Days of Whine and Roses

5:30 – Wake to 5.5 year old son, D, poking me in the forehead with the tail end of a velociraptor (toy, not real) while chanting, “I want to play Angry Birds, I want to play Angry Birds, I want to play Angry Birds.”

5:31 – Get up. Give D the freakin’ ipod. Go back to bed.

5:55 – Wake to 3.5 year old son, E, screaming in my sleeping face, “I want to play Angry Birds. I want to play Angry Birds. I want to play Angry Birds.”

5:56 – Get up. Give E the other the freakin’ ipod. Go back to bed.

5:57 – Pray 5.5 year old daughter, S, doesn’t wake me up chanting, “I want to play Angry Birds. I want to play Angry Birds. I want to play Angry Birds,” since we only have two freakin’ ipods.

6:30 – Husband gets up. I pretend to be asleep when he asks me whether or not I’ve fed the kids breakfast yet. Feel guilty for a moment, then realize both he and the kids speak English – they don’t need me to act as an interpreter. If the kids are hungry, they’ll tell him.

6:31 – Crack eye open to make sure DH has left room. Get up. Lock the door.

7:00 – Listen to following conversation outside my bedroom door: E: I want to sleep with Mom. D: You can’t sleep with her. You don’t have any money. E: Why do I need money? D: You need to pay me $25 to sleep with her.

7:01 – Debate whether I should be concerned about my son’s future as a pimp or proud of his entrepreneurial skills.

7:02 – Decide the bigger issue is that my son thinks I’m only worth $25. May as well get up.

7:05 – Plans to shower are thwarted by globs of soaking wet toilet paper in the bathtub. Ascertain, with great relief, that soaking wet toilet paper is only soaking wet with water, not some other effluence, but remain disgusted enough to avoid the shower. Apply extra deodorant as compensation.

7:30 – Spend 2 hours futilely attempting to get the kids to stop touching one another. Definition of touching is expanded to include not only slapping, hitting, kicking and biting, but also sitting too close to one another on the couch, looking at one another, and being in the same room as one another.

9:30 – Take the circus on the road. First stop, a children’s science museum and planetarium. Observe other people’s children listening to the mother who bore them. Observe my children acting as if a cross between a monkey and a circus clown bore them.

12:45 – Children acting as if they’ve never eaten food. Pull into nearest McDonald’s. Feel judgment emanating from all the minivans that pass the McDonald’s parking lot in favor of more organic, veggie and fruit filled choices. Mentally flip them all off.

1:00 – Eat abandoned McNuggets and fries while children enjoy Playplace. Calculate that I can probably keep them occupied for at least an hour.

1:01 – Youngest son decides he is afraid of heights and cannot get himself down from climbing platform. Wonder why that I can’t keep him from scaling the kitchen counters if he is so afraid of heights. Eyeball the climbing platform and realize the only way I can get up there to get him is by greasing myself with used French fry oil. Bribe daughter with the promise of ice cream if she gets him down. Silently curse self for jinxing the whole “this will keep them occupied for at least an hour” dream.

2:00 – Take kids to free play area at the mall.

2:15 – Leave free play area at the mall due to youngest son’s “fists of fury.” Hang head in shame and hope that I don’t see anyone I know.

3:00 – Succumb to whining and let each child play Angry Birds on not only the freakin’ ipods, but also my phone. For a very long time. A very long time = just long enough to get to a respectable hour for mommy to open up a bottle of wine.

5:30 – Explain to children that expecting them to eat green beans is not a war crime. Drink more wine.

6:15 – Yell at kids some more. Fill wine glass again.

6:30 – Wonder where all the wine went.

7:30 – Put kids to bed. Fall asleep sitting up.

5:30am – Begin my personal Groundhog Day once again. Tell husband how happy I am that Spring Break is only one week long.

5:31 – Cry when husband reminds me that summer is only about two months away.

What did you do on Spring Break this year??

You know that %^$&%* Murphy? The one with all the laws that basically say that anything can go wrong, will go wrong? I think he clearly has it out for us moms. Don’t believe me? Check out the evidence:

1.  Last Monday, I showered, blew out my hair, put on make-up, dressed in something other than yoga pants and a t-shirt and was wearing cute boots. In twelve hours of running errands, I ran into no one that I knew. Last Thursday, after battling a stomach flu for two days, I ran into the grocery store to pick up three lousy items sporting a greasy ponytail, unwashed face, sweats I had been wearing for two days and, in the interests of full disclosure, I admit I wasn’t smelling April fresh. I ran into six people in 15 minutes.

