mom stuff

Ten Things Only Moms Who Used To Be Super Fans Can Understand

~ Kaitlyn @ Doing Dishes Making Wishes ~ 1 Comment

It’s Sunday. Game day.

Open your eyes and take a deep breath of that chilly breeze blowing through your window. Your friends are picking you up in an hour to go tailgate. Get up and start to get ready! Have a beer while you shower. Go ahead. Nobody’s stopping you, and that shower beer is the perfect way to start Sunday Funday. It’s so cold and refreshing, competing with the warm steam of the shower. Ahhh. Living the dream. Just loving life and enjoying a shower beer.

Do your hair so that it still looks good under a knitted hat. Select an outfit that makes you look cute, clearly distinguishes you as a hot Chicago Bears fan and keeps you warm enough at the same time. Perfection. Now fill up a big travel mug with coffee and Bailey’s, throw ice on the orange and blue jello shots in the cooler and jump in the truck when your friends pull up.

Are you ready for some football?!?!

HELL YES. SUNDAY FUNDAY. BEAR DOWN, CHICAGO!!!

 

Now fast forward 5 years……

I wake up to little people who need a lot all at once. I chug hot, black coffee even thought it is burning my tongue. I remember the coffee-and-Bailey’s-Sundays fondly for a fleeting moment, but I don’t even have any hard liquor in the house. I sigh and google the Bear’s schedule between pouring glasses of milk, because I actually don’t even know when and who they play this week. (It’s not that I don’t care! I had to re-prioritize everything when I became a mommy. I literally have no time to worry about sports anymore.) Turns out they don’t play until Monday night. Oh well. Come noon, my husband will sit in front of the TV and multiple computer screens, so wrapped up in a combination of his fantasy team and work that the house could burn down around him and he wouldn’t notice. I take the kids to the zoo, because the house feels like a zoo anyway.

Bye Sunday Funday….Probably forever.

Tears. Grief. Mourning.

I am a mommy who was once a fan. A true fan. I loved tailgating outside Soldier field. I loved high-fiving other super fans in the stands after every touch down. I loved watching the entire game, uninterrupted, with everyone at the local sports bar. I loved knowing the players stats, who got traded and who was injured. I just loved to breathe that crisp fall air because it meant football, food, beer and fun. Daaaa Bears!

Were you a mom who was once a fan too?

I wholeheartedly understand this dilemma. You are not alone.

dabears

Ten Things Only Moms Who Used To Be Super Fans Can Understand:

1. Attending the game is only fun until you are exhausted.

Let’s be real – I can’t keep up with my cool, hip, childless friends. After two beers during the tailgate, I feel nice and toasty. After two more beers in the stadium, I need to lay down. I have to pace myself. Stay hydrated. I also can’t forget to swing by the ATM to pay the babysitter later, because I somehow already spent all my cash. Was it always 10 bucks a beer at Soldier Field? No wonder I was broke in my twenties. I supposed I could always play it smart and stay sober, but that also equals being the caretaker and designated driver for all those Sunday Funday clowns I came here with. No thanks. I’ll take my chances with beer.

2. I can just watch the game with a few friends at a sports bar!

Brilliant plan, imbecile. See #1.

3. Staying home to watch the game doesn’t really work either.

I try to catch a play or two in-between prepping dinner, folding laundry and granting fruit snack requests every 15 minutes. I might also attempt to enjoy a hard cider before somebody knocks it over and I have to clean the carpet.

4. Let’s bring the kids with to the game! It will be fun!

Oh sure! Really fun! Because dropping a couple hundred bucks to haul around a backpack full of snacks and sippy cups, celebrate touchdowns by holding a toddler over the potty, play musical stadium chairs and apologize repeatedly to everyone around you sounds like an epic time. Said no one. Ever.

5. Family-friendly doesn’t apply to Buffalo Wild Wings on football Sundays.

Because now you have a baby. In a bar.

6. Your husband has magical powers.

The outside world doesn’t exist to him from 11:59 AM Sunday until 12:01 AM Monday. He can tune out the entire household. He will be mentally gone for 12 full hours, and will sometimes resurface from football land to find beer and food. Don’t even try to wake him from this Cinderella spell. It is only more energy wasted on your part. It is him and his fantasy teams. Why he was granted this freedom and you were not is an eternal mystery, but at least his roster is pretty stacked! Let’s hope he wins some big cash this season!

