Adventures In Motherhood

Thank God for the RV trip, I thought to myself packing toiletries one-legged, remembering RV freedom on the open road mired by our family suffering without generator power. A bittersweet memory, I now find myself hobbling on crutches, a torn MCL and ACL, amidst an ice storm. Thanks to last summer's RV tour of ten states with a broken generator, I've lowered my expectations and anxiety, and learned new survival skills. 'Less Is More' is my new mantra and I'm sticking to it come hell or high water, or 'ice apocalypse', as per our current situation. Just when I thought snow days were in my favor, with online learning plowing ahead to occupy my children, mother nature upped her ante, raising us a power outage to challenge our 'forced family fun' quarantine game. Somewhere between clutching a flashlight in my teeth while crutching my way upstairs to bed, our cold house backlit by the moon, and ice dark-thirty in the morning, I raised the white flag surren...

I've always been an overachiever, to a fault. Four children plus two Schnoodle dogs is frickin' crazy, pardon my teenage French! If the ghost of Christmas future had projected my life online schooling four kids in Covid-quarantine, I'd surely have re-thunk Cancun vacations with my husband, where one more 'all-inclusive drink' made another powdery-sweet baby sound easy. Damn, if I’m not cursed by over-shooting my goals! Forced Family Fun has taken on new meaning in quarantine. Family hikes and bike rides? Screw you mom; more screen time! Plus online schooling four kids is borderline insanity.  Mom school. Who am I kidding? I worked in the CIA but never wanted to be a teacher or school principal in disguise. My students are savages and my undercover persona doesn't hold up to children who know I'm just their mom.  My 8th grade son is mainly in detention. He sneaks YouTube while hiding behind a dark camera 99% of students refuse to turn on. Snapchat, Reddit and...