Category Archives: Daily Chaos

March 1, 2021 · 7:21 pm

Eggs, Toast and a Side of Cynicism

For whatever reason, the gods of morning madness have been smiling upon me these past few weeks. And like any good cynic, I keep waiting for the bottom to fall out. With every ounce of my being, I fully expect my petulant children to return, brimming with an abundance of snarky commentary regarding breakfast cereal choices (or the lack thereof), eager to display the alarm clock-inspired rage to which I’ve grown so accustomed and to bring to the fore their lovely penchant for bickering with one another at dark-thirty. Joy. Likewise, I presume the frenzied packing-of-lunches-and-backpacks thing coupled with shrieks involving the very real possibility of missing the bus will resume shortly as well.

If nothing else, it would feel familiar. Quite frankly, I am suspect of the degree of calm that has befallen my home of late. Mornings are no longer intolerably hectic, which I find fairly disturbing since it’s all I’ve known since the days of kindergarten. There are no shouting matches to speak of, no monumental crises related to bedhead or perceived fashion offenses and, incredibly, no one has become enraged over wrinkles in socks or the gunkiness of toothpaste for days on end. Gasp!

It’s all so alarmingly alien—this death of disorder and dissent. So naturally, I greet it with cool skepticism, assuming that a conspirator has somehow snatched my ill-tempered brood and left me with a delightful pair of third graders who get up on time, dress for school without complaint and exhibit an obscene amount of good cheer all morning long. Imposters, I am sure, are among us.

Or perhaps my fortuitous situation has arisen as a direct result of the plan my husband so shrewdly devised and skillfully implemented. Translation: The man is a genius. That said, he pulled our charges aside one day and explained how our shameless bribe new morning routine would work. The seed was planted thusly.

“If you get up and get dressed as soon as your alarm goes off,” he purred with Grinch-like finesse, “and haul your sorry selves to the kitchen by 6:30, I’ll make you WHATEVER HOT BREAKFAST YOUR LITTLE HEARTS DESIRE. And,” he sweetened the pot, “I’ll even let you crack eggs and stir stuff.” To date, the immaculately prepared entrées have included pancakes (with faces!), French toast and waffles (to die for!), eggs (infinitely varied!), bacon (impossibly crisp!) and a vat of drool-worthy, bathed-in-olive-oil fried potatoes I felt compelled to appraise. Again. And again.

In sum, he made a deal with the unwitting pair. A wickedly clever, painfully simple, non-negotiable agreement—one that is likely responsible for the glowing success we’ve experienced thus far on our journey to the Land of Hassle-free School Mornings. Note to self: Cold cereal nourishes the body, but hot cakes (and other breakfasty-type foods with irresistibly enticing aromas) inspire action of the bounding-out-of-bed variety.

But perhaps the motivation runs deeper than that. Part of me suspects that under the surface lies a host of benefits aside from the obvious. Like the delicious sliver of time in which we snuggle together before anyone heads to the kitchen. All four of us, looking as much like sardines as anything, burrow beneath a sea of blankets in our big, oak bed—the place where toes are warmed and whispers are shared in the waning moments of still and darkness.

“Here I am, your little alarm clock,” they each announce as they crawl in with us, a different stuffed animal tucked under their arms each morning. To my utter amazement, both kids have already dressed, fulfilling their end of the bargain. I shake my head in disbelief.

The plan is working.

A few minutes later, they clamber downstairs to the kitchen and confirm with the cook their menu choices for the day. Chairs are then shoved against counters, eggs are cracked and batter is stirred—fulfilling the other end of the bargain.

As the sun crests over the hillside and begins pouring into the house, a steaming, hot breakfast is served—as promised. Syrup and cinnamon, juice and jam look on as chatter fills the room. There is talk of disjointed dreams, of library books and of plans for playing with a favorite friend at the bus stop. Everything that follows is sunny-side up.

Once again, I shake my head in disbelief. The plan is still working—despite my side of cynicism.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (wondering when the novelty will wear off and hoping like crazy that’s never). A variation of this article appeared previously in the Khaleej Times, UAE, Dubai.

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Filed under Daily Chaos, Gratitude, Meat & Potatoes, School Schmool

Tagged as breakfast, dads, disorder, family, humor, love, morning rush, parenting, school, school mornings

April 17, 2020 · 11:42 pm

The Great Sock Abyss

Some time ago my daughter cleaned her bedroom, and in so doing resurrected an embarrassment of items that she had ostensibly given up for dead. Things that she hadn’t seen in such a long period of time that she forgot about them almost entirely. There was a pair of iPhone earbuds that had been MIA forever, more than a year’s worth of allowance and at least nine Starbucks cups, one of which still contained what could only be described as a fermented atrocity.

Lovely. Just lovely.

Most notably, she unearthed an ungodly number of socks. Tall ones. Short ones. Socks with stripes. Socks with dots. Socks that will never again be suggestive of clean and socks imprinted with teensy-tiny foxes. My personal favorite.

