Category Archives: We Put the Fun in Dysfunction

October 26, 2011 · 10:31 am

Creatures of Habit

I have a favorite pair of sweatpants that I’ve owned since the Precambrian period. They’re a tired shade of gray, with barely a suggestion of the navy lettering that once graced its cottony surface. American Eagle, I think.

Of course, they’re shamefully dilapidated, torn and tattered beyond all repair. My mother-in-law, master seamstress and sock darner extraordinaire, dug deeply into her repertoire of needle-and-thread-ish miracles time and again to patch them up and make them whole—or at least to make them presentable. Sometimes she succeeded. Sometimes not. Mostly she just shook her head; dismayed by my stubbornness—and astonished by my inability to recognize when something had long since passed its prime. Then again, I have trouble in the produce aisle.

I admit; most would be embarrassed to be seen with me, clad in such disgraceful toggery, kneecaps naked to the world. What am I saying? My DOG is embarrassed to be seen with me. But the silly things have charm and character and that beloved quality of familiarity. Slipping into said fleeciness in the middle of January or even during a cool summer’s eve feels cozy and oh-so-comfortable—like the warmth of a lover’s arms, the refuge of a mother’s embrace, the company of an old friend. And on those rare occasions, when I entertain the notion of trading them in for something shiny and new, I feel nothing less than the shame of betrayal. The ignominy of sin.

Simply put, I cannot bear the thought of parting with my cherished garb; although my rational left-brained self knows better. The wretched things need to be ditched. Out with the old. In with the new.

I suppose I’m no better or worse than anyone else who has ever been mired in denial, inextricably attached to all-that-is-worn-and-hackneyed. We all have issues of a similar sort. Some are just more debilitating than others. That being said, my husband refuses to chuck any of his shabby, old t-shirts, which are perhaps some of the most pathetic examples of apparel on the face of the earth (second only to my sweatpants). Indeed, he lovingly deems those prized entities as something far from archaic. “They’re seasoned,” he defends. “Broken-in like a good leather ball glove.” He won’t dispose of his blasted water shoes either, which now sport portholes through which his toes protrude freely. Gak! Oddly enough, the man owns another pair. Brand spanking new ones with nary a defect. He bought them because he knew it was time for a change, only he couldn’t follow through. Apparently, it’s against his religion.

Needless to say, dysfunction doesn’t fall far from our family tree. Eccentricity flourishes under this roof and there is barely a day without someone hoarding something that ought not to. Ratty toothbrushes, Band-Aid boxes (Hello Kitty, of course), rocks of all shapes and sizes, bits and scraps of discarded paper, foolish tripe found on the bus or at school. And the list goes on. But the most bizarre item yet has been a brown paper snack bag for which a certain seven-year-old developed a crippling affinity. The bag itself was quite ordinary with regard to its form and function, however when its tour of duty surpassed the bounds of reasonableness (a month, maybe?), that’s when I hit the “Now this is just about ENOUGH!” button. “I can’t keep patching up these stinking holes with tape! It’s ridiculous! The bag is a train wreck!” (Read: I have taped tape on top of tape, and if I have to tape anymore, I’m going to screeeeeam! This is not a freakingtriage center for paper goods!)

Of course, we have a bazillion perfectly wonderful bags (WITHOUT CAVERNOUS HOLES) that have been at my daughter’s disposal since September. Bags begging to be toted to school…eager to be personalized with her scratches and scribbles…hankering for the opportunity (tedious though it might be) to house the EXACT SAME SNACK each and every day from now till eternity!

“But I like my bag. And my teacher likes my bag. She thinks the doggies I drew on it are pretty. I’m keeping it for-ever and EVER! And the little holes are cool because they let me peek inside to see what I have for my snack.” Are you forgetting, my dear child, that you ask for the SAME thing every day?! Apparently so. That being said, we couldn’t use duct tape for the massive and multiple repairs (tempting though it might have been), because that would negate the whole peeking-at-the-stupid-snack dealie. Arrrrg!

