Definition: Blog Tease (noun)

I searched the internet far and wide for a definition of what I was called this past weekend, a "blog tease." So I decided to write the definition myself. This blog is dedicated to Megan Hood. Here’s your definition.

Blog Tease: (noun)
One who provokes or disturbs their online audience through witty or sometimes crappy written content posted to their blog site on an infrequent basis; Unlike prick or cock (tease) most commonly associated with this term, this person frustrates its current and potential blog readers by posting infrequent short stories and further torments those readers through shameless self promotion on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ without returning for an undisclosed period of time. A blog tease can best be characterized through an uncanny ability to tell good stories both online and in person without notice of when they will return again.

See: Angela Cavallari Walker

This summer find out what's in store for your kids

It’s SUMMER!!! and I have had to drag my kids on my many missions and excursions including the supermarket, home improvement store but for today’s expedition it was the kinky and kitchy suburban shopping mall staple, Spencer’s.

Not only have I not set foot in this store since the late 1990s but I have not been there with kids under foot. In case you haven’t been there in quite some time, not much has changed in the variety of tacky and unique inventory. For instance, for a mere $29.95 you too can have a beer pong raft. I, ummm checked the price for a friend. And if you can recall, the inventory gets even “kinkier” as you venture farther into the bowels of this retail establishment.

However, what has changed is that I now have children AND ONE THAT CAN READ! Before I had the chance to come to this realization it was too late for us. My ears tune into my six-year-old son reading the following message slowly on a t-shirt. “ If you can read this, you are too..., his voice trails off and before I can distract him with the Angry Bird stuffed animals hanging from a makeshift zip line over our heads, he begins sounding out the first letter through his new adult chompers-too big to fit his mouth. The first letter “F” comes easy then “u” then the rest of the phrase...”fucking close.” I couldn’t have been prouder.

Hats off to you

BAM! Traditionally, Memorial Day Weekend kicks off the summer season. This year, it’s so powerful that my teeth are dangling. Today is Tuesday, and one of my busiest for my clients. It’s also the end of the month, so because I am self-employed I wear many hats. Today, it’s my D.U.N.C.E hat.

Foolishly, I thought that my children could entertain themselves for just 90 minutes while I sent out invoices and tried forming a sentence. From the next room, I can hear my son calling my daughter a “poop.” Now, it’s time to wear my “mommy hat.” What I really just want to do is put on my “fucking bitch hat” and scream at them about how they should be able to refrain from talking about or calling each other a piece of shit for less than say....6 minutes. What can I say, fantasy is my coping mechanism.

While they are celebrating their freedom I am freaking out about how I will handle their sovereignty. It also has not dawned on them that they can sleep in past 6:30 a.m. It looks like it’s gonna be a bumpy start to a long summer. But hey, my loss is your gain. Think of all the crazy material I will have for the blog!

Motherhoodintheraw is back and mediocre as ever

Your Motherhoodintheraw blog is back and just like the "Rocky" movie series will hang around longer than it should but will bring you stories that you would rather forget. Either way, it's an escape. Which is why you are reading this or maybe you are really bored and your annoying facebook friend that is a new parent posts anything with the word "mom" on it. Hey, I'm not knocking. I love you gals!

Upstairs, I can hear the awful sound of a cavernous plastic bin mixed with mega-blocks, Legos and a bastard brand of Legos, spilling out on the floor. This sound is more unnerving to me than breaking glass. I am a self-confessed neat freak. However, I never know what's going to set me off. For instance, every morning a pack of determined spiders spins the most intricate webs on my kid's playset. To me it's beautiful and reminds me that I should never give up on my dreams no matter how many times my hours of work is destroyed the next morning.

Which brings me to the bin of blocks. I know that making my kids pick up every block is what I should do. And I do try. I even make idle threats about throwing away the scattered chaos on the floor. For effect, I grab a garbage bag and sway back and forth. What always stops me is the memory of buying this shit and that in a few weeks my almost four-year-old daughter will look for a small plastic princess comb from a fucking happy meal toy that she took from the lunch box of another preschool classmate. ~Breathing break~

But being a neat freak is not always a bad thing. For one, I recognize the origin of each item in my home. Mind you, I can't remember to buy coffee filters or peanut butter on a trip to the local Kroger. But I can recall that I bought that knock-off brand of sunblock (that was not the continuous spray kind) at the Walgreens around the corner from my parents house in Florida. I know when to pat down a child after a playdate or when to pat down mine.