2. On school days, most moms I know struggle to get the kids out of bed on time. They beg, they bribe and they watch the bowl of Cheerios get soggy as they try to get these layabouts to move their lazy little fannies out of bed so these uncooperative minions can get to school on time. Come the weekend, when no one has to be anywhere and the exhausted moms are looking forward to sleeping in until the decadent hour of 8:00am, these same kids are up before dawn, demanding food and entertainment and clean diapers. It’s the school-aged version of an infant who has their days and nights mixed up. And it is. Not. Fair.

3. Am I the only one whose kids only wet the bed the night after I change the sheets? Please tell me I’m not the only one whose kids only wet the bed the night after I change the sheets. Even if you have to lie to me. I just need to know I’m not alone.

4. Whatever you do, don’t make any plans to get away for the weekend with your husband. Nothing signals a kid to start puking like the second coming of Linda Blair in “The Exorcist” more than the thought that Mom and Dad might be making them a brother or sister at the Holiday Inn. Bonus points to Murphy if the kid miraculously recovers as soon as you get home.

5. Never tell anyone that your baby sleeps through the night, is completely potty-trained or eats anything you put in front of them. Doing so will only ensure that your child suddenly goes on a sleep strike, starts having daily accidents and begins refusing to eat anything that isn’t beige and/or shaped like a dinosaur. Trust me. I’ve been there.

I guess all we can do to combat that %&$(#) Murphy is roll with the punches. And eat chocolate. And drink wine. And scroll through Pinterest looking for new ways to incorporate more Nutella into our diets.

I just hope that Murphy was nicer to his mother than he is to the rest of us.

Picture it – Small Town, Massachusetts, 1978. A-dork-able eight-year old girl, blonde Mark Hamill haircut (my mother swears she told them “Dorothy Hamill” haircut, but pictures of the era back up my contention that she indeed said “Mark Hamill a/k/a Luke Skywalker” haircut), tattered copy of “Little House on the Prairie” in her hand, arguing futilely with her mother about one of life’s great injustices, the details of which have been lost to the sands of time.

After several minutes of what is no doubt rational, logical debate on the part of the eight year old, the mother puts an end to the discussion with the following words:

“You know, I hope you have a daughter someday and I hope that she’s just like you.”

Thanks, Mom. Thanks a lot. Because my daughter is Just. Like. Me.

We have the same ears, the same sweet tooth, the same tendency linger in the bathtub. We share a love of reading, a distaste for broccoli and an affinity for sleeping late.

She loves school like me, loves to read like me and loves cookies like me. My mini-me is curious and funny and as sarcastic and snarky as strict parenting and elementary school rules will allow.

That girl is manipulative, sneaky, plays her dad and me off of each other with an ease that belies her years, and will argue until she is blue in the face simply for the sake of arguing until she is blue in the face.

Yes, Mom. I had a daughter. And she is Just. Like. Me.

Like me, she is ultra-competitive. She wants to be the best. She wants to surpass her brothers in all things and hates to lose at anything. She has the kind of attitude that makes world class athletes leave it all on the field for the glory of winning.

Unfortunately, she also shares another personality trait with me that will likely derail any Olympic aspirations she may harbor.

She, like me, is incredibly lazy. Not the kind of lazy where we lie in bed all day and avoid all of our responsibilities and make people wait on us hand and foot.

Rather, our laziness is more of the “why run when we can walk” variety. I’ve never been one to voluntarily agree to sweat. I have probably wasted the equivalent of a year’s worth on college tuition in gym memberships that I never used. I don’t volunteer to take the stairs when there’s an elevator and I tend to look for the closest parking spot. When I was a kid, I wanted to spend my summer vacations reading about Laura and Mary and fantasizing about what life was like in the Little House, not riding my bike or running aimlessly around the neighborhood like the other kids.

I probably have the only mother who’s ever screamed, “Stop reading and get outside and play!”

I see the same in my daughter. She takes books to the playground and will always pick playing tea party over a game of tag.

Last summer, I signed her and her brothers up for soccer. The boys were so excited to play and couldn’t wait to start. She made a face and asked, “If I play soccer do I have to run? How much will I have to run?”

That’s my girl!

Despite our inherent dislike for an active lifestyle, I know (and I want to teach her) that physical activity is one of the pillars of a healthy life. As much as I hate it and as much as I know that she hates it, this shouldn’t be negotiable.

