Trapper Keepers and Other Supplies

This may or may not have happened to me.

You know how they say high school is the best years of your life?  They're lying.  It gets better.  At least I thought it did until that fateful night I was forced back into high school.

As a teenager, I was angst ridden and full of insecurities.  I wanted nothing more than to fit in, but my love of quirky old musicals, the 1950's and all things Princess Diana related, did nothing to help.

Thankfully, I survived those awkward years and went onto college where I met my husband.  He was a true soul mate who found my quirkiness endearing.  Our story begins much later after our 4 kids were around.

Our oldest was entering high school.  Unfortunately, she had inherited my insecurities and I'd tried the best I could to encourage her thru these tough times.  At the same time, I had decided it was time to get my life organized.  What better way to do this than to purchase a Trapper Keeper.  I was so proud of the way I was keeping a schedule, planning meals, keeping track of finances and a calendar!

The calendar.

There it was in red ink.

Circled. 

Curriculum night.

At the high school.

I summoned up all my courage, determined not to be a bad example to our daughter.  I would suck it up and not let the cool kids get to me.  I would love myself for who I am - a fun loving, dedicated, quirky, unconditionally loving mom.

I drove to the school and was running late.  Shoot!  The Trapper Keeper is letting me down!  I tucked it under my arm and stuck my daughter's schedule in my purse.  It had begun to drizzle, so I held an umbrella in my other hand.  Barely put together, I took a deep breath and walked into the school.  As I was walking in, a gaggle of women walked past me whispering and giggling.  Convinced they were giggling about the 40 year old mom carrying a Trapper Keeper, I envisioned them with their own Trapper Keepers spilling all over the floor including the folded up note in some massively Origami design that had a boys name and hearts all over it and he would bend down, pick it up, and laugh at her, not in the nice cute way, but in the "you're so stuck up!  I wish you were her!" way and point to me with love in his eyes and... sorry, obviously there are unresolved high school feelings, which is what made this next part so tragic.

So, I'm rushing through the halls and know that the first class on the schedule is P.E.  Good 'ol smelly gym and locker rooms.  I burst through the doors of the gym and found the eyes of a couple hundred - yes I said hundred - parents sitting on the bleachers while the most gorgeous P.E. teacher was going over class rules and requirements.

"Uh, hello?" he said to me.  I think I turned purple.

"Uh, yeah, I think I'm supposed to be here?"  I said trying not to vomit all over the squeaky shiny gym floor.

"Can I see the schedule?"

And that's when it happened.  I dug into my purse to pull out the schedule and  because of the Trapper Keeper, I dropped my open purse.  I swear the world was now in slow motion.  As the teacher walked towards me, everything in my purse went tumbling out.  Except one.  One of them rolled.  Rolled right up to his foot and bounced up his leg.  That's right.  My emergency tampon.

Yep - best looking PE teacher and hundreds of parents looking at me.

I died.

I'm now in Heaven writing this posthumously.

Oh - and the Trapper Keeper ended up in the garbage.

Sharpie -- Part Deux

This may or may not have happened to me.

We've all heard the saying "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."  Do you think this applies to Sharpie markers?  And two year olds?

Warm summer day.

Mom feeling exceptionally well rested and accomplished.

All tasks on the list done.

House spotless.

I was feeling great about the husband bringing home his colleagues for dinner.  I'd gotten so much done around the house and it looked fabulous all the way from the clean toilets to the shiny wood floors (now absent of all red sharpie...) to the freshly laundered white denim slip covers on our furniture.

Can we just go off on a tangent for a moment?  I believe there are a lot of liars out there who need to do some soul searching and come forward.  You know who you are.  You're the smug perfect people who insist that white slipcovers on your furniture are the best thing since the discovery of baking soda.  The ones who insist your home is so streamlined and clean!  Yep, you know who you are.

I was sucked into that shabby chic cult and lived to tell the tale.  The tale... white slipcovers SUCK!  You see, sure they look awesome on the cover of a magazine, or when they're fresh from the store.  But that cute little dog in the picture sitting on the white slipcover that MacKenzie Fahrfernugget says are the best because all she has to do is pop them in the washer and POOF!  A clean couch!

