You Know You Are A Mother When....

You know you’re a Mother when:

-        You take Scholastic Book Orders (and a pen) to the bathroom with you as your reading material.  (Also, to check something off of your never-ending to do list. Because, frankly, I would rather fill this out sitting on the can, than during my 15 minutes of “free time” before going to bed.)

-        You notice something brown on your finger and you smell it.  For many reasons.  First, to find out if it is poop or not. And secondly, to find out which child’s poop is on your fingers.  If it’s the baby’s poop that’s one thing, but if it’s your 5 year old’s poop- there may be a problem.  Normal people would just wash their hands and move on with their day.  A mother knows, that something brown on your finger could really put a damper on your afternoon.

-        When having two hours means, you “only have two hours.”  Two hours to someone without tiny tots seems like a decent amount of time to get anything done.  With two kids- I’m like- “Sh*t, I only have two hours to feed two kids, bathe two kids, do flashcards and 30 minutes of reading for school, pack a school lunch, lay out clothes for the entire family, vacuum, clean the kitchen, do the dishes… oh and all while fitting in time to nurse my parasite (otherwise known as Ryder) before bedtime.” Man what a mother wouldn’t do to have to “kill” two hours.

-        You become accustomed to little tots making eye contact with you while they poop, and while you poop. 

-        You start to wear character shirts.  I shit you not, the other day I purchased a Captain America shirt- for myself- because I thought Chase would think I’m cool.  His response (As I’m standing in front of him in my coolest “Cool Mom” pose, awaiting the ever changing approval of my child), “Your shirt is kinda lame, but you can still wear it.”  Oh, and I purchased Halloween pants.  No, not a costume, leggings with gigantic jack-o-lanterns on them.  Cory suggested that I refrain from wearing them out of the house, or in the daylight.  I think these people forget that I do, in fact, purchase clothes for 4 family members.  My style can’t be that “lame.” Because if it is, theirs is too.  I remember the day when I used to purchase cute outfits to wear to the bar in the hopes of not having to buy my own drinks. Now I’m trying to impress a 5 year old who wears Ninja Turtle underwear.  What has happened to me? And when will I return back to normal?   

Oh, God. This is my normal.

You know you are a Mother when you take a picture of your baby picking your nose. #milestones

School Days, Gigantic Butts and Snacks

Chase has officially been a kindergartner for a couple of weeks. And man, oh man, does he like school.  I don’t know if he likes the actual learning as much as he likes the independence and social time.  And- get this- I haven’t even gotten one phone call, email, or note sent home.  Which is clearly a parenting win!

Every day Chase’s work from the day is sent home in his folder.  And every day, after school we look through his folder together and he tells me about what he did.  As it turns out, Chase has been excelling in art. (Please note: I use the word "excel" loosely.) Below are my personal favorites so far. And by personal favorites I totally mean, “Thank goodness I didn’t get a note sent home about these” projects. 

The assignment: “Draw your house.”

Me: Chase, I like the drawing of our house.

Chase: You do? I didn’t think you would because instead of a roof I drew our house with giant butt cheeks on top.  (And yeah, upon further inspection, he did draw butt cheeks on top of our house.)

Apparently, my child literally believes we live in a sh*t hole.

Assignment: “Draw a picture of how children can help at home.”

His stated, “I am helping mom eat the snacks in the cupboard.” (Sure, buddy. That is helpful.)

Some days I cringe when I know I need to look in his folder.  It’s like ripping off a Band-Aid- one art project at a time.

Chase’s favorite part of school is recess and his least-favorite part is rest time.  He told me last night that one of his friends wouldn’t lay by him at rest time because he is “too noisy” and the child wanted to rest.  I asked Chase what he did after his friend told him that.  Chase said, “I laid by Tommy.  He’s always noisy, too.”  Well, problem solved I guess.

A 4wheel Ride, A Golf Win, A Winery and a Bottle of Karkov

Cory and I are celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary.  So, in true Jayme fashion, I would like to gift him a story of our relationship. For two reasons.  1. Because I love our comical relationship and 2. Because I didn’t purchase you a present.  #frugallady #sorry 

Our Fairy-Tale:

Once upon a time, a knight in shining armor saw a girl with long, blonde hair at a house party.  He knew she looked in distress and came to the rescue.  He grabbed her arm and whisked her away to the front of the bathroom line so her vomit would make it in the toilet.  

