WHAT?! are you wearing!

So I have this thing every month where I take one of our older two children out once a month with just me to do whatever they feel like doing. Movie, salon, play, roller blading, whatever they want. This past weekend was my 'date' with my 10 yr old son. I asked him what he wanted to do his answer, to my surprise, shopping. We have this deal the kids have their own bank accounts with me as the primary parent on the account and whenever they want to go shopping we transfer money from their account to mine, it keeps their accounts safter with no cheques or bank card as well as teaching them to be responsible, and I in turn hand them cash.
So, we go to the mall, which I dread because it's always overcrowded on the weekends but still go anways, and we start in the JC Penny store. I love JC Penny. They have the uncool flowery ew gross I'd never wear that section, the skimpy only my husband can ever see that anyways so why spend the money for it section, and last but not least the fat lady, don't you wish we made better clothes for you, section. Of course we don't head for THAT section right away we 'window shop' in the boys section after all it is his day. My son is actually very practical and smart when he shops with his own money vs using mine. I hear "woah that's too much money for that" or "maybe I should save up and get this instead". Every mom loves to hear those words it shows maturity. He sets his sights on a pair of jeans which usually mom has to pick out his size for him and he found his own size as well as picking out a couple of shirts and a vest. Then I ask the dreaded question. How much of that do you need? To which his reply was a sheepish grin and he in turn put some items back on the shelf leaving him with his nice pair of jeans and a tshirt of oscar the grouch.
Now it's my turn. Now I just had a baby 4 months ago and this is real life not Hollywood so although the weight has been coming off its slow. I did however lose all of my initial weight gain from the pregnancy in the first week or two but now I'm going for 'extra' being that I have extra to spare and the spare has got to go!
Keep in mind though that I'm no the least bit interested in obsessing over what I look like cause let's face it I have to look me in the mirror every day not you and I have to be comfortable in my skin not you so I don't really care what YOU think I look like. I am in the I just had a baby fat lady section and the first thing I see..........low rider shorts. What!? Why would any fat woman in her right mind want to wear low riding anything so that her ponch can spill over and flap around in the wind airing itself out on a hot day? Tell me what stupid human thought this one up? Stupid people are a serious pet peeve of mine although I'm tolerant and polite to their faces.
Back to the clothes. Obviously with my view on low rider shorts looking at them is a waste of my time so I move on to tops. I am as they say in between sizes which is annoying at any size so I have been keeping the size that's on the roomier side than the one that's not quite there yet in my opinion. I don't get fat lady designers today though everything looks so cute on the rack but then I put it on and find some obscure place that they've put a pocket that even Cher herself never would have thought of. So with my son in tow and getting annoyed that we're even shopping for me at this point I grab some shirts and a pair of shorts , against my better judgement, and set off to the fitting room.
I start with a nice almost see through but not enough not to buy it smokey blue shirt that actually has style to it and put it in the ok pile moving on to another shirt that also fits well but for some reason is extra extra long on my and feels like a skimpy dress more than a shirt but if I wear it with a skirt won't be so bad so into the ok pile it goes too. Then on to this blousy looking thing with some weird scrap of material I guess I'm supposed to use for a belt. Hideous I look like Alice Cooper in a bad shirt definitely in the no pile. Then the afformentioned tshirt with a weird pocket that Cher would never wear so why am I trying it on? In the no pile. Then the shorts. I start with the left leg then the right leg and pull....pull.....pull....dag nabbit! The low rider shorts! I thought I had grabbed the ones beside that were NORMAL. They barely cover my a** and are shoving fat in places that even the fat is scared and doesn't know what to do. Embarrassing but true. Definitely these go into the no pile.
Seriously with an episode like that and a 10 yr old son saying "Mom are you done now I want to go to the bookstore" leaving JC Penny was all I could think about.
It did end well though, the shopping experience. We went to that Body and Bath store where they have 8 workers for one store all armed with some sort of spraying device or lotion and they plaster you before you can say a word or even maneuvre out of the way. When you go left they go right and when you finally escape one you only turn around to get smothered by another. I smelled like the store by the time we left but we did have fun joining in and spraying the tester bottles alllllll over the store towards the workers. Yeaaahh see how you like it lady!
We ended at the bookstore per my son's request and standing in line with only one person in front of us and like 6 people behind us tapping their feet he suddenly pipes up, "Hang on Mom I'm going to put this book back and grab spongebob instead." Greeeaaaaat ok hurry I say as the 6 people glare at me with he better make it back by the time you reach the till faces. As the people in front of us end their purchase bag in hand my son ruuuunnnns toward the till almost jumping the book display to get to the counter and notices yet another nick nack backing up to grab that too. The 6 people behind us are now whispering to each other things like " I knew it, what is this lady's problem?, if I had a kid like that," but we still made it through safe and sound with our embarrassing experiences, mostly mine, and now standing in 100 degree heat smelling like 12 different fragrances and sweat.

Stop it!

