The mornings are hard. They are especially hard this time of year. We are SO close to summertime. We will be able to sleep in until 7 am in the summer. EVERY DAY. How sad is it that 7 am is considered waking up late in my house?
Even my youngest is tired of waking up early. She is usually militant about waking up at 5:30 am but after spring break it turned into 6 am. Now? I try to wake her up at 6 am but she buries her head in the pillows and says, "Fifteen more minutes." It's getting harder and harder. We are pretty much just rolling out of bed at this point.
This morning was especially bad. The alarm went off at 6 am and my husband just laid there like a rock. I don't know why he insists on sleeping on the left side of the bed next to the alarm clock. I was not climbing over him to get to it. I nudged him. He didn't move. "The alarm. The alarm." Nothing. Finally I just slapped him in the back. He startled. "Turn off the alarm," I groaned. He did.
Then he rolled over to my side of the bed. I knew it was coming. Every morning he wakes up and tries to spoon with me. Which is sweet, except that he is hot as an oven and his arm is heavy as a tree trunk. I like to have my space when I'm resting. He knew I was going to complain about it. He shushed me, "Shhhh. I'm just going to trap you with my love."
He's a mess. A minute later our 9 year old wiggled her way in between us. Typical. "Tell me when it's 6:15," she said before burying herself under the covers. I drifted back to sleep for a minute. Then I felt the air rush out of me. My 11 year old had come in and laid on top of me. There was no more room in bed and she felt like laying directly on top of me was a viable option.
I love her, but she's as big as me. I kicked both the kids out of bed. My 9 year old protested. "Maybe if it didn't take you half an hour to brush your teeth, I'd let you sleep longer."
The children skulked out of the room. My husband and I stared at the ceiling.
"I don't want to go to work," he groaned.
"Me too. I want to stay in bed ALL day."
"Unfortunately, we don't have some long lost relative with a bunch of money out there," I laughed.
"Nope. Let's get up."
We got up and started the morning routine. I made pancakes, fresh fruit and milk for breakfast. These kids better enjoy testing day breakfast while it lasts. Starting next Monday, we are going back to bowls of cereal and Nutrigrain bars in the car on the way to school.
Only 30 days until the last day of school....not that I'm counting or anything. HERE I COME, 7 AM!
Earlier this week my 9 year old came up to me and said, "We never do anything fun as a family anymore." I looked at this kid like she was crazy. I'm pretty sure we recently took the kids to Tennessee, then we took them to Greenville, we take them to the movies like twice a month and various other activities. These damn kids are living the good life. If I was 10, I would totally want to be them. But according to my 9 year old, we don't do anything fun as a family anymore.
I tried so hard not to roll my eyes at her. "Well, what do you suggest?"
"I want us to go roller skating this weekend."
"That sounds fun. Let's make a plan."
This weekend was packed. I got conned into taking a bunch of middle schoolers to the movies on Friday night and then my oldest had her all-county band concert Saturday. We settled on Sunday.
I told my husband that we were going roller skating to which he replied, "I don't know how to roller skate."
"What?!?!"
"I don't know how to roller skate. I did in-line skates a few times in like, 1994."
"How have I been married to you for 14 years and I never knew that you didn't know how to roller skate?"
He shrugged, "I'll try it."
"OMG! You are going to fall on your ass."
We drove to the roller skating rink this afternoon and put on our skates. My husband got in-line skates and hoped that the skating skills he acquired 22 years ago had stuck. The kids skated like pros. My husband was riding the wall. Awwww. I felt sad for him but it also made me laugh a little.
When I got on the rink I had a moment of fear. When you're a kid you can just fall and get back up. I'm a big person. I thought, If I fall, I'm going down hard. I will break my ass. My fear passed and I whizzed along.
They were playing some amazing 80s and 90s music. Purple Rain, Double Dutch Bus, Mr. Wendel..... I was living it up. Skating along with the wind in my hair like
My kids were embarrassed and pretended not to know me. I'd wave to my husband who had graduated to skating NEAR the wall instead of on the wall.
Then it started to get busy and the there were a bunch of kids on the rink. It was frightening. Kids were just wiping out right in front of me. This one kid kept cutting me off. I didn't like that kid. I don't care if he was 10, I wanted to check him into the wall.
I decided to take a break and eat some cheese fries. My husband was sitting at the table with my oldest. He was holding his thumb and looked very unhappy. "Whats wrong?"
