I hope you’ll follow me there if you haven’t already!  All the posts and recipes etc. that are on here have been moved there.  Also, MollyCake now has a facebook page, check it out and imagine how loved I’d feel if you ‘liked’ me there too!

I refuse to apologize for my friends words to you after you, stupidly and despite the 3 other witnesses to the event, roll down your window and said, ‘I almost hit it. It was so low, I couldn’t see it.’  At least you had the decency, or so I thought, to pull your car ahead and come talk to me.  Again, I will not apologize for my friend, who, at this point, I was incredibly thankful for as she had found her voice, at a time when I had, apparently, lost mine.  I also want to add that I don’t recall hearing you say ‘I’m sorry.’ amid all of your other rumblings.  What I do remember hearing you say is ‘There is a lesson in everything.’  To which I responded ‘And what would that be?’  Your response, ‘You should have pulled the stroller between the cars.  It’s too low, I couldn’t see it.’  The only thing, as far as you are concerned, that I am sorry for is that all I could come back with was ‘Really?  My daughter is fine.  My car and stroller are each fine.  I’m fine.  Go away.’

I’m actually a little fuzzy on some of the details because I was rather focused on my daughter and what, luckily, didn’t but easily could have happened.  And in my mind, despite what you did it would have been all my fault.  This is the thought I cannot get out of my mind, even still, hours later.

Piss off,

MollyMcB

P.S.  I’m not sure what I should have done differently, aside from issuing my own choice words.  I’ve discussed it in great detail with my husband since he got home from work and he doesn’t know either.  I mean, let’s be clear here, I had pulled pretty far into the parking spot, if you had been aiming for the cars on either side of me, you would have hit them.  My stroller was well within my spot.  The car next to me had parked rather close and I had a double stroller, it wouldn’t have fit even if I had wanted it to.  My friend’s car was on the other side of me and the doors were open so that the boys could get in the cars.  I am incredibly thankful for what didn’t happen today, and despite my belief that from the way you walked away from me with your head down, that you are too, you’re still an ASS.  I spent, and am still spending, the rest of the day welling up with tears every time I looked at my daughter.  I hope you spent some time considering your part in this.

So, back to today’s post, keeping track of my day today to determine just how much fun and relaxation I am getting in my days now that I have two kids.

6:40am – my daughter wakes up and I try to grab just another 20 minutes of sleep while my husband entertains her as he gets ready for work

7:10am – finally have to get out of bed

7:15-7:45am – feed myself and my daughter breakfast while flipping through the weekly flyers

7:45-8:40am – my daughter plays on her own as I clean up the kitchen, catch up on a few emails, flip through the paper, prepare snacks for our trip to the farmer’s market later this morning.  Wow – it really is a life of leisure so far today!!  Gotta enjoy this when it comes!

8:40-9am – my son (finally!) wakes up and plays with his sister.  I supervise to make sure she doesn’t swallow any of his smaller toys and he doesn’t tear her arm off as he swipes them out of her hand while I try to teach him about manners and politeness and how to use his ‘nice’ words to get what he wants.

Yup, that’s as far as I got.  I didn’t have any time after that to waste it tracking the minutiae of my day but it did start off well.  Sorry, Tacoma, WA, if you’ve had your own kids by now you don’t need me to explain it to you and if you haven’t, I haven’t got the time to care about what you think about how SAHM’s spend their days.

Carolyn:

Best friend has child. Her: exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. Me (no kids): Wow. Sorry. What’d you do today? Her: Park, play group . . .

Okay. I’ve done Internet searches, I’ve talked to parents. I don’t get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don’t do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I’m asking is: What is a typical day and why don’t moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events) and I manage to get it all done. I’m feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy — not a bad thing at all — but if so, why won’t my friend tell me the truth? Is this a peeing contest (“My life is so much harder than yours”)? What’s the deal? I’ve got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.

-Tacoma, Wash.

Relax and enjoy. You’re funny.

Or you’re lying about having friends with kids.

Or you’re taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven’t personally been in the same room with them.

I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.

So, since it’s validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm’s way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It’s needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.

It’s constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It’s constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It’s resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone’s long-term expense.

It’s doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything — language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.

It’s also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn’t judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand or keep your snit to yourself.

So, because I agree with some of the other comments that were left in various places in response to this post,  indicating that the columnist didn’t actually answer the question, I have decided to post the details of one of my days.  So, tomorrow, I will document my day and share with you all!  Aren’t you lucky.

My husband wanted to go and see a band at the local music festival. He says that it’s because that’s what we did on one of our first dates. Awww … sweet, right?  It’s an outdoor festival and it’s calling for rain that day but it rained a little in the afternoon so we think it’s passed us by – as do thousands of others I might add. The sun is shining, the sky is lovely and blue.