7. Every other commitment you have seems to fall on Sunday afternoon at kickoff.

You are an adult now. You have adult things to attend, and you can’t flake out like you did when you were 22 years old. Wedding showers, baby showers, birthday parties, family reunions, etc. – Be there or be square! Better hope your phone has decent service so you can get score updates, provided you have a minute to check it without looking rude as hell.

8. Don’t throw a Sunday Funday party. Just don’t.

At least once during football season, we all get the brilliant idea that throwing a party for the Bears game is going to be fun. It’s not. Now instead of watching the game you are cooking, cleaning and helping to take care of your friends’ kids. You suddenly remember why you swore not to do this again last year, and admit that next year it will probably sound like a good idea again. Oh well. At least I got to try out a new buffalo chicken recipe from Pinterest! Go Bears!

9. You don’t even know who half the team is anymore.

I haven’t watched the NFL draft for three years running. I vaguely remember Pat Tomasulo recapping what was going on with the Bear’s roster on the news while I made breakfast one day. None of the details remained in my brain. I save face by making fun of Jay Cutler. Because at least everybody can agree on hating Cutler.

10. You still have the cutest Bears apparel, but it is just collecting dust in the back of your closet.

Someday I will bust that tight little women’s jersey back out and Instagram the hell out of a game day selfie. Someday. After my boob job and tummy tuck.

 

See? I told you that you weren’t alone, my fellow fan who became a Mommy! I am down in the trenches with you, fighting the good fight from one football Sunday to the next.

It is going to turn out OK for us, I promise.

In a few years, the kids will be old enough to sit through a game. We can enjoy our football Sundays as a family. We can get out of the house to watch football games at Buffalo Wing Wings without stares full of judgement. We can take the kids to Bears games without backpacks full of baby crap. We can take them tailgating, teach them how to play bags like pros and eat Chicago style hot dogs with our tailgate neighbors. We can cheers water bottles and even eat blue and orange jello together. (This time without the vodka.) It will get better, and until it does, we can hold on to the carefree, glorious memories we have of our super fan days.

If we raise these kids right, they will probably be super fans just like their respectable mommies!

And really…..What more could you ask for?

BEAR DOWN, CHICAGO BEARS!!!

The Perfect Mom Quest

~ Kaitlyn @ Doing Dishes Making Wishes ~ 4 Comments

Something has happened to our generation of moms. Something terrible. We have lost our common sense in our quest to be perfect.

Our mothers and grandmothers didn’t have the internet or “How To” books for parenting. They went off their instincts, and if that didn’t work, they talked to their mothers, aunts, friends and neighbors for advice. They didn’t always follow it, but in the end we all turned out to be healthy and functioning human beings. That was what mattered, right?

The internet is an endless supply of information. Google search “how to make baby food” and you literally have thousands of options, methods and instructions right there in front of you. The same thing applies to diaper creams, medicated ointments, and basically anything else you can use on a baby. Here is the thing that pisses me off – some of this stuff is pure crap.

Did you know ANYBODY can start a website?! (I started one!)

Did you know that anybody can publish ANYTHING THEY WANT on said website? (I am typing whatever the hell I want right now!)

Did you know that if they are making claims and giving advice it is most likely a bunch of bullshit unless they can cite their information from a credible source? (I bet you are now vaguely remembering high school bibliographies with loathing. You’re welcome.)

Our generation of moms can turn to the internet for any parenting obstacle. Forget common sense. You can just Google it. Who cares what your Gram says? She only managed to raise five respectful and successful kids in a single income household! Screw what the pediatrician says. Why would we listen to someone who completed 8+ years of college and medical school followed by 3+ years of residency when we can just read some random Perfect Mom’s blog and follow her advice? I am sure she is qualified to give sound medical guidance on the health of our families.

Oh wait. Did she even graduate high school? Her children seem OK in the pictures, but are they ACTUALLY healthy and OK? We will never know, my friends! We will only see what she wants us to see, because she can say whatever she wants on that big, bad blog of hers. She doesn’t have to produce any credentials to hit the publish button, and people read it. I am weeping for every scientist and medical professional who has ever published solid research. Published research is boring, but jumping on the hip Perfect Mom bandwagon is fun! Let’s all forgo our educations and parent our kids based on current trends!