She’s 5. I’m 41. She’s got time to learn this, but I’m running out of time. My life is likely half over. If I fail in teaching her to enjoy what her body is capable of, then I will be a pretty rotten mother.

With this in mind, I’ve started training for a 5K. I hate running. I loathe running. I abhor running with the burning passion of a thousand suns. I detest running on a molecular level. In my mind, running is one of Dante’s nine levels of hell, with only the Yankees and mushrooms being further down the abyss.

But I will do this for her. I will sweat and get sore and breathe so hard it feels like my heart is going to explode out of my chest.

And I will register for the Run Like a Mother 5K on Mother’s Day. Because I need to teach her to move.

And if my jeans fit better at the end of it, then maybe I’ll admit that there’s something in it for me, too!

Over the last few months, I think you’ve all gotten to know a bit about me. To wit, I am sarcastic, I am snarky, I believe that wine cures most any ill and my children have the men in white coats on speed dial, waiting for the inevitable day when I finally crack.

Now I want to get to know you, the fabulous individual who has taken time out of your busy day to read my latest rants. In this new year, I will post a few questions every weekend and then breathlessly await your response so I can get to know YOU better. No, seriously. I will be holding my breath. So it would be in the best interest of my family if you could post your responses in the comment section.

Here we go – a few things I want to know about you!

1. Funniest thing anyone (kid, husband, boss, therapist, barista, telemarketer, etc.) has said to you this week?
2. Where do you think Max and Ruby’s parents are?
3. When you get dressed – sock, shoe, sock, shoe or sock, sock, shoe, shoe?
4. Favorite wine? (I’d love to try something new!)
5. How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

I can’t wait to read your responses. Remember , I’m holding my breath. And for the record, I faint easily.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

Children are extraordinary. The exponential growth in physical prowess, social awareness and sheer intelligence I have witnessed in my 5 year olds and my 3 year old (oh, excuse me, 5 AND A HALF year olds and 3 AND A HALF year olds) is nothing short of miraculous. The way they absorb the world around them and learn from every single thing they encounter during the day is simply amazing.

I do have some concerns, though, about whether they might all be suffering from childhood-onset-Alzheimer’s.

Short-term memory does not seem to be a friend of my children’s. They can have a library book in their hand and as we’re walking out the door (five minutes after we were supposed to leave), they won’t have it anymore. And they don’t know what they did with it.

Because they forgot.

Tell them to take off their muddy sneakers before they walk on the carpet, and forty-five seconds later, there’s a size 1 trail of dirt-prints from the front door. Why?

Because they forgot.

Basic questions stump them.

“What did you do in school today?”

“I forget.”

“What’s the letter of the day?”

“I forget.”

“Did you give Mrs. H the note I sent in?”

“I forget.”

I’m sure if I were to spend less time surfing Facebook and more time researching child development (when pigs fly, my friends. When pigs fly.), I would find a legitimate reason why children seem to be unable to remember anything that happened to them in the previous eight hours.

I should clarify here. This memory loss is not absolute. They can remember, with stunning accuracy, a classmate passing gas during word study, vomiting during gym or bringing in a better snack than they did. Those vignettes they can remember with startling detail. (The better to incessantly share at the dinner table, apparently.)

Neither do they have any issue with long-term memory. A few days after Christmas 2010, my husband told them that next year we’ll make them hot chocolate and drive around looking at Christmas lights. Naturally, an entire year later, this is what they remember. Tell them to behave so Santa will come and they conveniently “forget” while one is wrestling the other to the ground in a headlock. Tell them that we’ll get them a motorized scooter when they turn 8 and you can be damn sure that they’re looking for that scooter before the sun comes up on their 8th birthday.

Perhaps the trick is to tell them a year in advance what I want from them. On January 4, 2013, I need you to clean your room. You might have gym, so wear your sneakers. And it might be library day, so make sure you can find your books. Stop hitting your brother, teasing your sister, don’t pick your nose, put the seat down, put the seat up, your dirty socks don’t belong on the floor, change your underwear, quit whining, and for the love of all that is holy, remember to knock before you come into the bathroom!

Pretty sure they’re not going to remember any of that, no matter how many times I tell them.

Does anyone know if Flintstones vitamins come with gingko biloba?

I’m usually not one for resolutions. Well, that’s not true. I like to make them. What I’m not particularly good at is keeping them, which is why they always seem to be the same three or four things: organize my kitchen junk drawer, eat healthier, save more money, exercise regularly, etc.

