Adventures In Motherhood

I've seen a lot of s*&% as a parent, but this summer my eyes, virgin to teenage boyhood, have been forced wide open, nearly blinding me by my own home's National Lampoon's 'Animal House' potential. My basement is not your frat house. With possibilities of destruction seemingly endless, my cool mom attitude butts up against the tough mother raising responsible adults. Sweet gooey hugs and the illusion of parental control seeming to vanish overnight like the soft moustache hair you shaved with your brand new razor last night. Help yourselves to pizza and microwave anything; popcorn, burritos and free-range chicken nuggets are lunchtime staples in my home, along with snacks of Goldfish, chips, pretzels, apples, oranges, grapes, (a bonanza of bananas for your buddy with the midnight potassium cravings), and instant lemonade. I will sauté, grill, and bake my Betty Crocker butt off to satiate the hungriest army of growing children at our family dinner table! Your...

Be careful or the negative will consume you, I thought to myself summoning the energy to raise much-needed positive endorphins on a morning run. The 24-hour news cycle, global temps rising, and Customer Care Representatives who suck me bone dry will require a longer run this morning to combat the negative slime oozing in our country and polluting my mind. Keep America Great! The irony when 'customer care' reps deny, deny, deny or someone from India answers. Aetna health insurance is the bane of my existence after seven phone calls, each a minimum hour-long blood boiling conversation having diminishing returns on my mental health (which is also likely not covered). And what happened to common courtesy? Last night a lady refused to zipper merge me onto I-5 south, throwing up her hands in anger, as if it made her a better driver! I gave her thumbs up instead. Then there's the mid-century modern sofa we purchased supporting a boutique local business thinking it would be grand...

Parenthood is a Mensa mental challenge these days of major league proportions. Uncomfortable silence be damned! You are my son and I will keep rattling off topics requiring more than a yes/no answer until the cows come home, as we pass the pastures and rolling hills of Oregon en route to our latest baseball tournament. The hour and location unimportant, I have a GPS and my only goal is time alone with you. With four children, a car ride alone with you is a passable date as I step up to the plate. Deep voice and prickly moustache amidst your fourteen-year-old complexion, I can still see the almost 8lb 12.5oz little slugger with handsome sideburns gazing in my eyes with wonder. I know you still need your mom even though your replies sound more like grunts. Why is the answer to what you and your buddies ate for dinner while skateboarding last night 'stuff'? I'm mom and you're safe! This is my first time parenting a teen boy. Grunts and stuff may be the norm though ...

I'm convinced grandmas regain creative energy zapped from exhausted parents. This is why I pulled out my mother's dusty care package of 'Make Your Own Bubble Tea', hidden out of reach in the depths of a kitchen cabinet, when she came to visit. Who has time to make dinner, let alone bubble tea, with end of year concerts and baseball 7 days a week? Besides, the army of frozen bananas edging out the frozen veggies in my freezer drawer is evidence my former banana bread ambition had petrified. I surrendered control years ago to sandwiches in the car! Grandma surely has the stamina and fresh outlook I am lacking, rolling up her sleeves with a smile on her face as my eager 8-year-old son sidled up next to her at the counter to measure ingredients. Grandma always has everything under control, I thought to myself stepping away, grateful to manage one less duty. "Careful," I cautioned my son who placed a glass measuring cup on the edge of the sink, "it could fal...

I'm pregnant! That's exactly what I told my boys, husband included, at the breakfast table this morning. Their reactions were worth the cost of admission to this nuthouse and an April Fools joke I honestly didn't think I could pull off! Truth told, I forgot about April Fools’ Day, still recovering and playing catch-up from a weeklong 'East Coast Extravaganza' Spring Break. The kind of trip, not to be confused with a relaxing beach vacation, wherein we jam packed three weeks of 'Forced Family Fun' sightseeing and history into an exhausting week of fun-filled memories. Sitting down to a brimming bowl of Honey Nut O's, my 8-year-old was the first to announce, "Look Mommy, it's snowing!" A tried and true prank I played on them when we lived in Colorado, his clever tactics minus his usual poker face were simply adorable. He blurted April Fools before I could look outside. Meanwhile my 15-year-old daughter sat transfixed by her iPhone typin...