When I was pregnant with my first baby, I spent HOURS upon HOURS on the internet. I refer to this as the Perfect Mom Quest. I became obsessed with the notion of being the Perfect Mom. So much so that I pushed aside all common sense instincts and read as much of those crap mommy blogs as I possibly could. Naturally, (no pun intended) I came to the following conclusions:

  • I was going to have a natural delivery (even considering home birth) because any mom worth anything pushes their kid out of their vagina drug free.
  • I would make my own organic baby food, because jars of baby food have chemicals. Which chemicals? IT DOESN’T MATTER! HOMEMADE ORGANIC WAS THE ONLY SAFE WAY TO GO!
  • I was going to breastfeed exclusively because if I gave my baby formula her brain would be underdeveloped, plus she might get cancer. JESUS. Might as well call that stuff liquid death.
  • I was never going to give my baby acetaminophen or ibuprofen because, “OMG! I read a blog that said these medications are poison. I would be administering POISON to my child! What kind of tricks are these pediatricians trying to pull!?”
  • I was only going to use cloth diapers because I read another blog saying disposable diapers WILL give your child severe diaper rash. HOLY SHIT. My kid will never have diaper rash. I will not allow it. I will only use cloth diapers. Are those disposable diaper parents freaking insane!? Why would anyone willingly give diaper rash to their baby?!
  • I was not going to vaccinate because Jenny McCarthy said it gave her kid autism, plus kids die from adverse reaction to vaccines. How many kids? Who cares?! It is killing children! Vaccination is obviously a tool put on Earth to defeat mankind.

I know. Exhausting. If only I could go back in time and slap myself senseless, and then slap myself some more until I was once again sane. I was smarter than that! I have a Bachelor of Science for Christ’s sake! I couldn’t complete one lab in NIU’s Anderson Hall without citing a study. I couldn’t turn in a project unless I had proof that my stated facts came from somewhere credible. My professors wouldn’t have given an uncited project one glance. I should have been able to avoid falling for this Perfect Mom crap right?

Once I had my baby I realized this quest was not only unrealistic, but also so time and energy consuming that I could barely handle it. Why was I putting myself through all this when there was no actual proof that my baby would turn out to be a super genius or Olympic athlete? That was the end of Perfect Mom Quest.

  • I ended up having a C-section because Avery was Frank breech. Had I done a home birth, I firmly believe one of us would not have come out of that situation healthy. Good-bye to natural delivery, and thank goodness for my obstetrician!
  • Making my own organic baby food was messy, just as expensive – if not more expensive – and a huge pain in the ass. I wasted a few hours of my life on it, then decided there were better ways to spend my time. My kids ate the toxic Gerber (which is actually not toxic at all – see below) for a couple months, and I switched them to finger foods. They are alive and healthy. Why is this short transition from liquid to finger foods plagued with puree controversy?!
  • I hated breastfeeding. Hated it. I suffered through sixteen weeks of zero sleep, bleeding nipples, low milk supply and throbbing let-downs before I finally gave up on the whole thing. While watching Cody feed Avery a bottle of formula, I wept. I still can’t tell you if it was out of guilt that I had given up or flat-out relief that breastfeeding was over. Then I went to bed (Since my boobs were no longer needed – Thank the Lord!) and slept while he worked his first all-night feeding shift. I woke up as a new woman and never looked back.
  • Once my kids hit 6 months, I gave them ibuprofen and acetaminophen when it was appropriate. Seeing your child sick and in pain is hard. If I have a headache, I take medicine and feel better. Why would I want my kids to cry in pain when I know I have something that will help? Turns out using medications properly is perfectly safe and healthy. (see below)
  • Here are fun facts you don’t find on a Perfect Mom blog about cloth diapers: They are disgusting and time consuming. Also – Disposable diapers don’t give your baby diaper rash. Poop and pee on skin give your baby diaper rash. I lasted 2 months using cloth diapers. My washing machine and gag reflex thanked me when I finally snapped and bought Huggies.
  • My kids are vaccinated and have been since day one. My pediatrician BEGGED me to do accurate research. She would treat my kids either way, but it was strongly encouraged that I make an educated decision rather than a “But I read it on a Perfect Mom blog” decision. I love my pediatrician. She knew how to tame my crazy.

