Why taking two 4 year olds to a football game by onesself is not a good idea

Both my 7th Graders play football. Both are on the Jr. high team and both had their first game of the season.

It happened to be an away game and I most certainly was going to go....come hell or high water.

Hell happened.

On the way to the football game which is about an hour from our house Mick said he needed to go potty. However, there are no potties or stores for that matter on this stretch of road so he’s doing that hissing sound that people tend to make when they have to pee really bad. I tried not to crack up as the snake behind me hissed away lol.

As we get to the school, the whole thing is under construction. I can see the football field, I can see players on the field and yet, I can’t get to the field. It took parking 3 different times, unloading the kids 2 times and muttering lots of curse words in my head to actually find the open gate to the field. La Vernia ISD is probably going to get a letter on their contractors inability to fence off and mark things properly - HA.

When we get in the gate I inquire hastily for bathrooms. They point to the bathroom and then to our seats…..a good 100 yards away on the opposite side from the bathrooms. We are taking a potty break so as to hopefully make it to halftime and not miss the game. Michael is quite happy that the potty is so close and the hissing along with the “I gotta go” dance stops.

After we potty, we haul ourselves 100 yards down the field to our bleachers and we get situated. At this point Ash tells me that she left her barbies on the counter in the bathroom. Yes, the same bathroom that is 100 freakin yards away. Clearly I have lost my mind trying to be a good mom and be prepared to keep them busy. Next time I’m going to safety pin any toy I bring for them onto their clothing…they may look like a walking grab bag for all I care but we won’t have to trek an extra 200 yards when they forget crap. So I hoist Michael up to carry him since we are in a hurry and his little legs reduce the speed of a brisk walk to a crawl. At this moment I hear it. I see it and all I can think is “don’t cry in public”. My kid throws up all over me. Not just my arm, but my front, my back and my hair. In my purse too…..who knew that’s what those zippers were for. So we briskly sort of hustle the 100 freakin yards down the field to get to the bathroom. All eyes are upon me. Everyone has the same look on their face. The one that says “I’m so glad that’s not me”.

I’m remaining extremely calm in this situation and figure that somehow I will be rewarded for my ability to handle any crisis and not freak the hell out. We get to the bathroom….Ashleigh has narrated the entire scene very loudly in that voice that only a 4 year old can have that’s louder than a whole stadium. “Mom, why did Mick Mick throw up on you? Was he mad at you? Is he gonna get a spanking – please don’t spank him it’s an assident”, “ Mom did you see that man put his hand over his nose when Mick Mick threw up on you? He totally put it up there…it creeped me out”, “Mom are we going to go home cause I don’t want to go home I want to yell for Jordan and Christopher and be a sheerleader and not go home cause I tooked a nap for you and now Mick Mick is making us go home and I don’t wanna”….I prayed that God would mute her for about 10 minutes but no such luck.

I find out when we are in the bathroom that there are NO papertowels. There is a mens room on the other side of the building but at that point I’m too near tears and a bathroom full of 10 year old boys might just call CPS and then I’d have some big South San Antonio dad giving me heck about puking on little boys or something and it wouldn’t be worth it. Have you ever tried to clean anything up with Toilet paper? Anything wet? You know how the toilet paper shreds? Yeah, I was wearing a dark blue t-shirt that is now dotted with TP pieces all over it. I was totally sporting the look of the season right there.

Finally sort of clean we march ourselves 100 yards back down the field. Ashleigh still narrating, Michael still looking sort of green and me with half of my head sort of wet and drippy with TP pieces all over my shirt. I was afraid to leave since I didn’t know if this was a one off puke or if we were in for a ride. I was an hour from home and cleaning up a booster seat full of puke wasn’t really in the plan when I left the house so I didn’t pack any towels, or cleaner or a puke bucket if you will. Def. must have in the emergency kit next time we so much as run to Target.

We went to the bathroom two more times. He didn’t puke. He just tinkled a little. 400 yards for some pee…man, glad I didn’t go to the gym yesterday. Totally would’ve had to consume a fast food combo to keep my daily calorie intake in check…*snort*

Finally the game was over. I have no idea how much my kids played. I can’t ask them cause then they would know I was a loser mom that didn’t actually see the game. I’m sure you are all thinking that I should’ve handed my camera to Sydney to take some pictures and I did. It was a fantastic idea until she asks, “why does it say ‘no memory card’ on the screen”….yeah, whatever.