7 years later our fairytale is pretty much the same.  We may need to come up with a better story to tell our children when they ask how we met. 

In all seriousness, who knew the “nice guy” at the party would end up being my husband?  I’ll tell you who has two thumbs and didn’t know… this girl (insert picture of me pointing at my face with my thumbs).  As it turned out, Cory and I had a lot of mutual friends in common and we had been missing each other at our friends' gatherings (yeah, let’s call them gatherings instead of keggers) for about 6 months before actually meeting.  Which turned out to be great timing because if we had met earlier, I don’t think either of us would have been ready for a relationship.

In honor of our anniversary, here are a few random gems that describe our relationship:

One rainy Saturday afternoon, when we were up camping, Cory asked me to go on a 4wheeler ride.  It was rainy and gloomy so I was reluctant to go, but he convinced me to go anyway.  About 30 minutes into the ride it started to rain. At this point we were driving along the Mississippi and Cory stopped the 4wheeler and got off to look at the river.  He graciously invited me to join but I declined because pouting in the pouring rain seemed more fun than looking at the view.  I was so annoyed because at this point I was drenched and submerged deeply into nature (not my favorite place to be), so I eventually hopped off the 4wheeler to tell Cory I wanted to go back to the cabin. After I gave him a piece of my mind, I turned around to get back onto the 4wheeler and he called my name.  I turned around once more to look at him and he was down on one knee with a ring in his hand.  Looking back I kinda wish I wouldn’t have been such a witch seconds before he decided to ask me to marry him.  But I guess he can never say he didn’t know what he was getting himself into. 

Fast-forward to our wedding day:

I spent the morning getting my hair and make-up done, primping and priming to make sure I felt good on this special day.  At 11am we were scheduled to take our first wedding picture.  You know, the typical picture where the groom is placed facing away from the bride and turns around to see her for the first time looking angelic in her silky-white wedding dress.  So at 11am, there I stood as my groom turned around to see me.  He looked gently at me, opened his mouth and said, “I won in golf this morning.”  I guess I can’t say I didn’t know what I was getting myself into either.

Here’s one more story (that I know Cory is going to kill me for):

So when I was pregnant with Chase, Cory and I met my parents and aunt and uncle at a local winery.  Since I was pregnant, I was the designated driver.  (On a side note: I never owe Cory another gift because I gave him two pregnancies worth of being the DD.)  We were at the winery for a little over an hour.  But don’t worry, Cory used his time wisely and slammed a few bottles of wine.  It took a couple of guys to get Cory into my passenger’s seat.  I drove home with a passed out Cory (or a sleeping Cory- if he was telling the story).  I ended up splashing his face with some water to wake him up to go inside once we made it to our house. Cory ended up puking on our bedroom floor- on white carpet of course.  He then proceeded to step in the vomit.  Once he finally climbed into bed, I started to take off his vomit soaked socks, in an attempt to not ruin the rest of our home.  As I was pulling the second sock off, a passed out Cory, regained just enough consciousness to ask, “Am I getting lucky?”  

But who am I to judge? After all, I once showed up to my college math class, opened up my bag only to accidentally drop my empty bottle of booze out of my bag.  And of course, to my horror, the classroom was actually in an auditorium with a slanted floor, so down and down my empty bottle of Karkov (gag) rolled.  So, I gathered my pride, walked down all 11 rows, knelt down next to my teacher’s foot, picked up my empty bottle and walked back quietly to my seat.  I then looked at my classmate sitting next to me and asked, “Do you have a pencil I can borrow?”  And that, ladies and gentleman, was how I started my first day of college.  

Good thing Cory and I both, kinda, have our acts together now.    

  

Really though, this guy is not only the awesome husband I knew he would be, he is also an outstanding daddy to our two little nugget faces! He goes the distance for us every, single day. 

Also, a huge shout out to my sisiter, Jessica, for making me call back the “nice guy” from the party when I was about to delete his voicemail message inviting me to a party he was throwing.  

 

This is the exact second that Cory is telling me that he won in golf- I shit you not.