"I was coming off the rink and I fell hard on my butt and jammed my thumb?"
"Are you ok?"
"Yeah."
"Bummer that I missed it."
He wasn't amused.
We skated for a little while longer before heading home. My poor husband said, "Ugggh. I think I cracked my tailbone."
"Remember when I broke mine?"
I broke my tailbone when I was 17. We were dating then. I could not sit for like a week. It was excruciating. We worked at a deli and we both were covering a shift in Ocean City and I had to push the passenger seat all the way down and lay on my stomach the whole car ride there. I couldn't sit down for lunch. I stood at the deli counter. He laughed at me and teased me about it. "I can't believe you broke your ass."
Guess what? Payback is a bitch.
Before bed, I tucked in my 9 year old. "Good suggestion to go roller skating. We had fun."
She smiled. "Yeah, but mom, you know what we haven't done in a while? We haven't gone out to have sushi in so long. Can we do that tomorrow?"
It's the end of the school year which means it is crazy busy with the kids. Band and chorus rehearsals, upcoming dance recitals, field trips and events. I'm over it. Please let it be summer RIGHT NOW.
Yesterday my 6th grader handed me a paper and explained to me that each kid in her science class had to bring in a fruit item on Friday for an outdoor lesson about plants or something. "I'm going to bring sliced apples and grapes." I thought, okay. It's an extra trip to the grocery store but I can handle that.
Today, I dropped off my youngest and gymnastics and went out to dinner with my husband and my oldest. We were chatting over dinner and my daughter said, "Remember how I told you I was going to bring in apples and grapes? Well, someone is already bringing that so I volunteered to bring starfruit."
I looked at her like she had lost her damn mind.
"Where the hell am I going to get enough starfruit to feed 28 people?"
She shrugged.
"I don't know if that's possible. You'll have to pick something else."
"No. The teacher said we couldn't change it."
"Are you kidding me? What are other kids bringing?"
"Grapes, celery, cherry tomatoes, apples...."
F**king normal things. Of course.
My kids do this to me EVERY TIME. They will come home from school and be like, "We are having a party at school and I volunteered you to make cupcakes that look like reindeer with cream cheese icing and red sparkly sprinkles."
I'm groan and say, "Are you serious? How is that going to happen?"
"You can do it, mom. Don't worry. You have two days."
Other kids sign up their parents for normal shit like juice boxes and napkins. I want to bring the napkins one time. I want to bring the cheap and easy thing just ONCE. Help me.
Anyway, back to the starfruit. My daughter said, "We are going to get a lot of vitamin C and D that day."
"You don't get vitamin D from fruit," I corrected her.
She rolled her eyes. "I know that, mom. You get it from the sun."
"Did they teach you that in school?"
"No. YOU taught me that."
I was so impressed. I teach my kids things and they listen. Maybe all hope is not lost.
After dinner, I went to the sub shop to get a "special" lunch for my 4th graders field trip tomorrow. I went to 2 grocery stores to track down starfruit after that. No luck. I called the Asian Supermarket and they said they had some but I'm not convinced because I'm pretty sure the person on the other line didn't understand what I was saying. So I get to make a tip to the Asian Supermarket on a wild goose chase for starfruit tomorrow night. You know, in my spare time. They are probably going to be $5 each or something. Ugggh. I have first world problems.
Then when I got home she handed me another paper and said, "Don't forget we need to buy some black dress pants and shoes for the concert Saturday." I have to drop her off at 8 in the morning. That means I have to get them in the middle of the week. I'll probably have to go to 10 f**cking stores to find what we need and I will weep.
But I will do it. Because I'm a mom. That's what moms do. They sacrifice their time, money, patience and sanity so that their kids have what they need. Moms know that one day they'll miss this. Starfruit and all.
My 9 year old's attention seeking has been especially bad lately. She requires a lot of attention. This is nothing new. She spends her entire life like:
Over here! Over here! Look at me! Mom! Look at me!
I love her so much but sometimes, I just don't have time for that sh*t. Right now is a super busy time and I cannot dedicate all my attention to her. I feel a little guilty about this. But then I think, You know what? That's crazy. At no time in history would moms do this.