The kid will probably grow up to be a sock darner. It’s also likely I’ll be buried in my sweatpants.

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

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Filed under Home is Where the Weirdness Lives, We Put the Fun in Dysfunction

Tagged as children, hoarding, humor, kids, parenting, quirks

October 22, 2011 · 9:21 am

Nightmare on Mom Street

Sunday afternoons are my respite in this harried place. The sanity cocktail from which I draw sweet sustenance. That said, I lounge around the house doing as little as humanly possible, embracing my inner sloth. Old movies, blanket forts and naps rule the day. That is not to say that I haven’t, on occasion, become inspired enough to throw something meaty in the crock-pot, to haul my sweeper from the bowels of its dusky lair or to plant my sorry self in the laundry room for a time despite my aversion to the insufferable place. Even on a Sunday afternoon. But for the most part, ambition is nowhere to be found in my house during that glorious wedge of downtime—sandwiched deliciously between the madness that was and the madness sure to come. Last Sunday, however, was decidedly different. Havoc rained down on my world, obliterating my precious corner of calm.

Oddly enough, what led to the aforementioned began weeks ago while traipsing through a store, my cart piled high with a bunch of schlock I didn’t need. At every turn, it seemed, I stumbled into EVEN MORE SCHLOCK and felt compelled to ogle it, to finger its veneer of worthiness and to toy with the notion of adding it to my ever-growing mound of that-which-I-would-one-day-regret-purchasing. And on the days during which I allow the guilt of motherhood to consume me, the mound is markedly higher. Needless to say, it was one of those days.

Indeed, the voices that drive much of my irrational behavior relevant to Thing One and Thing Two were especially persuasive that day, whispering words of admonishment in my ear and regaling in my grand ineptitude as a parent: “You’re a HORRIBLE MOTHER…you don’t SPEND ENOUGH TIME with your children…you MUST ACQUIRE this ten-dollar nugget of wonderfulness which promises to erase weeks of botched parenting.” All the while I considered said nugget of wonderfulness (i.e. a two-pound Chocolate Cookie Halloween House Kit, complete with 47 bats, dozens of little green candies I would later damn to hell, enough gumdrops to coat eleventy-seven teeth and an expander, a defective ghost—or rather, segments of insanely sweet candy, suggestive of something that was once intact and specter-like—and a cauldron full of powdery mixes that were sure to deliver hours of goo-inspired, edible fun and to yield the most perfect hues of orange and purple icing on the planet).

In the end, I was shamed into buying the box of foolishness. Because that’s what moms do. Just like all the other project-y stuff I haul home out of sheer guilt; never mind the games and books and techno-gadgetry thought to engender this or that brand of awe in my children. It’s all about the Is-it-as-remarkable-as-a-pony factor and Will-it-expunge-from-the-record-my-screw-ups-to-date?

So I shoved the stupid thing in our pantry (good intentions and all) and forgot about it till the Halloween craze struck with a vengeance. And since the celebrated costume drama in this household was officially over, a sinful quantity of sugary treats had been stockpiled already and virtually every corner of our home had been festooned with all-that-is-Halloweenish, there was but one thing left to do—build the stupid house. So that’s what we did—the three of us, while Dad cheered exuberantly from the sidelines.

Several hours, two meltdowns (both mine) and a hellacious mess later, we had our two-pound Chocolate Cookie Halloween House. Of course, the orange and purple mixes wound up adorning everything kitchen-ish but the inside of the refrigerator, those reprehensible, little candies rolled near and far much to my chagrin, fistfuls of trimmings were consumed with wild abandon and the icing was less than compliant as I shoveled and smeared gobs of it into pastry bags and then squeezed the reluctant mass onto the house as instructed. Translation: The cussed gloppage in question delighted in its schmutziness and its droopiness, defiantly sliding down walls, windows and slanted rooftops, leaving hideous-looking blobs everywhere. Even the spider webs I made sagged to the point of looking not-so-spider-webby. But because the gods of kitchen fiascos were smiling upon me, my brood took it all in stride, “…the droopiness makes it even SPOOKIER, Mom! You’re so AWESOME!”

