Angry Working Mom

Duking it out in the cupcake aisle!

Enough people!

So chunky monkey is about to turn 1! I can't believe this last year has flown by! She is so fun right now.  

I'd been thinking about her upcoming birthday party and was ordering her cake at the bakery yesterday. I had a nutso lady that ran over to me, out of line, when she heard the lady taking my order gushing over the first birthday cake. 

This complete stranger literally ran over and said, "Surely you aren't serious that you are going to give a baby cake"? I barely looked over and continued on. The lady taking my order said we can do a couple of things..traditional cake, pudding and whipped cream, or a carrot cake..any who. 

Crazy lady twirps back with "Definitely a carrot cake would be good and better to use organic ingredients. As for the Cool Whip and instant pudding suggestion, that stuff is bad even for adults. Cool whip is all partially hydrogenated oil and instant pudding usually has red #40 or something. Sugar free will have aspartame or splenda, both terrible especially for children. People think splenda is "ok" - that it's made from sugar, but it is processed w/ chlorine! It's amazing to me how people don't know what's in our food. And even more amazing, the FDA allows it." 

I finally acknowledge her (clearly she's not going away) by saying, "Do you need something here, if not I am trying to place an order". She said, "No, I heard you and just wanted to educate you (seriously she said educate) on what you are thinking of putting into your baby's body."

I won't get into all of what I said...I'd like to pretend that I am much more dignified than I am!

But, settle down people! Are you serious? Do you run around as the high fructose corn syrup police? **A note: I am extremely conscious about what goes into my children, but I am not psychotic. I am also particular about what goes into my body and I am an exercise-aholic. Let me also say that Mrs. CrazyCornsyrup looked like she might want to cut back on the granola, dried fruit, and flax seeds.  I mean cut WAYYY back. (I am thinking she's sneaking a bag of Doritos or a box of Twinkies now and then, if you know what I mean?)

Good for you, Mrs. CrazyCornsyrup - something for you to monitor. However, (and hear this loudly and clearly) you making the world better one organic cupcake at a time stops at my ear! AWM has a lot on her plate and listening to the whiny beeyatch going on and on about high fructose corn syrup in my kid's first birthday cake is it. BRING it! It's my kids 1st B'day and we will have pictures of kiddo covered in cake..sue me.

To bring this AWM rant to an end . . . if you think that your superior parenting mentality is something the rest have to hear, be ready for an angry earful from this AWM. Kids go stand over there for one moment while mommy talks to the crazy lady....

Besides...you can always ride high on your kids living a much more enjoyable and peaceful life knowing that you didn't let your kids be tainted by dye # what the hell ever.  This cupcake's for you, Mrs. CrazyCornsyrup lady.  Enjoy!

Assumptive..the word heard 'round the world

Wasn’t there a woman who launched a thousand ships? Ok, I am no Helen, but yesterday a word launched a war at our house that I am sure has happened at yours at one time or another. OK, OK, before I go into this tirade, a little disclosure: My husband does a lot, much more than others that I know, he has to. I can’t do everything by myself. I travel a lot and it takes 2 of us (engaged). OK, there I said it, I am not super woman.

 

Yesterday, I flipped out over something minor (a pie I had made from scratch that I thought my honey took out of the freezer, but didn’t). That isn’t important, but a very interesting point came up. During the course of our “talking loudly” my lovely husband said, “I think things are going to change, I think that you are a little too assumptive about what I am doing around the house and it’s not appreciated.” Oh, dear Lord! The exchange that followed cannot be repeated here.  But, you can imagine.

 

This attitude floored me. Are you freaking kidding? I am standing in heels with a cashmere sweater   on making a gourmet dinner (Really, a roux was involved), and you are talking to me about being assumptive. I am not sure if he had been sitting on that one, or if he was feeling especially brave challenging an AWM with an 8 inch chef’s knife in her hand. Lorena, who, what?  [Here's a link for those of you too young to remember our ol' friend Lorena.]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_and_Lorena_Bobbitt

 

I just couldn’t get over it. I do so many things that no one even notices, unless I don’t do them, and you are suggesting that I am the one who is assumptive. Who do you think washes the dishes, scrubs the floor, cooks the meals, makes sure there are groceries to cook the forementioned meal, makes sure there are diapers, makes sure that the kids have everything they need for school (every $5 check and every gift for the teacher), who vacuums, who decorates for Christmas, who shops for Christmas? I could go on and on as could all of you.

 

The kicker is that he said: I put away the dinner (that I cooked) the previous night while you were messing around on the computer. BTW,  I was making a photo book on Shutterfly for his mother! My point is this. I am so freaking tired of this double standard. We are not June Cleaver with our husbands going out to work and we stay home to keep everything in order. We go out, earn a living and come home to the same stereotype. I want to know, why do men think they deserve a blow job for vacuuming the floor? I don’t ask for a piece of jewelry for mopping the floor.  Just sayin…

First Comes love, then comes marriage...

You know those times when your kids completely crack you up? Well, my parents were over visiting the girls and Punky (my 6 YO) was pulling out all the stops to show up her toddler sister in front of the beloved grandparents. After endless cartwheels, handstands and dance moves, she busted out with song..

Barbie and Ken sitting in a tree...P-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love..then comes marriage..  

Both my parents looked at each other and said what did you spell? She said "pissing, it's a song I learned at school".

Me to her "Oh dear, Kissing K-I-S-S-I-N-G" Her to me "Gross Mom- that's not it at all"!

Unless you're talking a beer bottle, no I don't do glass bottles..