So I was perusing around some facebook photos and comments from several different posts and asked the simple question. Am I the kind of mother that I really want to be?
My mother, her ears are probably burning knowing that I'm talking about her right now as I write this, was very fun and resourceful in hers and my younger years. She used to bake, cook, clean, sew, take us to the park, weed the garden and flower beds, do laundry, makes us waffles and cream of wheat and homemade cinnamon buns yum. She was also quick with the wooden spoon and had a killer glare.
It wasn't until later in life that I missed all of these things because my mom got a job. I remember thinking how cool it was at first. We finally get store bought milk and bread and stuff we never got before because it was always homemade. It was exciting and fun, at first.
As time rolled on and I grew up to my mid teens I really honestly missed my mother. I missed coming home from school and seeing her in her chair fixing a button or reading a book. I missed the smell of fresh bread baking and the big Saturday breakfast. It took me until then to really appreciate everything she had done in my younger years to the extent that it should have been so thankyou Mom seriously from the bottom of my heart for all those things you did and how hard you worked in the home it was not unnoticed by me.
Now back to the question. Am I the kind of mother that I want to be?
Well the answer is no. I think I try real hard and I'm not perfect and I am DEFINITELY hard on myself. But the answer is still no. I can do better. I can have a cleaner home, better planned meals, and more quality time with my kids. I can do it all. I know I can. But then I start to look around and think of all the things I'm doing wrong, since I'm a challenge to myself, and all that ends up happening is frustration and disappointment. I feel utterly overwhelmed at my life. And what's worse if I do something that bothers me then I have to either live with it and move on or work and work at something that I just can't be good at.
The truth is I would like to be just my mother was when I was little. I want to teach my daughter to bake and sew as well as throw a mean curve ball and shoot hoops. I want to teach my son to open doors for girls and respect women as well as how to bend that ball between the goal posts. But quite frankly I never seem to have the time. So what's keeping me from being the mom I want to be?
The world. Or at least my view of it. My kids don't even know that I spend more time living up to societies standards of what a parent should be than my own. They don't even know that they've been missing out. How often do we get consumed with emails, text messages, phone calls, parent teacher meetings, our favorite tv show, and the list goes on? I want to say to the world GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! You heard me!
What's worse, now that I'm making a real effort to spend time with them, it's too late. I mean I've always done lots of fun things with the kids we've definitely had our moments. But not enough of them. My daughter has no interest in learning how to cook when I have the time to teach her but has all the time in the world when I'm consumed with something or other that I have to take care of. Don't get me wrong life happens and it isn't perfect. But I think it's time to get back to tradition. Mom's if you can please stay home. It means the world to your children when they grow up and realize you were always there for them and they will have a desire to be home and raise their children too. They will remember the time you taught them to ride a bike, swing on a swing by themselves, how to bake a loaf of bread.
It's like the old saying goes, give a man a fish he's full for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll never hunger again. Let's teach and do all the things to and with our children now so they have the memories we enjoyed for themselves. And in the process we get to relive our own. Maybe that's the true fountain of youth. Reliving your youth with the youth you've created.

Explain Yourself

So as most mothers/wives know we reach that point in our lives where enough is enough. We've done about a billion loads of laundry by now. Washed our umpteenth dish and if we have to hear "Mom, he/she is hurting me!" one more time we just might snap postal worker style. Just now I was in the kitchen you'd never know that I spent over an hour cleaning it this morning because I was hoping by some stroke of magic luck that the people who messed it up would actually want to clean some of it.
No such luck.
My question is this. Families, do you not see us working our A**es off to cook for you, clean for you, drive you around, listen to your weird obscure stories that we blank out half the time on because we're pretty sure we've heard this before, made your beds and last but not least wash, dry, fold and sometimes iron your laundry? If you do see us doing all of these things, and I think you do we all know you notice even though you're trying to pretend you weren't there like OJ Simpson, then why for heaven's sakes, or mine, do you ignore it? Worse than that. Why do you go out of your way to put your clothes that we just washed on the floor that we just vaccumed covered in dirt from the shoes that we just asked you NOT to wear in the house? Why do you use every single cup in the house as if there's some elf that keeps the cupboard filled with them and it will never empty, my name is elf, and cover the counters with crumbs from the toast and sandwiches that you 'never made Mom I swear'? Why? No really I want to know.
If you appreciate your Mother or your wife or significant other then please for the love of Mike PICK UP AFTER YOURSELVES. That makes alot more time for us to listen to the stories we've heard before, drive you around while you scream in our ears hoping that we don't run into the guy in front of us because someone's toy just rolled under the break, and can spend what you call "quality time" with you. Isnt' that why you interrupt us constantly in the first place?

The other day

The other day I was thinking to myself wow I used to be in a lot of sports. I mean A LOT OF SPORTS! I think I've tried just about every sport there is to try with the exception of "professional wrestling" which we all know is like watching our kids fight over the tv remote. I remember loving soccer played it for years and to be honest I felt I had the perfect body when I played that game nothing jiggled I could run the whole game without wheezing or my legs screaming for an axe. I also loved volleyball with the acception of the 'holier than thou' coach I had it was a lot of fun hard on the knees not sure I'd do it now other than to spike the ball at people like Mel Gibson or my ex. There was basketball which I was pretty good at and enjoyed until again an unfortunate coach whose mouth got her thrown out of games all the time so we were left to 'coach' ourselves aka boss each other around and get in cat fights while still trying to win the game. That must have been fun for the refs huh. But lately I feel to tired and too blah to get the energy to do all of those things anymore. But I do love tennis, my knee and shoulders don't they squeak and crack every chance they get. But the thought of having more control over that tennis ball than my opponents can be a lot of fun. "Run hubby run why are you slowing down?" Says the chubby girl with the squeaky knee and pint of sweat on her face to the tall, handsome, skinny man who only breaks a sweat if it's hot enough.
Maybe I'll take up skydiving. I hear it makes you feel lighter when you're flying though the air like a marshmallow in a gust of wind.