Who knew my former career as an undercover CIA agent with top-secret clearances would prepare me for my largest role as mom to four? Unfortunately my cover was nearly blown for the first time disguised as Santa! Tooth Fairy, Santa, Easter Bunny, you name it, it's an easy job if my husband would only follow my rules... admit nothing, deny everything, make counteraccusations . We still have an 8-year-old and I have undercover magic left to give! Last Saturday, while counting the Portland Trailblazers basketball tickets Santa had carefully delivered to each of our six stockings, my husband announced we were missing a ticket for seat 7. Oh s*&%! The barcoded ticket I discreetly printed on our color printer must've been thrown away with the wrapping paper on Christmas Day. How was I possibly going to cover my tracks and print another ticket without the kids knowing in the ten minutes before we left? "Santa's cheap!" sang my 13-year-old son laughing. Granted...

Today is the final day of 'Winter Break'; New Year's Day and I am thankful for time. The kids have had too much screen time, too much time eating candy, too much pestering time, and too much time supervised by parents, so I did what any good parent would do and kicked them out of the house! It's a new year and the sun is shining, even in Portland, so time to get on with those New Years' resolutions...right? I'd rather reflect on the blessing of 'time' by writing alone, as best I know how. I am thankful to have experienced 18 days together with my four children and husband. Who says that? I'm not sure we've ever had 18 days together without an insane schedule of activities! Sure, I could do without the week confined to the same travel sleeping quarters with my son and husband coughing like barking dogs at midnight, poor souls, but I'm thankful for that time of forced family fun, especially since our teenage daughter all too ready ...

Tripping over shoes is exactly why I agreed to a puppy, as if four kids isn't enough. Leave your shoes at your own risk with this terror around. You can tell by his shifty eyes he's up to no good! Unfortunately this cuddly deterrent, capable of devouring his weight in Christmas ornaments, hasn't scared my 15-year-old daughter, the Imelda Marcos of footwear, who has no less than a closet full of shoes laying around on any given day. I have threatened to throw her shoes on the porch with her three brothers' fragrant locker room beauties, however, that's become an expensive proposition with three pairs of hers already stolen. Apparently her fashion style is in high demand and less rancid than the boys', so I opted for a shoe rack inside, allowing two pairs at a time while training the puppy the rack is off limits. Needless to say, my advanced math teenage daughter cannot count. She entirely consumes the upper rack and most of the floor on any given day, a...

This morning began like any other, dogs out, coffee on, my starving 15-year-old daughter accusing me of running out of food in the house, rushing my 8-year-old to the bus stop, wetting down my 13-year-old's hair, lest he look like a rooster at the band concert tonight, and verifying my 11-year-old had black pants and a white shirt that fit for his first band concert. This was all before my first cup of Joe! Determining I'd have to add 'buy black pants' to my endless To Do list today, I made my ritual stop in the boys' bathroom to flush the simmering pot whatever they had deposited. A boys' bathroom is a Petri dish of disgusting bodily fluids and this morning was no exception. Little did I know it was a ticking time bomb ready to explode. Like a Magic Tree House book, I was transported on yet another Adventure In Motherhood: 'Tsunami Before Coffee'! Flushing the handle, I turned to jog downstairs for a cup of coffee before stopping cold in my tracks. My...

"We are the only kids that don't have smartphones at school!” insisted my four children when we moved to Oregon two years ago. Even my 1st grade son had children in his class with the latest and greatest smartphones at that time. I recall a similar conversation from my own childhood revolving around getting a corded telephone for my bedroom. New technology, even greater challenges; flipping awesome! Having moved halfway across the country at the start of my daughter's 8th grade year in middle school, we were keenly aware of her need to build social relationships ASAP. When she named every known child her age with a smart phone, we quickly realized that she was quite possibly the only 8th grade student in Oregon and Colorado without one. Having experienced traumatic family moves during my formative teen years, my daughter knew I was an easy sell, and my three younger sons began their campaign as well. Fortunately as parents, we had Bill Gates on our side. How can childr...

