Monday, August 22, 2011

I Would Do Anything For Love But I Won't Do That-or maybe I will?

     I have always said that I would do anything for my children.  Would I die for them? Yep!  Would I forgo sleep and food for them? Do it all the time.  Would I practically give up grooming because there is no time and bite my tongue instead of saying go away, at least until I finish peeing? Sure thing.  Will I clean for them? UGH, yes, but I'll snark about it on Facebook.  So what is the one thing I never, no way, not ever thought that I would do on behalf of my kids?  SALES!!!
    I am so not a salesperson!  I hated retail sales and market research in college--they may have kept me IN college.  Yes, I loved teaching, loved it enough to get 3 degrees/certifications, but somewhere in the back of my mind it was also insurance against ever having to sell anything.  In fact, I actually quit blogging the first time because I felt like I was selling ideas, "Here friends and strangers, I have something that I deem so important to say that I think you should read it!"  I'm sure this says a lot about me as a person, but whatever, it's true.  And herein lies the irony, (and I mean irony in a purely Alannis Morrisett kind of way and not it's actual definition,) I find myself right now begging all of my friends for money, an obscene amount of money, in order to get my kids a service dog.
    Here's the deal, I have found an agency that trains service dogs not only for kids with multiple disabilities but also to help multiple children with disabilities in the same family.  I've met families with their dogs, they are awesome, (and I mean that in high schooly, emphatic way that I am way too old to mean it.) The agency is non-profit and technically doesn't charge for the dogs but each family is asked to fund raise $13,000 for the organization, which spends $22,000 per dog, to keep them in operation.  I get it, they can't get blood from a stone and I absolutely believe that the dog will be amazing for my family but now I am stuck fundraising which entails--asking for stuff and selling stuff:(
   I've racked my brain with ways to make asking for donations less like selling and more like helping people..."Need a great tax deduction?"  "Want some really great purses, and if you don't mind, some of the proceeds will discreetly be sent to 4 Paws for Ability on behalf of my kids."  My personal favorite, some of my wonderful friends and family are out pandering on my behalf.  I love them!!!  I put on my sunglasses and a hat to make my website and invite roughly everyone I know to my Thirty One Gifts fundraiser.  You'd think that I'd be getting more comfortable with this but, not so much.
    SO lest anyone be confused and think I am writing this to beg for donations and not to vent my current "about to turn inside out with discomfort" status--I offer this out for all of you dear ones:  Should you get an e-mail, invite, FB post... with me asking for donations and you can't or don't want to do it, just hit delete.  If, heaven forbid, you see me walking toward you trembling behind shades and struggling to make eye contact and you don't want to or can't donate, do us both a favor and scream this code--"RUN FOR YOUR LIFE" I swear to you that I will not have hurt feelings or hold a grudge and, I promise, I'll run as fast as my chunky thighs will carry me, in the opposite direction.  If all of you promise to use the code, I may-still iffy-survive fundraising.
     Man, what a mama won't do for love!  My minions better keep their rooms really clean, they owe me-big time.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Clearly, I Am A Hot Mess!

     It is always a hard thing for me to admit I am not perfect-I'm not sure why as I am so profoundly not.  Still, it would make me happy to run around in a delusional bubble that allowed me to believe that all of the people I know think that I have got it SOOO together.  I mean, I do realize that no one is perfect; but we all know those people, those women who look like they just stepped out of the beauty parlor in the car line at school.  The ones who post things like, "Just finished cleaning the whole house after my 5:00 am 5K, now I'm off to take homemade cupcakes to Trevor's class and then to volunteer at the nursing home, so happy"  I bet those people would never post something like, "Spent two hours cleaning some truly scary crap out from under Conner's bed, sure hope I get the rest of the room clean by Friday (on a Tuesday.)"  Maybe I shouldn't post those things either but I am coming to a realization.  I figured out that I was never going to be perfect a long time ago but I have finally realized that if I just fess up, if I just tell all of the horrible, goofy, gross stuff that happens to me, I feel better and my friends tend to feel better too and maybe share a few tales of their own.  In light of this epiphany, I submit the following confessions with the eternal hope that some of y'all will throw in your own at the end:
     1.  Let's start with those car line women, the ones who get up and get dressed and put on make up to drive their kids to school, (I am NOT talking about the ones who are heading to work after drop off.) Confession number one starts a little like this: Not only do I not get dressed for morning drop off, I often have on my pajamas.  In fact, on bad days, I haven't brushed my teeth yet and I almost never have on a bra.  Oh yes friends, I am that gross.  It gets worse, even when I am all dolled up and feeling really great about how I look to go out with friends, if you look really really close, one of my kids probably stuck a booger in my hair on the way out the door.  I am never, ever completely free of the gruesomeness that is motherhood. 
    2.  To the 5 am jogger moms:  The only time I am ever up at 5:00 am is if I have not been to bed yet.  I know that our culture is all in love with early risers and John Tesh swears that I will be so much thinner if I exercise earlier in the morning.  I don't CARE!!!  I am a night person.  I can write, read, clean, paint, whatever, until ridiculous hours of the night.  I would make a truly productive owl.  I don't require as much sleep as most people, (although I really need more than my kids sleep on their rotating sleep schedule!) and I like to be up late.  Part of the reason I like it is because the other people who live here are not up but mostly, I am just built that way.  HOWEVER, if I dare to sleep for even a few hours and have to get up at a crazy hour of the morning, I am a zombie, I would likely eat a brain if it was cleverly disguised as some sort of caffeine delivery system.  I used to get up that early to get from Lexington to Anne Mason every morning, it sucked.  I never got used to it.  I was an idiot until 7:30.  Not admirable, but true.  
     3.  Confession number 3, I'd rather muck horse stalls than clean my house.  Truth is, I love to muck horse stalls.  It's good work, there are horses there. Your muscles burn, your back hurts, but it smells like sweet hay and there aren't any broken toys that have to be hidden in trash bags.  The horses aren't crapping in the stalls you just cleaned while you're working on theirs.  Fact is, if there is a person out there that will come clean my house in exchange for me mucking their house stalls, I am totally in.  Don't get me wrong, my house is okay, we aren't going to appear on Hoarders any time soon.  The older the kids get, the easier it is getting.  Still, given the choice, house or barn-BARN BABY BARN
     4.  There are probably a billion other things that I could confess about why I am the farthest possible thing from perfect, or even mostly together.  Still, this one is the kicker-it was the real inspiration behind this whole blog-I AM NEVER SATISFIED  If my house is clean, I want to redecorate.  When I am redecorating, I hate having the house in an uproar.  If the weather is too cold, I get achy and don't want to go out in it.  If it's too hot, I hate that too.  Mostly, as tired as I get, as much as I think, if I could have just ten minutes to myself, I'd be truly happy; I don't want my babies far from my reach.  I am broken hearted that school starts next week and they'll be going off into a world outside of my control.  If I could go sit silently in their classrooms and still care for the littles, I would do it.  I don't care how tired I get, how much they eat, what they get into, I really just want to wish fall away and have more summer.  See-I am a basket case.

So, there you go.  If you ever thought, even for a minute, that I have it together, you are so very wrong.  I have nothing together.  Next Thursday morning, I'll shine up my bigs and send them off to school in their new outfits.  I'll be wearing pajama bottoms and flip flops.  We'll pray in the van and we'll have argued at least once.  I'll gag as I prepare their breakfast (which I never eat before 7:30) and I'll smile as they get out of the car.  Then I'll tote the littles straight off to therapy and we'll go back to the school year grind but on the way, with the radio up in the car, I'll cry.  Clearly, I am one hot mess.