Like, in pioneer times when women were fetching water from wells, canning food for the winter, beating rugs outside and rubbing their husbands feet - they were not having 9 year olds hang off of them. Those kids were expected to milk cows and shut their mouths. If they didn't, they'd get a good beating and have to sit in the corner and read the Bible. Okay, maybe that's not totally accurate but seems legit. My point is, adults have things that need to get done and children were not the center of the universe.
Last Saturday morning, I had to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to take my older daughter and some friends to a band thing. I woke up at 6, made sure the my daughter and her friend were up, told them to be quiet so to not wake up my little one, then I went into the bathroom to get ready. I was so excited to have the bathroom to myself and get dressed in peace. Maybe I'd enjoy a peaceful cup of coffee.
I took a shower and got dressed. I was applying my make-up when I heard a knock on the door. I had a moment of panic. Who knows what was on the other side of that door? I open it and there stands my 9 year old with crazy hair -wide awake. She lifts up her foot. "Mom, I have a cut on my foot. It really hurts. Can you do something for it?" I looked down at her foot. It was a tiny scrape. The tiniest scrape. I looked at her like,
"Seriously?!?! It's 6:30 in the morning. Please go back to sleep. Go lay with your dad."
"No. I'm not tired."
"Just close your eyes. Just try."
Surprisingly, she did. I went downstairs to make a cup of coffee. I was standing at the counter, putting creamer in my mug when I heard my oldest daughter and her friend come down stairs. They stood in the kitchen and just stared at me. They didn't say anything. Just stared.
I was very annoyed. "What do you want?"
My daughter shrugged.
"We are going to go get doughnuts. Now go get everything you need. I don't want to see or hear you guys until I'm done my coffee."
They stood and stared some more. What the actual hell?
"GO!"
The older I get, the grumpier I am in the morning. I don't even care if I'm mean anymore. I've gotten up too early for too long. It's wearing away at my soul.
I took them to the tryout and when I got home, I was exhausted. It was cold outside so I put on my sweats, curled up in bed and tried to take a nap. I was right on the verge of sleep. Literally, a moment of way from drifting into dream land and my 9 year dive bombed me. I was startled awake and I was so mad. I pushed her off the bed and she looked at me like SHE was offended.
"Seriously, I've worked all week. I'm tired. I have a lot to do. Leave me alone. Watch a movie, read a book, just please." She decided she would nap next to me. She climbed in bed and kept lifting the covers up and down. Every time a cool breeze hit me. I was not going to fall asleep. I had it.
"OH MY GOD! GET AWAY FROM ME OR BE STILL. AHHHHHH!!!!" She got up. Thank goodness. I finally got a nap. It was amazing.
When I got up, I had a list of gazillion things to do. My steam mop broke a few weeks ago and the replacement parts had just come in so I needed to make mopping my floors a priority. They were gross. I've been spot mopping. It's the best I could do.
I cleaned the house to the best of my ability. I was upstairs mopping the floor and my 9 year old had the gall to ask me if I could go downstairs and get her book bag. I looked at her like she was trippin. "No. You have two legs. I am not your servant." She had the nerve to say, "I have to do everything around here."
The next day, I was hoping it would be better. I had to do my taxes, which is not a happy event. It always puts me in a bad mood. I just sit there and watch my savings account be drained with every passing minute. My husband and I call it the worst day of the year. After I do my taxes I want to sit in the corner and suck my thumb.
I'm sitting on the couch with my laptop, I have a bunch of papers all around me and my 9 year old decides it would be a good time to sit next to me and lean her head on my shoulder. NO. NOT NOW. NO NO NO. She sat on top of 8 receipts. I could feel the irritation rise up in me.
"You need to go do something. You can sit on the love seat over there. You can be around me but I need to do this. This is a priority."
"But mom, I just want you to love me."
"I can't love you right now. I can't love you until next week, okay? Now I need you to go." Bad Mom Award.
I felt really bad but you know what? The IRS doesn't care if she gets loved on, they only care that they get their money. I did not have time for that nonsense.
That night, I laid with her before bed. That's right. I lay with my almost 10 year old before bed EVERY NIGHT. Like a sucker. "I'm sorry that I was grumpy this weekend. I love you." I didn't even make her wait until next week to love her again.
Let's get back to the regular scheduled programming of me complaining about my family pissing me off.
It started the other night. My husband went to the gym late. When he got home at 10:30, I was in bed. This man walked into the bathroom, looked around and said to me. "Where do we keep the towels?"