Well, it certainly wasn’t as grand as a pony might have been; but the awe factor of this nightmarish project was evident to at least two somebodies on the planet. And perhaps that’s all that matters in the end.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (admiring our droopified Halloween house).

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Filed under "G" is for Guilt, Daily Chaos, Holiday Hokum, Rantings & Ravings, We Put the Fun in Dysfunction

Tagged as disorder, dysfunction, family, fun, guilt, Halloween, humor, kids, little things, love, Mommie Dearest, moms, parenting, projects, special, tirades

July 12, 2011 · 5:00 am

It’s a Jeep Thing

The stuff over which my husband and I argue has reached an unprecedented level of absurdity in recent weeks. It used to be that such idiocy revolved primarily around domestic issues—like the cubic circumference of the vegetable chunks in our meatloaf, how one restores order (or doesn’t) to the Sunday newspaper and whether or not bed linens ought to be tucked beneath one’s mattress. Never mind becoming embroiled over small potatoes at home; evidently, we can’t even find accord within the confines of our cussed cars. More specifically, the contentious matter of windows up vs. windows down reared its ugly head for the first time in a long while—which is sort of surprising given that we own several vehicles equipped with windows and that we’ve been inclined to ride in the aforementioned vehicles together.

That said, I prefer having the stupid windows down when it’s roughly 8,000 degrees outside—the torrid wind whipping my hair and the sun baking my skin to a fine bronze hue, warming me to the pithy core of my soul. My counterpart, on the other hand, prefers to be encapsulated within a climate controlled sanctuary (read: a tundra-like holding-cell-on-wheels) for those who, apparently, are averse to fresh air and the freedom it embodies. Needless to say, this robs me of a brief, yet delicious, pleasure—because, of course, we can’t have it both ways. I can only imagine the sort of arguments we’d have if either of our Jeeps had roofs that could be removed altogether. Oy.

All things considered, it’s likely that I’m related to my dog who, given the opportunity (and opposable thumbs), would strap himself to the hood so that he might enjoy an even BREEZIER ride. It’s also entirely likely that I was the sort of kid who would foolishly shove her head outside a school bus window come June, delirious with joy over the prospect of summer. It’s also quite possible that I like roller coasters. And scooters. And those tomb-like boxes at the mall that produce hurricane force winds. But I digress.Of course, I can’t be sure from whence my affinity for traveling alfresco came, although I’d surmise that it has something to do with my childhood and the delectable summertime hours spent riding in the back of pickup trucks and boats, as well as atop my grandfather’s tractor across his 87-acre farm. And although I understand the reasoning behind the legislature that put an end to the era of transporting children in this manner (namely by means of pickup trucks), it saddens me to think of the generations upon generations who won’t get a chance to harvest fond memories like mine. Not to mention, it may breed colonies who, like my dear husband, worship and glorify air conditioning in cars. Ugh.

Much to my chagrin, it appears that my brood already identifies to some extent with the windows up mentality described above in horrific detail. That said, Thing One is fairly convinced that Frank, her beloved armadillo, will somehow sail out the window when we reach the expressway, while Thing Two has made it known to one and all that she completely loathes how the wind “wrecks” her hair and makes her cold. Good grief.

Making converts out of them now will be a supreme challenge and I may have to resort to a fiendish plan wherein I inform our children that their father once owned a Jeep CJ-7 Renegade AND LOVED IT, or better still—one involving the arrangement of a joy ride in a certain friend’s soft-top Jeep Wrangler. Not to worry, all interested parties will have ponytails if need be, sunscreen most definitely and the assurance that no disaster will befall their dear Frank, who will be buckled safely in the seat between them.