We go out and enjoy a nice dinner, well, a decent dinner, but it was an adults only dinner so that ups it from decent to nice.  You forget how to talk, you know? When you haven’t had an ‘adults only’ dinner in so long, you forget how to talk about stuff other than the kids.  Oh, and work. When does he start part time montessori? Will I be able to get her in a program just for her? Oh, did you see what he did the other day? Wow! Can you believe what she has started doing now? Do you like the new-to-us Roomba as much as I do? (To be clear, the answer here is YES! I HEART the Roomba but that is a whole other post!)  How is the new project at work going?  I’m thinking that we might as well be saying ‘How about the weather?’ when I hear myself actually say ‘Hey, look at the sky.  Clouds are coming in.’   Oh, good.  Our meals are here.  Cheers.  And I gulp down my cosmo.  Damn that was good.  What clouds?

Once dinner is over we headed downtown to the festival.  Though we park far enough away that we can get free parking without any fight.  It’s a lovely night so we walk to the local ice cream parlor and get a couple of ice cream cones before strolling along the lake shore to the stage that our band will be playing on – of course, it’s the farthest stage.  At least we have new scenery now and we can make fun of small talk about the interesting vendors and people along the way.  As we are walking along I feel a few little water drops on my arm and accuse the kid that just passed us of spitting on me.  You can see where this is going right?  We get to our stage and everyone has their folding chairs out, rain jackets (or garbage bags) and umbrellas in hand and my husband laments about how we forgot folding chairs.  The drops start off slow but heavy.  We get to hear the band warm up a little.  Then the lightening starts and the sheets of rain begin!  Thousands of people were running to find cover wherever they could, vendor booths, garbage bags, you get the idea.  Let me just tell you, we could have jumped in the lake we were standing beside and gotten less wet than we were getting.

This is where our date actually started to get fun.  After some debate about whether we would enjoy the show if we stayed to watch it IF they were even able to play, we finally said screw it and just started walking back to the car.  Did I mention that the car was parked a good 30 minutes away?  As I said, this is where the fun actually began.  This is where we finally remembered how to laugh, at ourselves, and more importantly, at my husband.  Yup, at my husband.  Because after we passed a few women (and I say a few because everyone else was under cover – we were considered part of the crazy few who realized we wouldn’t actually be able to hide from the rain) and he got a weird vibe.  He said they were looking at him funny.  I actually had to stop walking I was laughing so hard (seriously, we couldn’t get any wetter).  I asked him if he had paid any attention to the outfit he had chosen for our date.  Ever the sentimentalist, he had chosen a white cotton dress shirt with two lines of white embroidery up the front – a shirt that I had purchased for him for our trip to Spain a few years ago – and a pair of cream pants.  Suddenly he realized what they were looking at and his arm actually flung up in an involuntary spasm to cover his chest while his other hand flew down.  Apparently, at that moment, my husband suddenly felt objectified as the women passed us staring at his nipples.

We laughed and joked and carried on all the way back to the car.  It turned out that he wasn’t the only one with a poor choice of clothing for such weather … seriously, even if it’s sunny people, DO NOT WEAR RED GRANNY UNDERWEAR UNDER YOUR CREAM SUNDRESS!  In the end, we had a great time even though we ended up deciding to go home where it was warm, changing into dry clothes and watching a movie.  We sent our babysitter home, even though it was still daylight.  We told her to go home and take a nap before her friend’s party and promised her we’d stay out later next month.  We spent the rest of the night watching a bad movie, and talking about everything under the sun – except the kids!

I stole this post – literally, cut and pasted the whole thing … well, aside from this little blurb … from the very funny Megan Hook over at Undomestic Diva.  It got me thinking …

Would you quit the job you’ve always hated to begin a career you’ve always wanted to try?

Would you systematically cross off the items on your bucket list?

Would you leave a less than perfect life to start anew?

Would you start a business you know you’ve got the skills to make successful?

Would you finally put that book down on paper that’s been swimming in your head?

Would you devote your self and time to a cause that you care deeply about?

Would you relocate your family to be closer to the people you love?

As for me, well:

I would not quit my job – not yet.  Some days are very frustrating but I like being home with the kids.  I get to see so many little things and to know that I was a part of it.

I would start doing some of the things that I can’t do now but to be honest, my ‘list’ is a bit abstract.  I think that if it actually came to fruition, my list would change drastically.

No, I would not leave my less than perfect life because that’s what makes it perfect.  I’m pretty lucky, and I know it.

I would put more priority on doing jobs that I like – time’s not an issue right?

Yes, I would “write my novel” – figuratively speaking of course.  I mean, let’s be serious here – if you’re reading my blog, you know I’m not a writer!  ;)  But there are other projects on my list that could use attention.

I’d still be me.  I went through a lot of shit to get here, it would take more than money to not be me now.

What about you?

Cake Wrecks: seriously funny cake disasters

The People of Walmart – strangely this site makes me feel better about myself. How sad is that?

Texts From Last Night – I must warn you, some of these are pretty crude.