lite & lucid

This is the inaugural guest blog on lite and lucid!  Many of you who follow have known Laura “Max” Burg for years and have probably begged her as much as I have to elaborate on the knee-slapping quips she posts almost daily on facebook recounting her stay-at-home boy-mom stories.  Well, the moment you and I have been waiting for has arrived!  She has written a fantastic account on how she became a stay at home mom, and What it’s been like since her love-to-be-naked nuggets have been raising hell!

A Mediocre Mom Was Made

I always thought being a stay at home mom would involve sipping mimosas in fuzzy slippers. But in reality, you’re resisting the urge to take tequila shots all day while wearing the same shirt you’ve slept in the last 3 nights. First confession, I’m writing this post from the safety of my bathroom trying my best to ignore the squabbles, questions and general background noise that is constantly streaming from the mouths of my 3 and 4-year-old sons. I had always planned on being a working mom. I mean, five years ago I was a few years into my career working at Northern Arizona University. In November of 2009, my husband and I huddled together in our cozy Flagstaff condo, with soothing acoustic coffee-house music playing in the background, watching the plus sign appear on the pregnancy test and cried tears of joy as we called our family telling them we were pregnant. Fast forward to January 2011 in a small town in Missouri. I’m kneeling in front of the toilet, succumbing to violent waves of nausea, trying to block out the cries of my teething 6 month old son from the other room, watching in cold-blooded horror as the second test in as many minutes confirms that my fertility levels rank right up there with rabbits, rats and ferrel cats. The next two weeks, I laid on the living room floor and gave up. Those were dark times in the kingdom.

So if you’re doing the math, I went from working professional, to stay at home mom of 2 boys in just 14 months. I traded in my professional wardrobe for nursing bras and dirty yoga pants, strategic planning meetings with my supervisor for bathroom breaks under the close supervision of my children, out-of-state company paid conferences for out of the house adventures to the grocery store, and unlimited alone time for never being alone ever, never, ever. Also, I started watching Lifetime. I know. I was so ashamed. And while I’m at it, if I see one more commercial of a mom dressed in khakis and a matching sweater set folding laundry, I’m going to throw a sippy cup at the television screaming “Who wears khakis? NO ONE! That’s who!”. But I digress. What I’m trying to say, is I unexpectedly found myself in the role of a stay at home mom and I was, in a word, unprepared. That first year with 2 boys just over a year apart was a blur of bottles, diapers, pots of coffee and whispering soothing tones of motivation to myself.  On a good day, my oldest son didn’t take off his diaper and play with its contents. On a bad day, I’d find myself crying on the bathroom floor during nap time. If I learned anything that first year, it was to pick my battles.

Rage Against The Washing Machine

My 1-year-old was a natural-born nudist who would undress himself with the speed and precision of a heat seeking missile and my youngest had the skill set that most newborns possess, the ability to blow out diapers hourly. So battle number 1 that I did not fight was clothing my little hooligans. With the boys mostly in diapers and myself rotating the same 3 outfits most days (read put on random and dirty clothes from the floor that fit) laundry was nearly nonexistent and quite manageable. Now they’re 3 & 4 years old and every morning the following conversation takes place: Here you go, put these pants on boys.

“Where are we gonna go?”

“Nowhere. Normal people wear clothes all the time. We’re being normal.”

If you drove by my house this summer I was the mom sitting in the shade sipping tea while the kids were on the front lawn eating dirt in their underwear. I think that was our last pants optional summer, our sunscreen budget was through the roof and the neighbors are beginning to talk.

Every Party Has A Pooper, Therefore We Will Have No Parties

Little kid birthday parties give me anxiety. Just writing about them is making me rock back and forth while hugging myself. The one time I tried to throw a birthday party (if you could even call it that) when Bryce turned 3, the theme seemed to be Murphy’s Law. Our best friends 2 little girls were the only ones invited and I did that through a text, I had to go to the store mid cake baking because I didn’t have any eggs, the pool we were planning to go to was closed…on a Saturday in July, and the $100 Lightning McQueen bike we bought for the birthday boy in question was tossed aside for the hand me down purple and pink Barbie Big Wheel the guests brought over. I was not meant to throw kid birthday parties, it’s not one of my gifts of the spirit. But that’s OK, because I’m good at other things like being tall, subtle sarcasm and growing thighs that touch.  Other than immediate family attendance with balloons and a birthday cake bought at the store, we will have no birthday parties. Don’t worry, just because it isn’t Pinterest worthy doesn’t mean we don’t make it fun. My husband and I blow up a big bag of balloons the night before each of their birthdays so they wake up to a living room full of colorful orbs and all day we have slow motion balloon dodgeball fights and volleyball games. My people are pretty easy to please.

Wherever Though Goest, I Will Go

I love my children, I really do. But they find me. All the time. I pee with a chattering audience, “Are you pooping? Why do you sit down to pee?”. Loading the dishwasher and cooking is a strategic agility drill as I dodge children and toys who are both under my feet always. I can’t decide if I should lock the door while I shower and try to relax as I listen to the kids banging on the door “MOM!? Are you ok? The door is broken! MOM!!!” or just give in and leave the door unlocked which results in my 3 year old Gavin standing outside the shower asking me a constant stream of questions. I once trained for a marathon just to have alone time. I bet you think I’m kidding but here’s my finishers medal.

During my training, a friend commented on how healthy I must be to which I responded, “I ran 15 miles this morning just so I could be alone. I don’t think that’s healthy, that’s the height of desperation.” Sometimes they even find me in my sleep. One night I was startled into consciousness as I woke up to my 3-year-old perched on my pillow playing with my hair. “Gavin! What are you doing?” I’m pretty sure he meant to say he was scared but actually whispered in a creepy little voice, “I bein’ scary.” Ah, memories.

More often than not, my kids drive me to the brink of losing my mind and I find myself saying things like “We EAT peanut butter! We don’t spread it all over our toy airplanes!”. But we have tender moments too. Just this morning Gavin held my face between his sticky hands and smiled at me. Moved by his sweet gesture I said “I love you Gavin.” He stared deep into my eyes and replied, “I love Batman.”

Nailing it.