Bowls full of crock-pot dinner, facing a 40-minute commute in traffic, I didn't know what to expect as we piled in the car last night without screen time devices. Surely bitching and moaning, touching and arguing would ensue, and not just with my husband. "Boredom is good!" my husband and I agreed. Optimistic, I hoped for the best. Forced Family Fun (#FFF) time together giving back during the holiday season. What could go wrong? I decided to mix it up this year, volunteering the six of us as a team packing food and fun at the Oregon Food Bank. Donations of allowance to charity and serving pie and turkey at the Salvation Army in years past were too predictable. I prayed my children would step up to the challenge. "Why don't you tell the brothers about your day?" I asked my 15-year-old daughter trapped in the middle of the car. "Perhaps they can problem solve your dilemma." I was having a hell of a time figuring out the situation myself; saving f...

"You believe in me, but I don't think you really know," my teenage daughter insisted as I rounded the corner on our street. I burst out laughing, "What an awesome quote. I love it!" She honestly had my attention with 'You believe in me'. Thank God, I've done something right I thought to myself, relishing my brief success as a parent before pausing terrified...hmmm, what don't I know? Admit nothing, ask questions later; I spied another CIA skill worthy of parenthood. Usually she's like a tall shot of espresso in the morning before coffee has prepared me for teenage drama. With enormous social media pressures, teenagers have a full-time job keeping up with Snapchat, Instagram, etc., in order to stay relevant before the school day even begins. Throw in the pressure of scheduling activities, hair, clothing, makeup, acne, an unfortunate glance from her brother, a coat she can't find, and our breakfast table is a chaotic board meeting daily, ...

My 13-year-old is stubborn. I am reminded of this as he begrudgingly drags the garbage bag around the house emptying trashcans, the large white Glad plastic bag busting at the seams, in order to instill fear in his mother of it exploding all over the carpet. In an effort to relinquish control and ease my burden, I can no longer watch the stubborn parade of trash. His antics began when he was merely a toddler, age two. Pregnant for the third time and literally busting at the seams myself, I desperately needed his cooperation in order to pick up his sister on time from pre-school. "No!" he shouted, running as fast as his little legs could propel himself up to his bedroom, slamming the door before his weary mother could catch him. Fuming mad, knowing the time was ticking towards the preschool pickup tardy bell and I would face repercussions, the least of which would be judgment and lecture, I struggled to mount the stairs after him. Needless to say, I was additionally tardy ...

Parenting is not perfect. In fact, it's unsightly at times when behaviors escalate and parents have to pull their shit together, remain relatively calm, and adult the heck out of an unfavorable situation. This is increasingly difficult in public, when all eyes are on the Tasmanian devil of a child who is your responsibility to manage whilst stares of judgment penetrate your parental psyche. Recently I was reminded that my boys seem to lose their minds on family 'trips', as I deliberately reserve the word vacation for romantic getaways not involving children. Escaping for our 20th anniversary a few years ago, we opted to take our four children to Disneyland and Laguna Beach, a milestone celebration we wanted our children to remember. Albeit not a romantic couples vacation, the trip seemed achievable without babies in tow. Managing daily entertainment at Disney or the beach with children ages 5, 8, 10 and 12 was easy compared to the evenings when melt downs began and no am...

I can't help but laugh at my lack of agility as of late as I sit on an ice pack nursing my hip from last weekend's yard work extravaganza. I often underestimate my abilities and pay the price later, but who can blame me for envisioning myself as fit and fast as my children? Recently they challenged me to an outdoor Parkour obstacle course that looked easy. Why not? I thought, imagining myself showing off my cat like reflexes and surely matching their pace, not my age. I aspired to be the fastest woman of the Parkour Challenge and confident this Tough Mother could outpace anyone! As I surveyed the course of wooden obstacles, I imagined the CIA training course of my youth. In my twenties, there were no obstacles that could hold me back and everyone banded together to accomplish the course. Over the wall, despite my small stature, a test of fitness and badge of pride earned! Somewhat lacking the chutzpah to immediately tackle the Parkour course, I carefully strategized my ...