And I remembered how much I missed writing this blog. Not because anyone asked me to start it again. But because I was watching Oprah's final episode air and I remembered that I was watching her show when I first started this blog four years ago. Which makes me feel freakin' neat to share my mundane thoughts with you. Thanks for coming back. Now move your finger off the trash button.

Are you gonna eat your tots?

Yowsers! What a week! An old gal pal of mine taught me the definition of a fair-weathered friend by demonstrating that she was one herself. There are worse things but no one enjoys life's little harsh lessons. Speaking of lessons, we found out that my son got into the local charter school. Confused? This would make the third time that I have had to shop for school supplies for the same kid in under a month. I should start charging for my services.

On my way inside his current school, I passed a large window and spotted Greyson sitting in between two girls chatting and sipping on his milk. There are few things more precious than watching your child develop into an individual, especially when they don't know you are looking.

The lunchroom was a low hum of tiny voices sharing interesting facts such as older siblings, favorite cartoons and unique personal talents. Some things never change. Like how nasty and unappetizing the school lunches appear. The lasagna looked like it was about to make a run for it and back into the can it came out of. EXCEPT for the tater tots. No food makes a deeper emotional connection for me than tater tots and Kool-aid. I had to fight the temptation to snatch them off the trays of each kid around me.

Monday begins a new chapter in our back-to-school adventures. I say, bring it on!

What I learned about life from refinishing my front door

I have no idea what possessed me to even take on the arduous task of staining and refinishing my front door. Ok, I'll fess up....$$$ oh, and that my hubby said I couldn't! Over the last year or so, I have made it my mission to tackle DIY projects. Today shrouded in the warm rays of spring, I busted out the sander, paints and a drive to succeed.

My hard work payed off but turned out to be a much larger scale project than I anticipated and just like my door was caked in layers of frustration and resolve. In the end, the door turned out beautifully. I celebrated by downing two beers and stood in the middle of the street to admire my handy work. I was struck by a deeper parallel to refinishing my door and life's little lessons. Here is what I learned:

Lesson # 1 Don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone of knowledge.


Lesson #2 In order to get to the heart of the problem, you have to entirely scrape away at the old layers.


Lesson # 3 Ask for help.


Lesson # 4 Don't be afraid to start over.


Lesson # 5 When all else fails read the directions.

Now where did I put my happy pill?

Ahhh yes, it's that time of year again when gyms fill up and the world goes back to what it was doing before the holidays. Personally, this past Christmas was one of the most stressful in memory. The cause was related to managing 7 adult bodies and personalities my own included. The final head count was: 7 adults, 2 dogs, and 2 small kids in just 2,200 square feet. Luckily, I have some slivers of moments to which I can cling tenaciously (if need be.) Moments like when my son realized that Santa had arrived and the fun we had hiding a stuffed Elf all over the house for a month. It is truly magical to screw with a five and two-year old's minds.

I am working hard to get my head back into the game. The parenting game, the writing game and the work game. Hell, my blog even took a booster seat in the back. I compare this "swimming up stream" feeling to a situation that took place when I first entered the corporate world. I was working for a company called, PMSI (a story for another day.) and one lady decided to get everyone going on the "Vegetable Soup Diet." For those of you that don't remember this fad, it involved cooking a week's worth of nasty veggie soup and consuming this swill two times a day for two weeks. Can you guess that came next? I bet my IBS folks can. The womens restroom remained stalled out at all hours of the day. Toilets overflowed, and a foul smell that would make even a forensic scientist wretch filled the carpeted hallways. I worked in the call center taking orders from Workers' Comp patients anxious to get their Darvocet and Stadol delivered to their doors. Because I did not subscribe to this diet, I was certainly not going to suffer in the smell.

The pain and distraction from holding my urine proved to be too great and I developed a nasty UTI. I haven't had one this bad or since. The point of this story was to illustrate how hanging on to slivers of good or bad memories relieve tension and can make you laugh your ass off. Which is what I needed just then.

Happy New Years Peeps!