I happen to know many women who are, in fact, Perfect Moms. They are breastfeeding like champions and pureeing baby food like it is their job. They are washing their cloth diapers without gagging and pushed their kids out – all natural and drug free – like they were supposed to. Cheers to them! They must have their own good reasons if they are putting themselves through all of that hot mess. I always get down on myself when talking to these moms. They never fail to remind me with a snarky little smile that they are, “Just doing what is best for baby!” or the good old, “Mommies make sacrifices!”

Yep. I am currently sacrificing the joy of ripping out your hair, Lady.

Being a new mom is like that high school girl vs. girl competition all over again. You can’t be in the Perfect Mom club unless you have successfully completed the Perfect Mom Quest.

https://i0.wp.com/cdn2.thegloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Mean-Girls-Cant-Sit-With-Us-GIF.gif?w=656

I guess I am kicked out of the club. Rebel for life!

Truth be told, when Perfect Mom’s child stands next to Avery (a.k.a. my vaccinated, medicated, formula-drinking, Huggies-wearing, Gerber-eating child who was delivered via C-section) at the preschool music show, all I see is two happy and healthy kids. I can’t look at that group of 24 kids and pick out the breastfed ones. I couldn’t tell you which ones had homemade organic purees when they were 9 months old. All I can tell you is that they still made it through their first year of preschool….Regardless of all that.

I am reminding myself and all other moms like me that we did a good job.  We did the research and made parenting decisions based on what we knew in both head and heart was best for our families. As a result, our kids are just as happy and healthy as Perfect Mom’s organic, all natural kids.

You know what that makes us?

Perfect Moms.

Want to know where I did my research? Here you go:

My decision to vaccinate my kids:

Here is the World Health Organization’s vaccine reaction rates website. You can click on each vaccine and get a breakdown of every possible adverse reaction to the vaccines, including worldwide statistical data.

Here is the Autism Science Foundation’s website for autism and vaccination. There are countless studies listed that provide solid evidence against autism being related to vaccination.

Here is some info on herd immunity from the University of Oxford.

 My decision to buy Gerber baby food purees:

Here is Gerber’s website. They have USDA certified organic baby foods, which also means the crops are not genetically modified. If you have also done research, you would know anything with an USDA certified organic label cannot contain any GM foods.

You can look up the full ingredient list for any of their baby foods. Here is an example with peaches. These are their standard peaches, not the organic. Click on the nutrition information tab below the product’s picture for the full ingredient list. (Like any other food you buy in the grocery store, baby food has to follow the FDA guidelines for food labeling.)

I made sure all the Gerber purees that I used for my kids only contained the fruit/vegetables of choice, water, and either ascorbic acid or citric acid. What are those? They are natural preservatives! Ascorbic acid is vitamin C. It can be used as a preservative for food by preventing oxidation. It can also be used as a vitamin C supplement. Your body needs vitamin C to help absorb iron. An excess of vitamin C in the system is very rare because it is a water soluble vitamin. Citric acid is a naturally occurring acid in citrus fruits. It is used as a preservative to slow down oxidation of food. Have you ever squeezed lemon juice over apple slices to keep them from browning? Or lime juice into guacamole? You just preserved your food with citric acid. Don’t trust me? Click on the links above!

My decision to use over-the-counter medication to treat high fever or pain:

Here is KidsHealth.org’s information on the safety of ibuprofen and how to use it correctly. Here is their page for correct use of acetaminophen.

KidsHealth.org is a good resource for parents. It is managed by the Nemours Foundation, a not-for-profit dedicated to education for children’s health.

Here is the popular WebMD website’s advice for young children and ibuprofen use.

Booberry Cancakes

~ Kaitlyn @ Doing Dishes Making Wishes ~ 2 Comments

I am not a morning person.

I have childhood memories of my mother literally, physically dragging me out of bed as I fought her off in a sleepy haze. I also have unfortunate memories of hitting the snooze button way too many times in my early adult life, and consequently rushing to work/class/anything I ever had to attend before 10:00 AM. I would shamelessly burn rubber into the Starbucks drive thru and risk running another 10 minutes behind schedule. There was no way on God’s Green Earth I would make it through the lecture (that had already started) or bank teller shift (that started in 4 minutes) without a venti-with-an-extra-shot dose of caffeine. Once the first few sips of coffee were ingested, my eyes would open up. The world was no longer a bright, glaring, evil place. I would realize the sun was out and I had stuff to get done. I would silently scold myself for sleeping in as I muttered an apology to my boss or professor. I would run to my seat and get to work. Crap. Late again.