I say, LIAR!

Your a LIAR MacKenzie Fahrfernugget!

White slipcovers are a pain in the derriere and you know it!!!

Your cute little dog Alfred P. Digger does more than just pose on those slipcovers!  I bet while you're planning your next dinner party with all your Pottery Barn accessories, Alfred comes running in from a fresh romp in the rain and jumps up on your EASY WHITE SLIPCOVER.  What do you do Mac?

Uh?

Oh sorry, couldn't hear you through all the screaming!

Poor Alf, just wants to be a digger, not a pooch model for House, Dog, and Home.

No one tells you the truth when you're checking out at IKEA with your brand new Ektorp sofa with Bleckinga White slipcovers (sorry no Sweedish translation available) that it is EXHAUSTING and the physical equivalent of doing 5027 push-ups and 7,000,034 chin-ups to remove them, wash them and put them on again.  And when you do wash them, they never look as "bleckinga" as when you brought them home. 

That is why I may have over reacted a bit when I realized that while I'd been admiring my awesome cleaning skills, #4 had become awfully quiet.

Uh oh.

I found her.  She'd been busy doing a little decorating of her own.

That's right.  She didn't go in on the whole clean shabby chic thing.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say she was more of an abstract artist and was busy turning my room from a Rachel Ashwell design to a Jackson Pollack masterpiece.

My little angel had decided those white slipcovers were missing something. 

Sharpie.

Permanent.

On my slipcovers.

2 hours before my husband was coming home for dinner.

With his colleagues.

From out of town.

I looked down at my hands but there was no prozac bottle there to help.

Prozac anyone???

This may or may not have happened to me...

Do you love your kids?  I mean really love your kids?  I mean enough to forgive a Sharpie incident?  I do.  Yep, I'm a saint.  I don't overreact  at all.  AT ALL!!!  My secret???  Happy pills.  That's right, mama's medicine.

P-R-O-Z-A-C.

Say it with me, PROZAC!

Now before you judge, I was a mother of 3 kids under the age of 2 1/2  who desperately wanted to be a good mother.  Not the kind of mother who put her kids in their room, goes in her closet, curls up in the fetal position, and starts rocking back and forth, only for her husband to come home and hear her say, "I can't do this!  I can't do this!"  (not me of course, I've just heard stories)  Cue Prozac.

Life was breezing along and we were all happy.

"Let's have another kid!" we said. 

"What's one more?" we said.

And than came #4.

#4 was a delight.

#4 was joyful.

#4 was a blessing.

We were in the honeymoon period...

cue Sharpies.

As any mother of 4, I was exhausted.  I was prone to take naps anywhere.  The couch, the chair, standing up... I mean ANYWHERE.  Until that fateful day when I was awoken by someone tapping nudging smacking me on my face.  I opened my eyes to the sweet face of my perfect angel.  Then, reality set in.

Uh-oh.

I'd fallen asleep.

She'd been on the loose.

Free to wander aimlessly from room to room.

Unaccompanied.

Gulp.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and looked down at her adorable cute pudgy hand.  She was offering something to me.  How sweet!  It was only then I realized what it was.

Prozac.

Uh oh.

I swear I heard her say, "You might want to take one of these."

Uh oh.

When she handed it to me, I noticed a red mark on that same adorable cute pudgy hand.

Sharpie.

Uh oh.

Reality started to sink in as I walked down the hall.  Maybe she isn't so perfect.  After all, the other 3 had been trying to convince me of that since day one.

I opened our bedroom door slowly and saw what can only be described as a massacre.  A massacre on my room!  There were red lines everywhere.

I mean EVERYWHERE!!!

Across the wood floor leading to the bed.  Up the comforter.  Down the comforter.  Back across the floor.  Up my dresser.  Down my dresser.

RED!

EVERYWHERE!

I sat down and looked at the bottle in my hand.  Hmmm, wonder if I can take one early?