If the plan does, indeed, come to fruition, Mister I-Prefer-Air-Conditioning-and-Being-Comfortably-Numb will either have to overcome his disdain for touring in the open-air, or perhaps forego what promises to be an unspeakably enjoyable event—a Jeep Thing, as it were.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (tooling along on the road of life with my windows down and sunroof agape). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under Road Trip, We Put the Fun in Dysfunction

Tagged as humor, marriage, relationships, road trips, summer

May 29, 2011 · 8:31 pm

Clutter is the Bane of My Existence

Recently, I experienced one of those deliciously thrilling EUREKA moments in which I discovered the root of my debilitating problem with clutter. Archimedes would be proud. Needless to say, I was duly impressed with myself as well and have since celebrated by arranging to meet with the legendary Fly Lady herself, author of Sink Reflections www.flylady.net. Not really, but I’d like to think that that domestic goddess would be mildly astounded by my important findings and most certainly abuzz about the implications for all of mankind. Naturally, such a noteworthy accomplishment required that I take a long, hard look at myself, at my shamefully counterproductive housekeeping habits and at the dysfunction with which I am surrounded.

Firstly, I am married to someone who is physically incapable of throwing anything away—hence, the scourge of clutter currently sucking the life out of me. Always and forever, it seems, the Keeper of All Things Unnecessary defends his position: “But what if we NEED (insert virtually any tool-ish device of which we own three, documents that date back to the Paleozoic Era or a less-than-functional yet slightly adored heirloom harvested from the bowels of someone’s attic) in the next century?!” Making matters worse (read: FAR WORSE), our brood manifests many of the very same neurotic hang-ups irksome tendencies with respect to the concept of purging beloved treasures like ratty toothbrushes, chintzy toys and rubbish gleefully retrieved from beneath bleachers and whatnot. Woe is me.

Secondly, I keep buying stuff (i.e. obscenely frivolous crap that beckons to me from afar). That said, I am weak, I have voluminous quantities of time to fritter away in stores and I have plastic. WAY more plastic than someone with my far-from-frugal penchant ought to have. Mind you, such fiscally juvenile behavior continues to take place despite being painfully aware of the dearth of available storage space in my home and of the disturbing nature of my problem.

Thirdly, I cannot (for whatever reason) will my pathetic self to put anything away (for Crissakes) at the precise moment in time that it SHOULD be put away. Nor can I deal with whatever begs to be dealt with in a timely manner—namely, bank statements, muddied soccer cleats, folded laundry and anything even remotely related to the WRETCHED MAIL. As a result, hideous-looking piles of this and that lie about like carnage. And yet, I lamely argue the point that said stuff is simply en route to its rightful place in the Universe.

It’s in limbo, as it were; a twisted sort of purgatory for household goods. It’s a sinful reality here in these parts—a reality that is entirely imprudent and completely preventable. “But,” I insist to anyone fool enough to listen, “I have, shall we say, some slight ‘issues’ with follow though. Besides, it’s perfectly normal to paw through one’s laundry basket for clean socks, to trip over heaps of that-which-is-destined-for-the-recycling-bin and to race to the bus stop while yanking the tags off new clothes that have yet to see the inside of anyone’s closet. Perfectly normal.”

June Cleaver would be horrified.

But it’s not as if I’m a complete failure. Even June would have to admit that a modicum of what I do smacks of success. More specifically, it’s the baby steps I take on that eternal quest for order that truly matter. The successive approximations (a la B.F. Skinner) that I realize over time. Little by little, I shift and shuttle things to where they belong, knowing that EVENTUALLY clutter will leave me.

So there’s that, at least—the promise of order. Here’s hoping I’m not senile by the time said order arrives.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (forever ferrying stuff hither and yon, to its rightful place in the Universe). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under We Put the Fun in Dysfunction

Tagged as children, clutter, disorder, family, hoarding, humor, husbands, kids, parenting

January 31, 2011 · 7:23 pm

Great Expectations

In the dark of predawn I lay in bed, tucked snugly beneath my downy comforter, sleet pinging against the windowpanes in soft yet fitful waves. Against all odds associated with parenthood, no one under the age of eight burst into the room to announce that the sky was falling. Translation: my husband and I had had the presence of mind to skip setting the kids’ alarm the night before, in anticipation of inclement weather almost certain to arrive by daybreak. So for a time, all was silent in this good house—except for the ticking of clocks and the tiny taps at the window.