If you are a “tsk-tsking morning person”, you should know that I am fully aware and ashamed of the fact that if I hadn’t hit the snooze for 45 minutes I would have been on time. I envy your ability to pop out of bed in a cheery-ass, obnoxious mood and begin your day without wasting $5 on a large coffee. That must be so great for you! For me that morning struggle was REAL. So keep your “tsking” to yourself. Thanks.

Suddenly I became a mother in my mid-twenties, and I also had to become a morning person whether I liked it or not. It wasn’t too hard, actually. A tiny, helpless human crying for me was a good motivator. I bought a Keurig. I would wake up to feed the baby and then stumble over to the coffee machine. It wasn’t so bad. I even started watching the morning news while I sipped my coffee and ate some breakfast of my own. How grown up and “morning person” of me!

But, alas! Old habits die hard. I wish I could say I am a good mom who gets up with the sun to scramble eggs and start the laundry. I wish I could tell you that I am showered, dressed and watching the news while sipping my cup of coffee before my kids even wake up. I just am not. I usually stay asleep until one of my kids wakes up. I have come to terms with the fact that despite my best efforts at getting it together before 7:00 AM, I will never truly be a morning person. Just because I am usually awake by then doesn’t mean I enjoy it!

The. Struggle. Is. Still. Real.

Nowadays, my morning can go two completely different ways. This depends solely on which child wakes up first. (I suppose my morning could go a third way if I would just get my ass out of bed a half hour earlier…But that is not the point of this post…So I guess we won’t be discussing that third option today. Yea, I know. Tsk tsk.)

Morning #1:

Avery wakes up first. She tiptoes into my room and crawls into bed with me to snuggle. Sometimes she falls back asleep. (Yay! Bonus sleep!) When she is ready to get up she whispers, “Mommy, can we get up and have breakfast?” Nine times out of ten she will request Cheerios and banana. She usually lays in my bed until I tell her breakfast is ready, which gives me time to start my coffee and throw on some clothes in peace. She will tiptoe into the kitchen and eat, while I sip some coffee. Simple, easy and minimal dishes. She even puts her bowl in the sink when she is finishes. She usually asks to watch a kids’ show after, and I let her because she is just so darn good to me in the mornings. This gives me extra time to get a few things together before Emmy wakes up. The morning runs smoothly. Everybody is happy and satisfied. I love these mornings.

Morning #2:

Emmy wakes up first. I hear her stomp down the hall and fling open my door. I brace myself.

“Mommy! Wake up!” She stands right next to my face on the side of the bed.

“Mommy! OPEN EYES!” I open my eyes in bewilderment.

“I hungry.” She stares at me.

If I take more than 5 seconds to stretch and assemble my thoughts, she goes into full drill sergeant mode.

“Mommy! Time to wake up! Time to eat freckfast!” (She calls breakfast freckfast.)

I run to the bathroom and lock the door, because I know if I don’t she will be barging in there to harass me through all my business. She bangs on the door.

“MOMMY! YOU IN DER???”

Yes, honey. I am in here. You watched me walk in here.

“I HUNGRY!!! YOU HURRY UP??”

I stumble to the kitchen to get that coffee maker brewing, while she barks at my heels, “Cancakes! Mommy! Cancakes!” (She calls pancakes cancakes.)

“Muffins, Mom! Wif toast! And jelly. JELLY. MOM! THE JELLY IN DA FRIDGE!”

I shush her because I know where the damn jelly is. Tell her to keep her voice down and not to wake her sister. I suggest cereal. Granola bars. Yogurt. Fresh fruit. Please. Anything that doesn’t require pans, mixing bowls, eggs and effort.

“NO! I no eat dat! I want hot muffins. In oven. I want CANCAKES! BOOBERRY CANCAKES!!!” (Yep. She calls blueberries booberries.)

By this time Avery is groggily making her way down the hallway in just as much of a stupor as me, because all these noisy demands have woken her up too. Her eyes snap all the way open at the suggestion of blueberry pancakes. Now she chimes in, “Mommy, can you please make blueberry pancakes for us?” While Emmy doesn’t let up, “Yea, Mom! CANCAKESSSS! YAAAAYYY!”