Probably very similar to most people’s lists. Boring, right? No wonder I don’t really have any motivation for any of them.

But this year will be different! No more falling off the wagon by the end of January! No guilt because I can’t find the rubber bands that I KNOW are in the junk drawer buried under packs of Doublemint Gum, miscellaneous screws and a mix tape from 1989! No more beating myself up because my Christmas stash of Godiva chocolate prevents any meaningful healthy eating until after Valentine’s Day!

2012 will be the year when resolutions are kept! Because in 2012, I will have (drum roll, please). . . a manifesto! A twelve point manifesto, to be exact, geared toward fuller enjoyment of this life.

To wit:

1.  Go to more carnivals. I constantly refer to my life as a carnival of chaos, anyway, so why not go to more actual carnivals, ride the Scrambler until I feel like I’m going to throw up and introduce my children to the joy of food on a stick?

2.  Eat more cheesy carbs. Why? Because they’re delicious, that’s why!

3.  Keeping the appropriate ratio of whine to wine in my house. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the more whining there is in my house, the more wine there is in my glass. The trouble arises when the whining goes down and the wining goes up. I’ll happily give up the wine if it lessens the whine. But since that’s not going to happen any time soon, I’ll always have a bottle (or three) chilling in the frig.

4.  Be true to myself. I shall embrace my TV-watching, yoga-pant-wearing, sarcastic and funny self. And I shall not apologize.

5.  Stop feeling guilty when I lie to my children. Santa is a myth, and he isn’t hurting anyone. Telling them the toy store is closed at 2:00 in the afternoon on a Wednesday saves needless and exhausting tantrums. And locking myself in a closet and eating Oreos in peace and quiet all the while saying that I’m organizing the sheets is nothing but a little white lie to save my own sanity.

6.  Change my name – If I change my name to something my kids aren’t allowed to say (i.e., poopy head, stinky butt or Jets fan), then maybe they won’t say it thirteen bazillion times a day.

7.  More blog posting . I really enjoy everyone’s comments and nothing puts a smile on my face quite like seeing someone “share” one of my posts on Facebook (hint, hint!). And more than that, it’s nice to get validation that I’m not the only one whose kids make them so crazy they start pricing straight jackets on Zappos.com.

8.  Figure out what in the hell the song “Pumped Up Kicks” is about. Because right now,  listening to it just makes me feel old.

9.  Accepting, once and for all, that I do not like fish, my kids have sucked my ability to remember things right out of my head, and the answer to, “Would you like to see the dessert menu?” should always be “Yes.” Fighting against these things has led to intense internal conflicts within me, and I think it’s just time to give up that fight.

10. Take fewer pictures. Every year, I vow to take more pictures. And every year, I fail to do so. So this year, I will endeavor to take fewer pictures in the hopes that the element of reverse psychology will kick in. And even if it doesn’t, this is a pretty hard thing to fail at.

11. Keeping up with current events . I’ve renewed my subscriptions to People and Us, and added a TIVO season pass for Access Hollywood Live. A girl has to know what’s going on around her!

12. Being grateful . For everything, but especially my kids. Because even when there’s poop on the toilet, someone has cracked my phone screen and all the tape has been used to take action figures hostage, my family is the best thing in my life.

Please share your 2012 resolutions in the comments! I’d love to get further inspiration from you!

Happy New Year to all!

The end is finally in sight. What began on Halloween, gathered steam during Thanksgiving weekend and reached its zenith over Christmas is in the middle of its denouement. An uptick is to be expected over New Year’s, but the long, long journey will be over January 2.

I refer, of course, to the Eating Olympics.

From October 31 to January 2 each year, life becomes a festival of eating. A carnival of food and parties and alcohol (oh my!).

Everyone has their favorite events, like the Pie Pentathlon, where you endeavor to eat only one bite of each of the five pies that your mother has baked. (Bonus points awarded to those who have to eat more than one bite to appease an overly sensitive family member who thinks that if you only take one bite of the pumpkin pie they made from a tin of canned pumpkin that’s been sitting in their pantry since the Nixon administration you somehow don’t love them anymore.)

What if you don’t like pie? Well, then, you’re crazy and I don’t know if I want to know you. But never fear, Eating Olympics participant. There is always the Cross County Cookie Consumption, in which you are obligated to attend every cookie exchange within a three county radius, ensuring that you are not only chained to your oven 15 out of 24 hours a day baking dozens of each of twelve different varieties of cookies, but you are also the recipient of little bits of deliciousness from other folks’ kitchens, all of which need to be eaten because (a) it would be rude not to accept a gift of cookies, and (b) uh, cookies are delicious! Do I really need to explain this?