Admittedly, on more than one occasion I felt compelled to rummage around in her hovel, intent upon gathering all the lone socks in order to pair them appropriately—because it makes me insane to know that the socks in question are, for lack of a better term, estranged. Never mind wadded up, inside out and appearing as though they had been shot from a cannon.

How hard could it be? I remember thinking. You just look around, find the right patterns and put them together. It’s not rocket science. Truth be told, I found such an endeavor to be virtually impossible each time I tried—and subsequently failed—to locate matching pairs. It was as if her room had transformed into the Great Sock Abyss—the place where perfectly wonderful socks go to die, or, perhaps more tragically, become separated forevermore.

Like a fool, I had to ask my daughter the obvious question: WHERE DO THEY GO?

“I have no idea where the lost socks go, Mom. No clue.”

At any rate, when she cleaned her room (see paragraph one) I was patently euphoric over the news of her sock discovery, since their mates had been hanging on a rack in the laundry room since the dawn of time, in hopes of being reunited at long last. Imagine my surprise (read: PROFOUND GLEE) when she produced a dozen or more of the missing socks. It was categorically off the charts and almost as joyous an occasion as the time she found her favorite pair of dilapidated sneakers. Sneakers so pathetic, and yet so dear, she more affectionately refers to them as dead—as if the term “dead” were somehow a good thing. Technically speaking (she’s quick to remind me), they’re still functional. Sort of.

That said, in the past I’ve questioned her dead sneakers as well as the bizarre logic that would support a decision to NOT keep socks and their mates together. Who does that? And why on earth does it happen month after month?

“I don’t know, Mom. I guess I take them off and tell myself that I’ll put them together later, and then I don’t. Honestly, it’s just too much work.”

At that, I shook my head in disbelief and perhaps disappointment. Then I began to wonder if I had driven my mom crazy in much the same way. I couldn’t reliably recall my specific behavior as it relates to the pairing of socks, although all signs pointed to having been a neat freak, so they were probably ridiculously ordered. Perfectly aligned in neat and tidy little rows when clean. Turned right side out and paired properly when dirty.

Now that I think about it, it’s entirely possible that I drove my mother to distraction by spending an inordinate chunk of my teenage years organizing my closet and drawers. It’s also likely that my obsession with rearranging my bedroom furniture by myself at all hours made her nearly certifiable on occasion. In fact, I moved my dressers and bed around so often that their spindly legs were on the verge of snapping—something that would make any parent implode.

So maybe I should consider myself fortunate, only having to deal with lone socks for a decade or two. Not the annihilation of furniture. As an added bonus, my daughter’s bedroom gets cleaned. Occasionally.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, probably looking for missing socks. Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under Daily Chaos, Family Affair, In the Trenches of Parentville

Tagged as disorganization, family, humor, laundry, messes, parenting, teenagers

May 23, 2018 · 7:17 am

The Great Sock Abyss

Lovely. Just lovely.

Like a fool, I had to ask my daughter the obvious question: WHERE DO THEY GO?

“I have no idea where the lost socks go, Mom. No clue.”

“I don’t know, Mom. I guess I take them off and tell myself that I’ll put them together later, and then I don’t. Honestly, it’s just too much work.”

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, probably looking for missing socks. Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under Daily Chaos, In the Trenches of Parentville, Welcome to My Disordered World

Tagged as disorganization, families, humor, kids, messes, parenting, Planet Mom, socks

January 5, 2016 · 7:40 pm

The Twelfth of Never

My refrigerator is the center of my universe, the heart and soul of my very being and the hub of all that defines my world. Not because of the Jack cheese and leftover potato salad contained within, but because of the Almighty Calendar that hangs on its shiny surface—eye-level, next to the school lunch menu, surrounded by tiny scraps of paper upon which I scrawled phone numbers I need to know but will never remember. And like a lot of well-worn items in my household, it looks as though it belongs there—comfortably wedged between favorite photos, prized artwork, magnetic letters A to Z and those all-important memos and appointment cards without which I would surely wither and die.

Each perfect square on that grand and glorious grid of events represents a chunk of precious time—and it simply MUST have something scribbled within it. Someone’s birthday. A holiday mealtime. A veterinary appointment. A vacation destination. A reminder to return the kids’ library books. Something. Anything. Except nothingness—which would imply a sort of nothingness about me, I suppose; or perhaps that downtime actually exists in my harried world. Ha! Wishful thinking.

There are swimming lessons, picnics and play rehearsals to attend. Soccer games, haircuts and doctors’ visits galore. Empty blocks simply do not reflect the reality that is mine. Besides, the voids make me feel guilty—as if I have nothing better to do than sit around and watch bits and pieces of Play-Doh dry and crumble while the kids are at school. Calendars crammed to capacity with details of this or that planned affair give me a real sense of direction and connectedness with the outside world—linking me to all the goings-on I have chosen to include (willingly or not). And they provide a healthy dose of structure and truckloads of predictability, too—both of which are sorely lacking in these parts. In sum, calendars bring a smattering of order to my otherwise disordered world. I shudder to think where I’d be without mine—mired in some muddled state till the twelfth of Never, no doubt.

