decided to take a shower and move on with the day. The kids were up and darling daughter was already running a fever. And running around. Because ‘Mama, how could rest possibly help me?’ #childlogic
Have I mentioned my Be a Better Mom board on Pintrest? Well it’s real, and I had just read a great parenting article on making things your kids really like interests of your own. So I told Jo that I would cuddle with her and watch a Monster High movie.
Now, about Monster High… The dolls freak me out and I didn’t trust the shows to be any different – in fact, I’d somehow avoided the craze completely by some miracle and had been hoping to keep it that way. But… and this seriously hurts me to say… the shows really aren’t that bad. They’re all about inclusion, not judging others and just being good. I can’t frown on that. Plus it makes my little fiend happy.
So I took my shower, and sat down to cuddle and pin my hair. (Yeah, I pin my hair in curls like your grandma. It is a lifehack. Get with the program and save some time!) I get glorious, fluffy fat curls that are a cross between retro housewife and a pageant contestant, and they last a week.
I will say that again… A Week!
Washing and drying girl hair is a major pain in the ass, not to mention exhausting and time consuming. I only wash my hair once a week, and it still looks glorious. Totally worth it.
Even with tennis elbow. (Let’s not forget about that, right?)
I will show you how one day.
When we turned off the Monsters, it was time to play Doctor with Gabe. Jo wanted to play too, of course, and at the inevitable point when I was looking in their mouths with a flashlight I found them.
Craters in her tonsils – the trademark sign offffffff?
Strep.
Wonderful.
We decided we would take her to the Instacare after dying the Easter Eggs, because it wasn’t like the streptococcus was going to go anywhere. Which was good, in a way, because it was then that it all dissolved into madness. Some highlights: hitting and screaming, timeouts in the garage, and threats of evil goblins – it’s… a long story… It was obviously time for a nap.
After the goblin-induced nap, we got the egg-ball rolling. Everything was going well until Jo dropped an egg. She was a little shaky from the fevers, so no big deal. We had even covered the table so nothing would get dyed unexpectedly. And nothing did get dyed unexpectedly, but… the egg wasn’t cooked. AT ALL. There was egg white oozing down her hands and onto the carpet, and all I could think was:
“What kind of a moron can’t hard-boil an egg!?!?!?!”
Hello. Yes. That’d be me.
Multitasking, combined with the mindset that time is only a human construct, can sometimes backfire. Once Jo dropped the second egg, which was ALSO not cooked, we decided we were done dying eggs.
Thankfully, even though we were now two eggs short, we had managed to dye all the others without incident. Jake ingeniously decided to experiment with popping them in the oven using that new technique doing the rounds on the internet. Eggs in the oven. I thought this was great solution and we decided to move on.
(Update: Yeah that didn’t work either. WOMP WOMP.)
At Instacare the results came back positive. She had been feverish for 3 days, but I figured she was just being dramatic. Nope. Strep throat for sure. Which meant that between two kids, an extremely attached cat, a cuddly husband, and all the random family members that always dropped in – everyone was going to end up sick. Including me. ON TOP OF MY TENNIS ELBOW.
By the time we got home I was exhausted. What a looooooong day. I was a little upset – we didn’t get to go see Star Wars as planned, and the kids had a rough day. But I persevered, started this blog post and even (finally) bought my domain!
I decided on Sunday I would spend the day lying down. (Another awesome article: ‘50 ways to play with your kids while lying down.’ I may have a Pintrest problem.) Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to keep going – inside, I’m a non-stop train. It’s just that there were no more spoons left for the weekend (Oh… you don’t know the Spoon Theory? Well, we’ll get to that later). As Jake and I were going to sleep, he offhandedly mentioned that he really didn’t want any more surprises for the weekend.
Should have known better…
The Vanessa Monologues
PS: Don’t worry, part two is already drafted 🙂
#thevanessamonologues #Eastereggs #momfail #swole #armday #Murphyslaw
The Vanessa Monologues 