Since I have been out of bed for approximately 3 minutes and haven’t had any coffee yet, I have no energy to fight it. I sigh and get out the mixing bowl while they skip laps around the kitchen table, chanting:

“Blueberry pancakes! BOOBERRY CANCAKES! Blueberry! BOOBERRY! Pancakes! CANCAKES! Yummy! HURRY! Yummy! HURRY!”

I make the pancakes, and they devour every bite on their plates. I manage to finally get that cup of coffee poured. Ahhhh. Bliss. My head clears. I look around. Maple syrup is on every surface of the kitchen. I wipe it all up. Now where are the kids? Probably touching all the TV remotes, tablets, and doorknobs we own with their sticky, maple syrup fingers. Oh well. Everybody is happy and satisfied, albeit we got there a different way than Morning #1.

Might as well sit back, relax and enjoy some booberry cancakes.

🙂 Kaitlyn

P.S. We pick our own blueberries every summer! Click here to find out how you can pick your own too!

 

The Secret of the Shoes

~ Kaitlyn @ Doing Dishes Making Wishes ~ 1 Comment

shoe closet

There is a little secret that many moms like me are hiding. It seems a little precarious to divulge this certain secret to just anyone. What would our new mom friends think? We keep it to ourselves as we responsibly sip two glasses of wine during dinner and cap off our girls’ night with a big glass of water. We turn up our nose at the group of 21-year-old girls doing shot after shot at the bar on our way out the door at 11:00 PM.

Mom friend: “I meannn…Could you imagine acting like that? That many shots?”

Me: “…….”

Luckily, others jump in with the usual goodbye banter.

“What a late night! (Yawn) So tired!”

“See you next week at preschool registration!”

“Remember to text me that recipe!”

Then we say our goodbyes as we hop into our economical and family friendly vehicles full of empty car seats and cracker crumbs. We drive home and hurry to bed. Why the hurry? Because those kids will be up by 7:00 AM, whether we had a late dinner or not!

I really do feel tired as I walk to my own Ford Edge (Go ahead and laugh! At least it’s not a minivan!) and unlock it. Heck – If I am being honest – I didn’t even want to get dressed, do my hair, put on makeup and go out in the first place. I look at the clock on the dash as I start the engine. (If I can make it home in a half hour and go right to bed, I can still get seven hours of sleep in! Pedal to the medal!)  I drive home and chuckle to myself about this little secret that I keep, because just a few short years ago things at 11:00 PM looked much different for me.

Ready to hear this little secret?

Here goes…..

I was once a Party Girl.

In fact, I was the epitome of Party Girl.

I went out all the time. Every. Single. Night. I knew every bar and every club. I knew the promoters and the owners. I never paid for drinks. I never waited in line. I left my apartment to START the night at 11:00 PM, not to resurface for real life until the sun was coming up. Quite frankly, I can’t tell you how I lived through this madness to see today.

It’s a true miracle that I stand before you!

I have to admit, I looked great during those days. (Which is completely inexplicable considering I had no sleep and no proper nutrition while ingesting immeasurable amounts of alcohol and the *occasional* illegal substance. Chalk it up to youth, I guess!) If you ever were a true Party Girl, you could probably check all of these boxes too:

  • My skin was a uniform shade of tan. (ALL party girls went tanning in the cancer box commonly called a tanning bed. Yep. ALL of them.)
  • My nails freshly manicured and toes freshly pedicured. (This was very important. It is stressful maintaining the Party Girl lifestyle while holding down a job and school. I needed that mani & pedi to unwind, damn it!)
  • My hair always cut in the latest trend with fresh platinum blonde highlights. (I don’t know how I was able to afford this.)
  • My closet was bursting with party dresses, clutch purses, and amazing pairs of high heels. (Again, how did I afford this? Eh, who cares – I looked good right?!)

I also had immeasurable amounts of time to spend on my appearance. I would spend an hour each night just doing my make up. My smokey eye was blended to perfection and cheekbones perfectly contoured. Another hour was spent trying on outfits. Nothing to wear? No problem! Just call a friend over and spend yet another hour trying on her outfits, and she could try on mine! Bonus: Now that we were together, we could start to pre-drink! Oh, and turn that new Britney album on! And turn it waaaay the hell up!

I would always finish off the “getting ready ritual” by selecting a pair of my killer high-heeled shoes. Flats? BLAH! Moms wear flats!