What.in.the.actual.hell?
I had a tone of desperation when I said, "Please tell me you do know where we keep the towels." He rolled his eyes at me. "I know where we keep the towels, I just was wondering if we had any." People in this house think it's my job to know where everything is.
The perfect example of that was the following morning. My youngest got up to get ready for school. She came in, woke me up and said, "Mom where did you put my tank top?"
"I didn't put it anywhere."
"Yes you did."
"Check on top of the dresser."
"I already did."
"Well then wear something different."
That led to on all out melt down. Screaming and accusing me of "losing all her stuff." Finally, I got out of bed. Stomped in her room and guess what? The damn tank top was on her dresser like I told her. I threw it at her.
NOT how I wanted to start my morning. I went downstairs to make a cup of coffee so I could start my day. My sixth grader was skulking around. "It's Friday, you need to make your own lunch today," I reminded her.
She went to the freezer then turned to me and asked, "Did you put my lunchbox in the freezer."
"No."
She threw her hands in the air and started bitching. "I took it out of my book bag and left it on the table for you so you could put it in the freezer. What the heck, mom?!?!"
I looked at her like,
"Don't blame me for your laziness. Instead of setting on the table you COULD have walked your ass to the freezer and put it in there. Not my job."
She huffed and puffed as she put her lunch together. I make her life SOOOOO hard. Bad Mom Award.
I left with my younger ungrateful child at 7 am to take her to school. Right after I dropped her off, my phone rang. It was my oldest ungrateful child.
"Mom, I left my glasses in your car. Can you drop them off in the front office."
I was wearing booty shorts, my hair was a hot mess and my breath was all coffee-stank. I was not getting out and dropping anything at any front office.
"No. But tell you what. Tell dad to wait in the parking lot across from the school and I'll drop them off to you."
There was a pause. "That's not going to work. Dad can just go back to the house after he drops me off and he can leave them in the front office."
Who does she think she is? Making her father waste 40 minutes of his day so she can hang out in the gym with her friend before school starts? NO. NOT HAPPENING.
"He's not doing that," I told her. She hung up on me.
I called my husband and told him to meet me in the parking lot in front of the school. He felt like it was a solid plan. I headed over the the school and pulled up next to his car. I unrolled the window and dangled her glasses from my fingers. She walked over and grabbed them. "I love you. Have a good day."
She gave me a dirty look, rolled her eyes and said, "Well, I don't like you."
B doesn't know who she is messing with. I wasn't mad. I don't get mad. I get even.
I just so happened to be listening to Backstreet's Back in the car. That's how I roll at 7:30 am on a Friday. I turned it all the way up, rolled down my windows and drove REALLY slowly behind her until she got to a big group of kids waiting at the crosswalk.
Then, I hung my head out the window with my hot mess hair and all and started yelling to her. First and last name, "CB -MY DAUGHTER, I LOVE YOU! YOU ARE SO COOL AND AWESOME! HAVE A GREAT DAY! I LOVE YOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU!"
Neighbor boy turned around and grinned. She stood there with her arms folded across her chest, face red and lips pursed. She was pissed. I loved every minute of it. I drove away with a strange sense and satisfaction and thought to myself, It's going to be a good day.
This week has been....interesting, challenging, exhausting. More and more, I get comments about how much my 11 year old daughter looks like me. On three occasions this week alone. Someone remarked that she is "my twin". Another person called her my "mini-me". Someone else that "WOW! You and your daughter look exactly alike."
I don't think this is entirely accurate. Sure, we share some resemblances but I don't necessarily think that she is a spitting image of me. I see so much of my husband in her. Still, it makes my heart smile. I did make her from scratch, after all. When people tell me that she looks just like me, I smile and thank them. She is not so gracious. She gets offended.
I'm like, What?!?!
We went in a store today and this happened again. We sit down in the car and she is like, "Why does everyone say I look like you? I don't."
"Honey, I don't think they are trying to say that you look like a 30-something year old woman. They are just trying to say that you and I have similar features. That's all."
"I still hate it."
It gives me pause. I was not raised by my biological mother. When I was her age, I probably couldn't have picked her out in a crowd. I knew her name, the state that she lived in, and the few tidbits my father knew but that was all. It might disgust her when people make comments like that but to me it is the ultimate compliment. YES! You cannot deny that she is my daughter because she is here with ME and that she has never known what it is like to be separate from me. What she takes for granted, I consider very lucky.