Glass Bottles rather than plastic... I had a new mom sitting next to me go on and on about how she couldn't believe that I was using plastic bottles and was I aware of the dangers of BPA..blah blah freaking blah blah. You would think the look of "hey bee-yatch, back up before I roll you down the bleachers (AWM does not advocate violence...often) would have put an end to it, but not so. I think I would have "gotten her angle" if she was coming from a green perspective, but just to bust my chops, come on lady.

Rather than get into a philosophical debate or an argument (or flipping her down the bleachers), I just said "Well, I didn't think it was fair to give one kid cancer and not the other, because nobody gave a shit about plastic bottles when my 6 year old was born."

Who do you think got the last word on that one?

Glenda the Evil Bitch, I mean good witch

 
There is a Bitch in my life, which for the safety of my sanity we will refer to as "Glenda," who is one GINORMOUS, Sadistic, and heartless BEE-YATCH! Seriously, if Karma is real, she is destined to be hit by a bus or eaten by a shark. Wow! I didn’t know exactly how I felt about her until I put it in text.  Glenda is one of those mothers who is in the process of rearing future judges or congressmen who will forever be scared by how eerily close their Moms are interwoven in their lives. Glenda is forever making comments about how my kids are sicker than hers and how my kids may pass icky day care germs to her pristine kids, you get the picture.

Now, I know you are thinking that I can type a mean game and must be ONE gigantic CHICKEN in my real life not to take her down with one swift rant by AWM. Yeah, I know, and there is a good reason. And the reason I haven’t told Glenda, "Yeah, you’re right my kids haven’t lived in the psychotic bubble in your house, and while my kids were venturing out into the world, they not only learned how to read, speak, and socialize around other kids rather than running around like fucking Baboons," is because I am tied to this person and can’t say that your kids are socially incompetent. I mean, I am TIED to this person. I know that you all have Glendas in your lives. Oh, and it’s not my mother-in-law. She is pretty clued in to how I feel, wink. So for you ladies who can’t tell the Glenda in your life to fuck off, feel free to post your story and I’ll blog about it. So, I know that’s not exactly in her face, but it is out there for cyber Amer ica to enjoy! I’ll continue to comment on Glenda as her self-righteous ridiculousness creeps into my life. Funnily enough, Glenda is scared of the Wizard of Oz.  Seriously!

Just One of Those Days!

Have you ever had one of those days where it literally can't get any worse? One of those going down in the history books as the "worst day ever" days. I'm not talking about opening my suitcase to discover that I packed zero pairs of underwear; that stinks, but this is colossal.

Let me give a bit of background for the day. I've been preparing for the year-end board meeting for about 3 days. This equals a lot stress, a lot of coffee and very little sleep. The board meeting is today, this morning at 8:15, in fact. I am zen with it, we're good, sailing in fact..screech. You know what type of road bumps I am talking about (every working Mom has a rough time getting out the door). Today was a day when everything happened at once. While packing Lily's bag for the day, I dropped an entire container of formula! Not only am I looking at the giant mess in the kitchen, but that mess is about 30 bucks. OH Shiznit! What do I do now? Board meeting in T-minus 1.5 hours, and now I have to run to the grocery store to pick up formula?? AH! I manage to throw Lily in the car, ok I didn't throw her, but I gently and very quickly placed Lil in the car and headed to the store. It's a monsoon outside, so I drop Lily off at Daycare (1st time getting soaked), run to my local Publix (2nd time), run back to the school (3rd time) and drop off formula. Somehow, I pulled this off and was only running 2o minutes behind.

I make it! I look like a wet Chihuahua, but I make it. I'm scattered, ill prepared, but I'm there. The meeting went OK, and I moved on with the day. The day could possibly be salvaged, right?  Nope, not today!. The universe had other plans for AWM! My largest client calls and needs me on site ASAP. Not a problem, but it's 2hrs each way (1:40 if I haul it going 90). What's the issue with this? It's 11 and tonight is Lane's Baton performance. She is so excited, and not only would she be crushed if I didn't make it, but leaving Dad to dress kiddo in her costume with corresponding yoga pants, correct jazz shoes and matching head band...not a pretty picture.

I handled the urgent issue, jumped in the car to head home and thought if I drive 110 MPH, I just might make it. Again, damn the universe..I get pulled over by one of GA's finest. I can't talk too much smack here because he let me go without a ticket, but it slowed me down 30 minutes. To wrap this story up, I made it to the performance in just enough time to fix her hair and let her know that I was there.

Dad is irritated, Lane has that look on her face (like all the other Moms have been here for an hour), and I am physically exhausted and feeling like total hell, when I realized I haven't eaten since breakfast. I watched Lane twirl with the best of them and managed not to throw up (I snagged some of baby girl's Cheerios out of the diaper bag).

As I was putting the girls down to sleep and trying to forget my seriously crappy day where I felt like I let everyone down (Lane, my board, my husband, myself), Lane made my week. It's uncanny how a 6 year old can brighten your day with one sentence...

Hey Mom, I saved you this sticker. I saved it for you because she looks just like you. Love you Mom! As I turned to look in the mirror to see what sticker Lane stuck to my sweater I burst out laughing and smiled a smile that lasted a week. Who was on the sticker?

Barbie. My delusional 6 year old thinks I look "just like" Barbie. Maybe a 30 something, 2 kids later version of Barbie, but hey this tired Mom will take it! It set the reset button and put things in perspective. Lane didn't care what type of day I had - she was just excited that I was there.