Sorry Neighbors, Asthma Attack, Be Nicer

The snow is gone, the sun is shining, and the birds are chirping. You know what that means- my kids get to fight outdoors now! And I couldn’t be more thrilled. Our neighbors not so much.  But really, that’s not my problem. They can close their windows and put ear plugs in just like I can. I mean, don’t we all put our ear plugs in one side at a time? (Kidding! My apologies in advance to my neighbors for the loud shrieks, shrills and F*bombs you will most certainly hear in the next few months.) 

Any who, my kids spend countless hours outside working on their tree fort in the woods, riding go-karts around the yard and jumping on the trampoline. The other day, I was minding my own business when Chase shoves the sliding glass door open as quickly as humanly possible.  Him and Ryder had been jumping on the trampoline and I can see that Chase is clearly starting to have an asthma attack.   

Suddenly, out of thin air, Ryder appears next to me and places something discreetly in my hand.  I look down into the palm of my hand to see what he placed there; it’s Chase’s inhaler.  Ryder looks me dead in the eyes and commands, “Don’t give this back to him until he learns to be nicer.” A shiver went down my spine.   

Freddy Kruger has nothing on Ryder.  Going to hell, killer clowns and creepy noises in the night do not scare me. However, my 7-year-old scares me to my core.  And I have now decided to keep an inhaler on me at all times in case Ryder starts to think I, also, need to learn to be nicer.   

This is how sweet Ry looks when he is not trying to prevent Chase's death.

Sometimes I Miss Me

Fifty-two seconds.  That’s how long I used to be able to do a keg-stand. Now I haven’t seen a beer keg, even upright, in over a decade.  What happened to Me? 

Oh yeah, that’s right, I pushed two eight-pound babies out of my lady parts and have spent the last 12 years in survival mode changing diapers, checking homework, cooking dinners and somehow managing to work full-time.     

I have a really good life but sometimes I miss the girl I used to be.  The girl that was held upside down by her ankles, with a hose filled with beer running to her mouth with an entire room of friends counting in unison cheering her on, disappointing no one but her parents, God and maybe anyone with morals.  

    

Now, the only thing I’m counting is the number of minutes until bedtime and how many gray hairs I’ve pulled out of my head today hoping two more won’t regrow in their place. 

Life changes so quickly when you have kids, especially when you are in the thick of it.  All of a sudden you wake up one morning, and while popping an Advil- not because you are hungover but because your joints are sore from being a middle-aged, slightly out of shape human- and think to yourself, “I wonder if I could even do a keg-stand anymore.”  And then before you can even answer yourself, one of your kids bursts into your room and demands cereal for breakfast and your thoughts quickly turn to, “Sh*t, the milk is curdled” and “Sh*t, I forgot to buy cereal” and “Sh*t, how did I end up here?”  

Don’t get me wrong, I love my children and I made a conscious choice to have them, but in my defense, I just didn’t realize how emotionally and physically draining it would be to keep tiny humans alive and how much of myself I would lose in the process.  Simply put, sometimes, I miss Me.  

Sometimes I want to be the girl again doing beer bongs with a group of her friends with no cares in the world and eating her weight in Chipotle every day. I mean, if I could go back in time and be that girl again, I would make the choice to not do the beer bong because I would wake up sick the next day.  Not from being hungover because twenty-one-year olds don’t get hung over but from contracting Mono from that beer bong. But I do miss the carefree part.   

I ask myself so many questions that I don’t know the answer too yet like; Will I go back to the person I once was before kids?  Will I ever be that carefree person again?  Do I even want to be that person?   

Maybe the answer is that I am still that girl; just a more mature version who also has a monthly budget on an Excel spreadsheet and is a 1st grade room parent.  I could probably do a beer bong, but I would feel obligated to sanitize the beer bong between each use.  You know, since I perfected that skill from all of those years of sanitizing baby bottles.   

And I could probably still do a keg stand, with more assistance of course, and my chest would fall into my face while I’m upside down instead of staying in place like it used to before I spent two years using those boobs to feed babies.  But I guess that’s what life and parenting does to you; makes you a mature version of the 20-year-old you. But damn, I do miss those boobs.  

How are they getting so big?

Lady Parts, Life Goals, QuikTrip Bathroom

High School teachers: “If you work hard and apply yourself, you can be anything you want to be.”  

18-year-old me: “I will spend 4 years in college to become a writer. I will travel the world and change every life I touch by seeking justice and truth.”  

22-year-old me: “I listened to everyone’s advice.  I worked hard.  I will reach all of my goals.  The sky is the limit.” 

36-year-old me standing outside of a gas station bathroom with my 7-year-old peeking his blonde head out informing me: “Good news- I made it to the bathroom.  Bad news-I had explosive diarrhea, and I broke the toilet.”  

Apparently, my real-life goals were to say the F-word out loud in front of a line of children with their legs crossed anxiously waiting for their turn to use a now broken toilet at a QuikTrip gas station while simultaneously flushing my fancy $40,000 college degree down that same QuikTrip toilet.  

Rip your lady parts open and never sleep again, they said.  It’ll be fun they said. 

Oh wait, I think the actual phrase is; Have children they said.  It’ll be fun they said.  

But really, samesies.