Adventures In Motherhood

As we begin our +24 hour ‘round the clock travel back in time, and back home to Colorado - leaving our daughter in Thailand and two sons in Seoul, Korea on another flight bound for the west coast - I can’t help but reflect on our extraordinary vacation and the top things I learned not to do in Thailand, in no particular order: 😎 1) Send our 18-year-old Thai-legal drinking-age son to the pool bar for a bucket of three beers in Phuket.   What were we thinking? He came back about twenty minutes later with two beers (one for himself and one for his 20-year-old brother), both of which they were already sipping.  “Where’s the beer dad and mom planned to share?” I asked, laughing.  “I already drank it at the bar,” he replied, “while baby boy here was having his mango smoothie.” He said, pointing at his 15-year-old younger brother. Bruh. We didn’t think he needed specific instructions to bring a beer back to his parents, who paid. I knew something didn’t add up wh...

Tuangtip, a petite woman in her late 50s/early 60s, was our gracious local guide for the longboat and tuk tuk tour of Bangkok.  “No, you may not call her twin tits,” I told my youngest, acting in his typical obnoxious form with his audience of two college age brothers back in tow. “Behave or I’ll make you drink the brown water from the Chao Phraya River,” I smiled. “And dad and I would like each of you to think of a question to ask her.”  “Are we gonna meet any femme boys?” My 20-year-old asked, eyeing his brothers. “It’s lady boys,” I interrupted, “and no, you cannot call her twin tits if you ask five questions.” My youngest was relentlessly trying to bait me.  Tuangtip managed to teach us about Buddha’s unique to the day of the week you were born, Buddha blessings and Thai street food in an afternoon. After two hours on the river, we docked and hopped into a tuk tuk.  “Does anyone know why they are called tuk tuks?” Tuangtip asked.  “Because of the sound they ...

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...

We can kiss Walmart parking lot camping goodbye without a generator that hums. So much for the Instagram photo op of us sitting in camping chairs grilling hot dogs and drinking Budweiser! Nevertheless, the steamy turd rolls on... Outdoorsy is a third-rate RV rental shop at best, spewing ‘fake news’ of a purported ‘trusted RV marketplace’ on its website. Tho’ I’ll be the first to admit Outdoorsy can be trusted to take your money!  After waiting two hours to be connected to a member of their ‘customer support team’, I learned a few things. First, my 10-year-old is more knowledgable than an Outdoorsy customer service rep. Second, calling back is not an option. Customer service reps refuse to provide their direct contact phone number or corporate email address, so you are forced to wait on hold for hours on end unless your RV problems are solved. Third, Outdoorsy customer service reps suck at problem solving. For example, driving from Tahoe to Portland in the same day t...