An Infamously Crappy Mom

Crappy mothers from around the globe have united at Just Add Cloth. I often struggle with mommy guilt over mistakes I've made or just out of my laziness. But tonight I have decided to put aside my guilt and be a "mommy martyr" no more. I've compiled a list of my offenses for anyone out there with stones to throw.

1. I'm a cosleeping mom. I've yet to roll over any of my children, and they seem to be thriving.
2. I often read all day and all night long. Holding but rarely looking at my kids until reality strikes (usually when I have to go pee.)
3. My 5 month old gets a bath about every 2 weeks. (the rest of the time I wipe her neck and underarms and apply a generous amount of baby powder to mask any stankiness)
4. My 5 year old eats cereal for 2 out of 3 meals almost every day she's home.
5. I can't wait for my baby to sleep through the night and start eating food, so that I can go out dancing and have at least 2 mixed drinks.
6. I once put my baby in the laundry basket while I was trying to load the washer in the laundry room....she just wouldn't let me put her down anywhere else. I called it a compromise.
7. I often run errands just so that I can get away from my family for a while; then when I arrive at home, I chill in the car for 30+mins while reading a book.

Wait...there's more
8. I convinced Lia that if she ate sugar all her teeth would fall out her mouth.
9. I frighten/threaten my child w/ grotesque imagery ie. You'll poke your eyeballs out, You'll get run over by a car and be squished flat as a pancake, etc..
10. I told my 5 year old that Santa Clause does NOT exist!


These are only a few of my transgressions, my friends. But I'm not the only crappy mom out there, I assure you! Visit Just Add Cloth and stand in awe of an entire community of the crappiest moms in the world.

Diaper Guilt

Becoming a cloth diapering mama has totally ruined the easy-breezy feeling of years past when I could slap a disposable diaper on my baby and think nothing of it.

Now after devoting myself to cloth diapering and educating myself of its benefits and the harms of disposables, the thought of using disposable diapers causes me extreme anxiety! I think about that Huggie filling up with that jelly-like goo in a dump somewhere, leaking chemicals into the soil and slowly but very surely killing the Earth and all human-kind along with it.

Well like I shared with you in my last post, I'm visiting family in New Orleans for a week, and my father-in-law very generously bought a pack of DISPOSABLES for Maggie, so I wouldn't have to pack my cloths. (I'm sure they also wanted to save me and themselves from having to wash her stanky diapers in their machine.)

Anyway, the thought of using those eco-nonfriendly, chemical diapers has been causing me some strife. I know that it is only for 1 week and not a (super)big deal, but I can't help feeling a little guilty about it.

Ignorance truly is bliss *sigh*

Home

I'm finally going home to NOLA this saturday for an entire week. But tonight I'm filled with an almost overwhelming home-sickness. Maybe it's because I'm so close to seeing my dad and mom that I'm finally realizing how much I miss them. I know that God has plans to reunite my family, but it's just so painful knowing how much of my life they are missing out on, how excruciating I find it that my father has yet to meet Maggie, how I wish we could meet for breakfast on Saturday mornings-- my father and I gorging on biscuits, bacon, eggs, and ALWAYS a single pancake, while my mom orders a "dry" biscuit and black coffee with at least a 1/4 cup of sugar in it.

Tears are steaming down my face, not out of excitement but out of near inconsolable sadness. It feels like my life has been split into halves. One half consisting of my parents and of New Orleans and of my family and how it was years ago, when we were all best friends, and when I was young and of a place where I was free and reckless, and quixotic, and beautiful.

The other half is here in Raleigh, and I'm mature, and a good wife, and an aspiring excellent mother, and a leader of worship at a church, and studying apologetics, and cooking meals for my family, and older, wiser, kinder...

I know my life is no longer back there in New Orleans. I realize that New Orleans is my Egypt, and that I had arrived at the promised land here in Raleigh. I know that going back would not be good for my children or for my marriage and maybe it wouldn't be good for me either.

But there has to be something I can bring back with me. A piece of home here. Maybe I could bring the French Quarter, or just the beignets, maybe I can bring jazz to the streets, or an underground playhouse featuring an improv cast, or perhaps I can bring everyone's yat accents, or maybe just crawfish étouffée. But most of the time I wish that piece were my parents. Sometimes I wonder (and doubt) if they'd ever agree to come.

Sexy

I know I've mentioned my Facebook wall before, but it really bears repeating! My Facebook friends are the craziest people on Earth. I once said that my wall is filled with 2 things: obscene photos and angry atheist posts.

So I've previously written about those angry atheists here, now it's time to address the former: Obscene photos.

What is it with my girl friends and wanting the world to find them sexy? Every photo is purposefully staged so as to capture both face and boobs.

At what point in a woman's life does she decide that being sexy isn't important anymore? And I'm not meaning that your husband doesn't find you attractive, but OTHERS, like STRANGERS?

I have so many friends that after having 2+ kids and being married for years still think it incredibly important to be considered sexy by people who are not their husbands. They post sexy photos, provocative speech, just generally try-too-hard...

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to feel beautiful (and sometimes it feels even nicer when it's NOT your spouse who thinks you're beautiful). And I used to want people to think I was sexy too, back when I was 18!

Vanity is an intriguing vice. I fall prey to it at times too, but I put it in check especially before I hit "post" on my facebook :)

Preparing myself to prove the existence of God! Yikes

I've decided to partner with a friend from church and lead a group on apologetics designed to tackle tough questions and doubts about the existence or nature of God. So for the last 3 months I've been reading non-stop about Christian apologetics, listening to podcasts regarding different theological arguments, and watching debates between renown Atheists and Christians. It's really mind-bending stuff this apologetics!

But just a small excerpt that I found wonderful with regard to the argument of there being an explanation for all that has begun to existence, "Imagine that you're hiking through the woods and you come across a translucent ball lying on the forest floor. You would naturally wonder how it came to be there. If one of your hiking partners said to you, 'Hey, it just exists inexplicably. Don't worry bout it!' you'd either think that he [were] crazy or figure that he just wanted you to keep moving. No one would take seriously the suggestion that the ball existed there with literally no explanation. Now suppose you increase the size of the ball so that it's the size of a car...size of a house...size of a continent...planet...universe."

When the Day Dies Down

The pink and orange hues of a dying day

Captured and uniformed in such a way

That they lie in rows upon my floor

Bordered in long, thin shadows just like before.

Stretching and dimming as the hours pass

And its ethereal spectrum doesn't last

Half as long as it probably should

But I'm sure it'd stay longer, if only it could.

I sit and stare at dust in rays

Descending slowing during this dying day

Imagining it waltzing slowly to its grave

Better to dance and die with grace than to fight and die brave.

delve