For those who prefer a more savory approach to their holidays, there is the ever popular Dip Diving, a deceptively simple game which tests one’s ability to precisely judge the correct amount of dip that should be applied to a chip to both ensure the most beneficial chip to dip ratio and avoid the dreaded double-dipping (grounds for immediate disqualification).

Alas, all of these fabulous food events can lead to membership on the Avoid the Gym-nastics team. Excuses are abundant in this season of office parties, open houses and children begging, “Please, Mom. Can we decorate Christmas cookies today?” (And let’s be honest, the inevitable family drama is going to lead even the most hardcore among us to eat an extra cookie or two.)

All of this leads to the final event – Wrestling (your jeans over your hips).

And so the holiday season leads to the season of resolutions. January 2 brings raw carrot snacks, Lean Cuisine sales and a new pair of yoga pants. Feel free to share your comments for resolution stick-to-it-iveness below!

But I still have a few days until then. I wonder if there’s any pie left.

I love my family. I really do. And I’m pretty sure I’ve started more than a few blog posts with this exact sentiment. 

My husband is, despite a tendency to snore and an affinity for true crime shows about men who kill their wives and almost get away with it (which he assures me is not “research”), is a good man who makes me laugh and indulges my passion for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and reruns of “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

My children are astonishing little miracles of life. They stun me with their wisdom, flatter me with their unerring love and force me to appreciate things like cracks in the sidewalk and family camp outs in the living room when the power goes out from a freak snow storm.

I am blessed beyond reason to have these people not only in my life, but to have these people as the loves of my life. I thank God for them every day.

And if I don’t get away from these people and their whiny, demanding little (and big) selves within the next twenty-four hours, I’m going to

Lose.

My.

Mind.

The thing about being a mom is that it is CONSTANT. From the moment you are woken up at five in the morning by a three year old finger being pointed into your chest and chanting, “Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast, breakfast,” until the three a.m. cup of water that your five year old has to have or she will most assuredly die, there is no rest for the weary.

I am so freakin’ weary.

The length of my daily to-do list is rivaled only by the length of the grocery store receipt on my weekly pilgrimage to keep this family in cheese sticks, bananas and toilet paper (good gravy, with three potty-trained children, this family is single-handedly keeping Mr. Whipple and the good folks at Charmin in business). I wish more than anything that I could say that I complete each task with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

More likely, I complete each task with a muttered curse under my breath that if muttered by my kids would earn them an hour long time-out and a week’s moratorium on Phineas & Ferb.

The solution, I have found, is simple.

I’m running away from home.

Not forever, mind you. Just a couple of nights. Two glorious nights spent with two similarly minded friends, with no husbands, no kids, and no one waking you up before dawn because their blanket is too itchy.

The best way for me to love my family is to get the hell away from them once or twice a year. If I don’t, I’ll snap. And if you think the snark and sarcasm is bad now, there is not enough wine or Nutella to rescue me once that happens.

So I will run as fast as my legs can carry me away from my home and family tomorrow morning. And I will return on Sunday afternoon with a little more love and a little less snark. Maybe slightly hungover, but more in love with my family than I am now.

Of course, being more in love with them doesn’t preclude me from planning my next running away destination.

I’m thinking spa. . . on an island. Maybe I’ll even let the husband come with me.

“Mom. Mom! MOM!”

I cracked open an eye while trying to pretend I was still sleeping. 5:30. In. The. Morning. I don’t know why my boys are morning people. I only know that I don’t like it.

“MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” 

Apparently, my five year old was not going to go quietly.

“What?” I could say I asked in a gentle, loving tone, but it was probably more like the growl of a mama grizzly awakened from hibernation too early by a cub looking for waffles while daddy grizzly continued to snore on his side of the cave.

“Come quick! E just did something really disgusting in the bathroom.” Isn’t that what every mother wants to hear before the sun comes up?

E, who is my three year old, has finally mastered the art of elimination on the toilet. Such skill has not come without casualties – countless pairs of Cars and Toy Story undies have lain in ruin in his wake. I have become, well, if not used to finding poop in places other than the toilet, then certainly not surprised to find a little nugget on the bathroom floor.

Shit happens.

So in the pre-dawn darkness, with the soundtrack of my husband’s snoring never skipping a beat as he slept on, I prepared to brave the bathroom. I thought, how bad could it be? Maybe he didn’t lift the seat or there was a foul stain on the seat or perhaps even a roll of toilet paper unfurled in a white, fluffy pyramid.