As the not-so-surprising news of yet another school cancellation reached my ears in the wee hours that day, I was filled impossibly with hope. Hope that I would enjoy a morning devoid of the madness I had known all too well since September. Hope for a day abundant with hot cocoa, kindness and good cheer. Hope that I might finally summon the strength and ambition to take down the blasted Christmas tree. The one that has been standing very nearly straight in my living room for the past 63 days, mocking me as I addressed my cache of shamefully belated holiday cards.

The tree had to come down. It would come down. It was January 28^th for Pete’s sake. Besides, I was tired of its condescending glare, as if it were looking down its boughs at me, judging my every deficiency. Shaming my inadequate core.

Moreover, with my army of helpers that would likely be at my disposal ALL DAY (since no one wanted to frolic in the freezing rain), I banked on being able to pack up and stow away each and every jingle bell, snowman, Santa likeness and string of garland-y foolishness in the entire house. To reclaim my space. At least until Easter.

Needless to say, lots of people here agreed that it was high time. “Mom, you know we’re going to get arrested, don’t you?”

“Arrested? For what?!”

“Because January’s almost over and we don’t even have our Christmas tree down yet! We’ll all be thrown in jail!”

“Whaaaaat?! Who’s going to throw us in jail?”

“The Holiday Police.”

“The Holiday Who?!”

“The Holiday Police. They arrest people who don’t do stuff right—like taking Christmas trees down BEFORE Groundhog Day. Helloooooooooo.”

She had a point.

All I had to do was glance at the calendar and then at the muddled mess surrounding me. Remnants of the holiday season were everywhere. The Christmas lights were (and still are!) completely shrouded with ice and fused impossibly to the trees and shrubs outside. The stockings were still hung—and shockingly, still laden with beloved items that had been tragically forgotten since Santa’s celebrated arrival. Gifts of every size, shape and hideous stage of disarray lay like carnage throughout the house and under the aforementioned evergreen, gloriously bedecked with enough ornament-age for a forest. Legions upon legions of festive-looking dishes, alarmingly bare except for the smarmy trail of cashews and the red and green fleckage of holiday M&Ms, still rested upon my tabletops, whispering without end, “Cleeeean meeeee.” Santa’s cookie plate begged to be returned to the cupboard, the crèche longed to be back in the attic and quite frankly, the mistletoe was tired of hanging around.

What’s more, I noted that the kids had been swiping stuff from the tree for weeks—like the reindeer, now chummy with Barbie’s horses and sharing a corral, and the snowmen, warmly adopted by a family of Lego people. I even discovered a few sparkly ornaments dangling precariously from the rooftops of doll houses. Icicles maybe?

That said, it was way past time to begin the arduous process of un-decorating. Clearly, the snow day that had been bestowed upon us was a window of opportunity and perhaps the spark that would ignite my drive and determination to succeed in spite of myself. At least that was the plan.

But it was not to be. My great expectations for the day were shot by 10 am and my hopes for a tidier living room were all but dashed. For all intents and purposes, the thorny pine had become rooted there, a glaring reminder of my ineptitude as a putter-away-of-holiday-wares. Instead we frittered away the time, putting six puzzles together, littering the house with Barbie dolls and dresses, devouring books, stuffing ourselves with chocolate-chip pancakes and lounging in our pajamas till it was almost evening—at which time I sent my brood outdoors to play in the snow that had FINALLY begun to fall in big, feathery flakes. A consolation prize for my efforts.

Then again, maybe my reward was the delicious chunk of time I spent fishing for puzzle pieces with my kids, eavesdropping on their Barbie powwows, listening to the ice hit the windows—safe and sound in this good house.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (and where the Holiday Police are destined to arrive).