Some days the world simply spins too fast for me (as my friend, Ruth, has so often quipped). Nothing could be closer to the truth. But my oh-so-wonderful, month-at-a-glance, tangible timeline-on-the-fridge helps me hold it all together, to keep everything in its proper perspective and to effectively answer questions like, “What are you doing on Tuesday the 22^nd?”

Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have a clue unless and until I consulted the silly calendar. At least I know my limitations—one of which involves not straying too far from the Master Schedule. Another: Writing small enough so that everything is neatly and completely contained within its designated block—an impossible task to say the least.

But I love calendars, despite my personal limitations in dealing with them. I especially enjoy spending a lazy afternoon in January slathering its pristine little squares with all sorts of important dates and times to remember—every syllable precisely placed. Even more thrilling: Adorning my organizational wonder with cool reminder stickers that are sometimes included as a bonus. I’m fairly certain that for a day or so following said ritual, I fool a myriad of individuals into believing that I’m impeccably organized. Even I believe it for a time, until a certain someone adds HIS appointments, meetings and countless other chicken scratchings to the revered framework I so meticulously and thoughtfully crafted. Ugh.

Shortly thereafter, the frenzied pace of the world returns and information starts spilling from those neat and tidy little squares into the narrow margins. Stuff gets scribbled out or transferred to other squares in willy-nilly fashion and big, ugly arrows are drawn across what was once an unsullied masterpiece of time management—which is a lot like life, I suppose.

It is subject to change.

Remarkably, most of us manage to muddle through the madness with a few re-routings and derailments here and there, which builds character, I’m told. Maybe that’s what makes the month-by-month journey worth journeying—even if it’s just to the fridge.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live. Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under Daily Chaos, In the Trenches of Parentville, Refrigerator Art

Tagged as calendars, children, humor, January, organization, parenting, refrigerator

October 21, 2015 · 12:00 pm

It Takes a Village…to Find My Husband’s iPhone

My husband suffers from a debilitating character flaw—namely, that he loses things with disturbing regularity. That is not to say that the items in question remain lost forever. Sometimes, when the universe is agreeable, he finds them. Or at least someone finds them. Such was not the case with his wristwatch, however, or his enV cell phone that went MIA in 2007. I’m sure that by now someone out there is greatly enjoying the ungodly expensive Bulova I bought him. The phone with the nifty little keypad, by contrast, is likely still inside my home, lurking in a faraway corner, gathering dust. Or perhaps it’s situated right in plain sight, also gathering dust. Either way, by the time it’s recovered it’ll be a tired relic and of no use to anyone.

Needless to say, our exhaustive search for the abovementioned items proved fruitless so we broke down and purchased replacements, both of which have been AWOL as recently as today. That said, my husband’s condition is not only insufferable, it is also chronic.

What really stinks about the situation is not only that my husband’s world is upended whenever he misplaces something deemed vital to his everyday functioning, but the whole family is miserable since we’re forced to drop everything to help him hunt for his stuff. Invariably, it’s the iPhone that sparks the most outrage when it disappears from the radar, fueling our collective frustration.

“How on earth can you lose something as large as A PIECE OF TOAST?” I implore him, incredulous and furious as ever, not only because his phone, quite literally, is as large as a piece of toast, but because he not-so-affectionately refers to the device as “a piece of toast.”

The irony isn’t lost on me.

Even the kids are baffled as to how he can remember an astounding number of obscure events in history as well as the names, faces and phone numbers of practically everyone he’s ever met, and yet, he cannot readily recall where he left his phone just moments ago.

“That’s not normal, Dad,” our progenies suggest. “Maybe you should just keep it in your pocket, like everyone else on the planet. Or clip it to your belt.” Of course, in a perfect world, advice like this would have merit. However, my dear husband has informed me he doesn’t do clips. Nor does he place the phone in the same pocket—like a sensible person. Instead, he prefers to switch the phone willy-nilly from pocket to pocket, jacket to jacket and sometimes even plops it inside a shopping bag. “That way I don’t actually have to carry it,” he defends.

My theory is that he secretly detests his smartphone with every ounce of his being and purposefully abandons it whenever and wherever possible. That way, he can practice quiet defiance while appearing as if he truly cares about its recovery by helping us search beneath heaps of mail, under car seats and between couch cushions seemingly forever. A clever ruse, yet not quite clever enough to fool me.

At any rate, when the iPhone in question skips town we repeatedly and desperately call or text his number, hoping we’ll hear its familiar ringtone from the depths of the refrigerator (or some other perfectly logical place to leave a phone). It’s all for naught though, since it’s usually set to “vibrate only.” Naturally, when he mentions this particular detail, we want to scream something about buying tickets to see a train wreck. Or find the phone and soundly flog him with it.

What the man really needs is one of those beeping, flashing gizmos that restaurants use to let patrons know their table is ready. He should then duct tape the stupid thing to his phone—or simply duct tape the phone to his forehead. Either way, it would qualify as an improvement.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, in search of my husband’s iPhone. Probably. Visit me there at www.melindawentzel.com and www.Facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.