We would finally head out, and I thrived. My witchy little self loved the feeling of walking past the people waiting in line (Sucks for them!) and straight in the door. We danced and did shots. (If I remember correctly, it was infinity amounts of shots. So yes, my mom friend from earlier, I can imagine doing that many shots.) We would eventually be asked to join gentlemen in V.I.P. for champagne. We would accept, then promptly assess the other girls in V.I.P. – who clearly weren’t as “hot” as us. (Chances are we all looked exactly the same….Just tan, blonde bodies filling up the space and giving each other dirty looks so that random guys who could afford to waste money on bottle service felt good about themselves.) Once the night of partying was all said and done, I would make my way home. I would lovingly wipe my shoes with a damp cloth, thank them for making my calves look fabulous, and tuck them back into their spot amongst their siblings on the rack in my closet. Another epic night over.

Ahhhh….The Party Girl life!

If I met my Party Girl self and told her she would be a stay-at-home mom who pops out 2 kids in 3 years, she would probably laugh in disbelief while she trotted off to her next social event. Who would be dumb enough to ruin their life and body having kids?!

Chances are I would also probably punch her. Yep. Right in the stupid, tan face. Good thing my current schedule of awake during the day and asleep at night makes the chances of a nocturnal Party Girl sighting pretty slim.

As time passed, that chapter of my life ended. I assimilated into society as a functioning human being. Over the years of pregnancy and new motherhood, I have given away most of my party clothes without batting an eye. Even now that I have lost the baby weight, those dresses just wouldn’t have looked the same on me. It’s like they belonged to a different girl. I couldn’t part with the shoes though. They were just such great shoes. I kept them all.

11:00 at night is now my bed time. I need my beauty sleep. (Especially now that the births of two children have robbed me of some of the beauty I once beheld.) I hide from the sun like it is a demon dragging me to Hell. SPF 90? Get me some of that! UV rays are the fast track to wrinkles and death! (Which are interchangeable in my mind.) To say I have gone “low maintenance” with my appearance would be an understatement. My current daily beauty regimen takes 5 minutes, and is as follows:

  • Put on leggings and long T-shirt.
  • Put hair in ponytail.
  • Brush teeth.
  • Apply tinted moisturizer, mascara and lip balm.
  • Go about day without giving a second thought to appearance.

Now….A girls’ night out means I might actually spend a half hour getting ready. I will wash and blow dry my hair. I will add some eyeshadow and lip gloss to the above beauty regimen. I will also put on real clothes (Time to bust out the designer skinny jeans!) and perhaps…A pair of my amazing old high heels??? After all – it seems only fair to take them for a spin once in a while. It probably gets pretty boring in the dark closet they currently reside 99.9% of the time.

One of my new mom friends will notice them at dinner and say, “Oh my gosh! I love those heels! Where did you get them?!”

I can just smile with my little Party Girl secret as I answer, “Oh these? They are just an old pair.”

I might even get crazy and order a third glass of wine that night…Because…Well…If the shoe fits….

Where the heck is my fairy godmother?

~ Kaitlyn @ Doing Dishes Making Wishes ~ 7 Comments

If there was ever a chore tdirty-disheshat I hated…And there are many, let me tell you…

I hate doing dishes! H.A.T.E. those dirty D.I.S.H.E.S!!!

Thank the good Lord for dishwashers, and the fact that he saw fit to bestow one of those lovely machines on me! (Actually – I went out and bought one. Then I flat-out REFUSED to move into our current home until my husband had installed it. So maybe I bestowed it on myself. Hallelujah! Amen!)

Seriously. What is worse than cooking a meal for 4 people, sitting down to eat it, and then looking around the kitchen at that mess 3 times a day?!

Oh right, being the one who has to clean it too. I feel you, Cinderella!

And so I digress….CK 8

Welcome to my blog! It is a special little slice of the internet that leads you right into my sarcastic brain. I’m Kaitlyn, the stay-at-home mom of 2 beautiful and super-silly girls and wife to a pretty darn good-looking yet completely maddening man. After sharing little bits of my daily life on Facebook, random people started asking me if I had a blog. When they found out I didn’t have one, their response usually went something like:

“OMG! You have to start a blog! Your life is hilarious!”