Besides the fact that she hates that she looks like me, her new thing is that she "doesn't want to be like me". She says it constantly. If we go shopping and I pick out an outfit and she doesn't like it she'll say, "I'm not like you. I don't like the things you do."
She thinks that the person that I am now is the person that I have always been. She thinks that I don't understand what it's like to be in middle school. I don't try to convince her that I do. It would be pointless and this is a different time anyhow. There are many things that I don't understand but there are many things about adolescence that transcend time for sure. We were talking about something a few months ago and she said to me, "Well, I'm sure 6th grade was easy for you." She meant it too.
I thought, if you consider wearing black lipstick and wishing the floor would open up and swallow me - then 6th grade was a breeze.
She literally thinks I was a miniature version of who I am now. She thinks I wore knee length dresses to school everyday and came home and baked cookies. In her head, I was a 12 year old Betty Crocker.
I don't understand where she gets this idea that I want her to be like me. Probably because I won't let her dye her hair crazy colors or get 8 piercings up her ear. "I'm not a prep like you mom..." I now suggest the opposite of what I think she should do.
"You should definitely not clean your room," is the quickest way to get her to clean it. haha.
Last year, two years ago, I would have been offended. Now I get it. She is tying to separate herself from us. Form her own identity. We are the beginning of this process that will take many years to complete. I'm sure it will be like a dance where she will need to be close and then separate, close and then separate.
I have a degree in Human Ecology. Which I always thought was a stupid degree. In my program I took courses on human growth and development, psychology, parenting, marriage & divorce, human sexuality, aging, family finance. But now I don't think it's such a stupid degree. I find it fascinating. At this time in her life, it's like my college textbooks manifested. I'm like, I remember my professor talking about this!
I have stopped being sad about my children growing up. It is bittersweet for sure. I have accepted the reality of it, surrendered myself to it. Embraced it. I've learned through the years that it's pointless to look back and yearn for the way things used to be. I'm learning to be present, enjoy the moment RIGHT NOW and look to the future.
What a delicate balance it will be to help her have the freedom she needs to become her own person and gain independence but still have boundaries to keep her safe. To make sure we have an open line of communication. I feel entirely ill-equipped but who really is ready for this part, you know?
This age is just so hard. It's a huge transition. Everything is different suddenly. You are learning all the things. This is the age where you start to figure out that your parents are simply human and that adults really don't have a clue either. No one gets out of adolescence unscathed. I think everything in adolescence is magnified. The insecurity, disappointment, heartbreak. Thankfully, the good things are magnified too. Love, friendship, a new sense of freedom. It is a beautiful time in a lot of ways.
We will get through it. I am confident that one day she will be glad that she looks like me. Maybe she'll figure out that being like her mom is not the worst thing to be. I hope she'll be grateful for the pieces of each other that we share. I know that I am.
It's been a busy week. Right after we got back from Tennessee we had to turn right back around and head to Greenville for my daughter's gymnastic competition. I had deleted the email about the competition so I pulled up the event location online. That morning we drove to the gym that was listed on the website and there was no one there. Whoops! I called my friend (who has her actual s**t together) who kindly told me the event was actually at Furman. We wound up being 10 minutes late and my daughter was flipping out, my husband and I were screaming at each other about the quickest way to get there and we were generally being dysfunctional.
I sent her down to the floor and went to the bathroom. There were a bunch of moms in there with their gymnasts doing hair. It seemed more like a beauty competition. They were spraying hairspray, doing braids, some had curlers so they could have a curly ponytail. They had fancy bows. My heart sank. My daughter did her own pony tail and just had a regular hair band. I am so white trash and suck as a mom. I can't even braid. I can't even make my own hair look good.
I went back and we waited for the competition to start. My 11 year old declared that she would like to attend Furman University. "Well, Furman is a good school. A little expensive but maybe you could get a scholarship." By expensive, I'm talking $61,000 a year. Probably not going to happen.
She replied, "When do I start looking at colleges?"
"Probably in about 3 years maybe you'll have an idea of what you want to do and we'll look at programs at different schools and then in the following year or two we'll tour campuses and then you'll apply for schools the summer before your senior year."
She thought for a minute and said, "Well, I'm thinking Furman."