Not even close.

Let me interrupt this tale to say a little something about my three year old. Other than being an 11.5 pound transverse breech baby who spent the better part of nine months turning my uterus into a hammock that he apparently had no intention of ever leaving, he was the textbook definition of an “angel” baby. He slept great, he ate great (uh, hello – 11.5 pound baby), and he never cried. I mean it. His sister could drop a wooden block on his head and he barely blinked. His brother could bounce a ball off of his head, and he would keep on smiling. He was my perfect child. And this lasted for 2 glorious years.

Then it all went to hell.

My “angel” baby turned into the spawn of Satan. He still looked angelic, but in reality, he had turned into an unholy terror. Still adorable, still adored, but now, I try to keep one eye open when I sleep.

I don’t think that I will ever figure out the exact thought pattern he had that morning. Was he trying to tell me something? Was he showing that toilet that he was now the boss? Did his brother put him up to it? These are the questions that I will ponder when I’m old and waiting for an open table at the Denny’s Early Bird special.

And what did I find that morning? In my toilet, there was nary a sign of human effluence. Instead, there were:

16 slices of wheat bread, a box of phonics flashcards and three cars from the movie Cars 2 (specifically, Finn McMissle, Holly Shiftwell and Francesco Bernoulli).

I don’t remember much of what happened after that. I’m sure there was yelling. I’m confident punishment was meted out. And I’m certain that I shall never again allow my slotted spoon to touch food once I used it to address the disaster.

He is lucky he is cute. He is lucky I have a good sense of humor.

He is very lucky that he was sound asleep when, as I prepared to take a long, hot bath at the end of that banner parenting day, I found his dirty socks, six Lego bricks and a half-eaten hot dog in the bathtub.

Clearly, he spent the first two years of his life lulling me into a false sense of security before he embarked on his maniacal plan to strip me of my sanity.

To him I say, you are too late, my little friend. You’re the last of three children. My sanity was gone long before you arrived.

But I’m happy you’re here, anyway. Let’s just try to keep the food out of the bathroom, OK?

If I were to take the time to count, I would probably estimate that I say the word “No” approximately 5,386 times a day. Just yesterday, the following nuggets of wisdom flew out of my mouth:

No, you can’t take a ride inside the dryer.

No, you can’t watch me poop.

No, you can’t eat a stick of butter.

No, you can’t pick your nose. Or your brother’s nose. Or my nose. Or the cat’s nose.

This may lead some to think that I say “No” too often. And that may be true when it comes to my children. I have certainly heard that it is better to say “Yes” to your child than to say “No” all the time, and that constantly hearing “No” from a parent will make a child’s self-esteem take a nose dive and lead to all sorts of horrible future scenarios, from a career as a serial killer to never moving out of my house (cue my horrified shudder at the idea of my kids, in their 40’s, still expecting me to do their laundry and heat up their Spaghetti-O’s).

But I like saying No. I like setting boundaries. I like to show my love for my children by denying them the things that will hurt them, or make them sick (really, you want to eat an entire stick of butter?), or turn them into little monsters who think they are entitled to whatever they want, whenever they want it simply because they have graced the face of this earth. Those will not be my children.

And yet, when it comes to saying No to anyone other than my offspring, I seem to have a bit of a problem. Every time I plan to say No, it somehow comes out as Yes.

Yes, I will be a room mother for my 3 year old’s preschool class.

Yes, I will be a room mother for my 5 year old’s kindergarten class.

Yes, I will be on the steering team for our local mothers group.

Yes, I will start a Daisy troop for my daughter’s kindergarten class.

Yes, I will host a Halloween party at my house for 48 of my children’s closest friends.

Yes, I will host an average of two playdates a week.

Yes, I will continue to work a full-time job, volunteer my lunch hours and personal days to the greater good, write my snarky thoughts in my blog, and try not to fall dead asleep before 9:00 at night so my husband doesn’t forget who I am.

And Yes, I will finish this entire bottle of wine by myself. (To be honest, I don’t really see this one as a problem.)

I’ve decided that I need someone to funnel all requests of my time through an independent third party, who can help me decide whether or not the request is something I can do, or something I’m just saying Yes to because I’m having a hard time saying No. And if I insist on saying Yes despite that fact, that someone can hit me over the head with my empty wine bottle until I learn my lesson.

They just need to make sure I’ve finished the bottle first.