Ummm….thank you? I’m glad the mundane details of my life desperately shared on a social networking site in a shameless attempt to get some adult interaction (How many likes?!) during the long, lonely day have acquaintances of mine so darn entertained! Adult interaction achieved! Soooo…Here I am…Starting said blog. Yikes. I am totally new to the blogging world, and I have no idea what the heck I am doing. I normally get annoyed by all the “Mommy Blogs” out there, so I am sincerely hoping this will not be one of those! Feedback welcome – but please be nice! Constructive criticism, people!

A little bit about me:

I am currently a stay-at-home mom, but I certainly do not aspire to that as my only life purpose. Quite frankly, if I had to do this for the rest of my life I would end up in the nuthouse. It was a horrific adjustment period to become a stay-at-home mom. The feminist in me screamed and clawed to escape her 1950’s suppression! I absolutely HATED financially relying on someone else. I hated living on a budget. I hated having little to no contact with the outside world. I hated being the maid, cook, nurse, and secretary. I didn’t get a college degree so that I could decorate our house with budget-friendly decor and clean the toilets! I joked that I should be called Cinderella. When was my fairy godmother coming along to wave her magic wand so I could begin my dream career and escape this never-ending cycle of cooking and cleaning? My old self hid in the depths of my subconscious while I halfheartedly tried my hand at cooking dinner and folding laundry. She begrudgingly emerged, accepting the inevitable, after a little talk with my grandmother. My lovely Grammy departed some useful and harsh words of life wisdom on me that day. I am paraphrasing, but will never forget the gist of it. It went something like this:

“Katie, you have made the decision to stay home for the benefit of that baby. This IS your everyday life now. You could continue to be miserable, or you could embrace it. When you wake up every morning you need to tell yourself that YOU are the one who can make your daughter’s life what it is. YOU need to make her meals and keep the house clean. Nobody else is going to come do your dishes or fold your laundry while you sit here and whine. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s below you, because your baby needs you now. YOU are the one who has control of that household, so you better start running it. I love you, and I want to see you happy. Being happy in life is a choice, Katie. Be happy to be home with your family.”

Boom. Just like that. The way to admonish my misery in one little sentence: “Choose to be happy.”

Mind. Blown.

Believe it or not, I instantly felt better! I didn’t need a fairy godmother, just a suck-it-up-buttercup pep talk from my grandmother. Needless to say, that snapped me right back to reality. I woke up the next day and embraced my current situation. I have been trying to make the best of things ever since. Organizing, cleaning, reading stories, cooking, setting routines, scheduling play dates, singing nursery rhymes, administering time outs, checking fevers, decorating the house, grocery shopping and gardening right with the best of them. Some moms would want nothing more than to be home raising their kids, and I was lucky enough to be living their dream! I have learned to love being home right now. I have been there for each and every first moment. I have been the one to kiss every boo boo. I have been the one to teach our daughters their ABC’s, 123’s, shapes, colors, manners and essentially all they know about the world. I know where every single thing in this house is, because I am the one who put it there. Organization has become my middle flipping name. I have embraced my inner-Martha, and she is good friends with my inner-feminist. They get along really well now, in fact! This household works because I make it work, damn it! I am woman, hear me roar!

I have made this sacrifice for the good of my family, and I firmly believe it was the right choice for us – Even though it probably wasn’t the right choice for the old me. Once my youngest daughter is in school full-time, (Only four more years!) I can resume the pursuit of my dreams and start granting some of my own wishes! Because who needs a fairy godmother to grant wishes when you know you can do it yourself?! I am already on the way there, despite this whole stay-home-mom detour. I have a B.S. in Kinesiology from Northern Illinois University (Goooo Huskies!) with an emphasis in Preventative and Rehabilitative Exercise Science. I tell you this because it is something I am proud of, something that defines me, and something that will be guiding me to bigger and better things. Hence the “wishes” while I do my dishes:

Oh! Medical school, how I wish to someday attend thee!

Oh! Career of my Cardiology dreams, how I wish to someday attain thee!

I joke about making wishes, but I truly believe that you get nothing out of just wishing upon a star. (Disney be damned with its fairytale lies and happily ever after deception!) Good things don’t come to those who wait, they come to those who work for them! Right now I am channeling all my energy into making my home the best it can be for my kids, but keeping these wishes simmering on the back burner of the stove helps get me through the everyday tasks. I allow myself to stir this pot while I gaze out the kitchen window, spending (God only knows how much!) time – you guessed it – doing the dishes.

🙂 Kaitlyn

P.S. Are you a mom too? You might enjoy reading this post!