"Let's keep our options open."
How crazy is that? In three years she'll have almost completed her freshman year of high school. How are high school kids supposed to know what they want to be when they grow up? That seems like a LOT of pressure. Also, how is it possible that I'm going to have a kid in high school in 2 years and 4 months? I'm much too young for all that. I'm having a panic attack just thinking about it.
My daughter came out to compete. She did so well. I was really proud of her. She has come a long way this year. I envy her hard work and dedication. She got a gold for her floor routine and I beamed ear to ear as I watched her climb to the top pedestal and salute. How blessed we are!
We celebrated with a late lunch at Outback. They asked if we wanted kids menus. My kids are getting at that weird age where people aren't sure. My children said a resounding "No." They ALWAYS want to order off the adult menu now a days. That s**t is so much more expensive.
My 9 year old ordered a steak (medium rare) with shrimp, a side of button mushrooms and a soup. She thinks she's 40. It was so good. I love going out to eat.
We had a 3 hour ride home. On the ride I told my daughter about the girls getting their hair done in the bathroom with pretty bows. "Don't you think I should have done that?"
She shrugged. "No. I mean, I have to learn to do things by myself for when I grow up." Wow, I use that same excuse to justify my shitty parenting all the time. At least we're on the same page.
By the time we rolled up to the house in the early evening, we were all cranky. My brother had been house sitting for us and we greeted him. As soon as we got through the door, we unloaded bags, started laundry and tended to the animals. My brother asked if I wanted to go with him to pick up some Moes and a 5 minute drive in the car sounded nice.
My brother is funny because his life is the opposite of me. I am fascinated by him. He is 30, unmarried, no kids, has a lot of friends, has traveled the world, is much more fun than I am. We drove along and he said, "I need to ask you something. Tell me the truth, do you think I should have kids?"
That's a loaded question. "Of course you should. Why do you ask?"
"I just watch you and talk to people that have kids and it seems horrible. Like, I'm thinking that I have a lot of nieces and nephews so that might be good."
"Having kids is horrible but it's also amazing. I think you should have one or two. Besides, you can just make your wife do all the work."
That was a very sexist thing to say but being a dad seems way cooler than being a mom. I'm speaking in generalities but moms do more of the grunt work of parenting and dads get to do more of the fun stuff. Like how I clean up all the throw up and how my husband takes the kids to super hero movies.
Today was balls to the wall. We haven't really been home in so long and the kids go back to school tomorrow so there was so much to do. I was going from the moment I woke up. I got up, fixed breakfast, fed the dog, did the dishes, went to the grocery store, made lunch, prepped sandwiches for the week, put a chicken in the crockpot, attended a birthday party for my mom, did 2 loads of laundry, cleaned both bathrooms, cleaned out the cat box, unpacked, swept the floors, cleaned the microwave, served the chicken, made chicken salad with the leftover chicken, prepped dinner for tomorrow, spot mopped the floor (my damn steam mop broke and the replacement parts haven't come in yet), cleaned out the book bags, yelled at my kids to clean their rooms....This is what my life is. A never ending list of tasks that need to be completed again as soon as they are completed.
I was in the kitchen around 8 pm and my 11 year old came downstairs. "Mom you promised that we go buy underwear today." Of course, underwear. I sighed. "It's late. I am so sorry I forgot today." She looked at the ground. "You keep forgetting, you promised we would do today." I sighed again. "Go get on your shoes."
I went upstairs and got dressed, then I went to grabbed my purse. My brother looked surprised to see me dressed. "Where are you going? You haven't stopped all day."
"I promised to take my daughter to the store to get something. I've kept putting it off. I'll be back soon."
Do you know what he said to me? He said, "You're a good mom."
I stopped in my tracks. I could feel the tears form in my eyes. "Really? You think so?" He looked at me like I had asked a stupid question. "Yes!"
I don't hear that often. It is so hard on a daily basis to try to maintain a house, a marriage, to raise children. It was nice to get some acknowledgement from an outside person. I try really hard and I often fall short of my own expectations. I just hope when my kids look back on their childhood that they remember I tried. Hopefully they can forgive the fact that I can't do hair good, that am frugal, that sometimes I just need a cup of coffee before I can talk to them in the morning. If not, I'll just record my brother telling me that I'm a good mom and play it back over and over again when I need an ego boost.