I get all the kids loaded in the car and head home. Michael is asleep by the end of the street. I am praying that we make it to the house and he can throw up all he needs too. 45 miles out of town I hear it. Then I feel it. It’s everywhere and it’s a lot. I was so lucky I was beside a brightly lit Valero and whipped in there, pulled right up by the door and ran in to beg the lady for towels. The stricken look on her face told me that I was probably wearing puke again in mass quantities but I was in Mom Mode and no way was I gonna deal with it then. Got everything cleaned up as best I could with napkins and found a tee shirt under the seat – what don’t tell me you don’t have random tees in your car? Put it on his booster and set him back down. He said in the most perfect little boy voice “Ohhh I feel so much better mom and I would like some apple juice”. Promised him the moon when we get home but just make it home please and set out again.

4 miles from home he puked again. I drove faster. He puked harder and I have never been more thankful than to see my driveway in my whole life. Showered him off, got him set on the sofa and we camped there all night.

He stopped puking at 4am ish.

Ash wants to know if we are going to the football game again tonight as she had “SO MUCH FUN”…..

I can’t wait for Mike to get home.

Vienna Dogs Choir

I really think that this world thinks it’s all a practical joke.

Yesterday morning the kids spotted 2 beagle puppies (not tiny adorable, but still under a year old) in our front yard. So I go out, put them each on a leash, assigned each child a rotating schedule of seconds to hold said leashes and called the number on the tags. Not a working number....I think I muttered something like "oh yay" under my breath.

Mind you, while I'm attempting to accomplish this, my dogs are going ape trying to play with these new and very playful dogs. If this town was a normal town they wouldn’t be able to see the dogs because we would have normal privacy fencing. Because this town is not normal they put 4 ft chain link fencing as the fencing of choice…so not only do my dogs see these dogs they are being super vocal about it. Which means that every dog in the neighborhood is going crazy. It was so loud I actually yelled at my dogs to shut the hell up (oh I was mature I tell ya). I ended up putting my dogs on our enclosed patio because then there was a house to buffer the super loud barking.

So while 5 kids are super excited and trying to fight over who gets to hold the leash and apparently trying to talk over every dog in the neighborhood I call the other number….which happens to be the vets office. Vet gives me the owners address, and it’s right around the corner a few streets down. So like every sane dog rescuer I load up all kids, 2 dogs, and drive over thinking this will be an easy quick fix and I can get back to listening to my children argue and bargaining for x-box in no time.

As we round the corner we see that there is a for sale sign in front of yard and from the looks of it not a soul home. I begin to knock on every neighbors house right around this house in hopes that I can get the story on this house of pups. Apparently, I look like a serial killer in my old navy skirt and tee shirt and flip flops with my son standing beside me in his oh so urban target tee shirt because no one is answering their doors. You must be thinking that they are all at work or doing their Friday errands at 8am, which I would think as well, BUT THERE ARE PEOPLE HOME BECAUSE I CAN HEAR THEM INSIDE AND THERE ARE 2 CARS IN THE DRIVEWAYS OF EVERY HOUSE I KNOCKED ON.

Clearly I don’t want to live in that neighborhood because if I was in dire need of anything they are either all having sex or are too lazy to get up and get the friggin door.

Finally after 3 more phone calls with the vets office who is trying to help me by contacting all other numbers from the owners, they get the owner on the line who tells them that they can't come get them right now and guess what…THEY ARE IN LOUISIANA ON VACATION…I'm then told that the owner will call me shortly.

Who in the world leaves puppies in this heat while on vacation???? You could tell that they probably dumped over their bowls prior to getting out because they drank like racehorses and were so hungry (I didn’t feed them because I didn’t want to cause an upset stomach which then resulted in a mess I would have to clean until I knew what we were going to be doing with these doggies) when they first arrived in my yard.

When the call comes from the owner, I explain to the lady that I can take them to her vets office, or a kennel if she would like because her two puppies, with my two dogs and 5 kids might just make me jump off the tallest building in this town…which granted is only 3 stories but I bet it would buy me a nice quiet stay in the hospital…. And just like that she suddenly remembers that her sister can probably come get them. (you must know when and when not to let your crazy fly. This was most definitely a case of when)

45 min later…we were back to two dogs. In that 45 minutes I found out that beagles will howl at everything, and will howl nonstop and don't seem to tire of howling. They howled so much that I really thought that I might start howling with them. I could have a veritable Vienna Boys Choir of howling if I got my kids in on the action too. Just for the record, I have actively marked beagle off my list of possible breeds should I ever be insane enough to get another dog.

I figured since we were on such a roll already I might as well double down and hit the grocery store...because that's always a barrel of laughs when we come rolling through.

Mass Marketing doesn't mean just anyone

Every once in a while I have been known to send out an email or two about a singular event that I know about or am a part of that means a great deal to me.

I try very hard to send it to only those that I know would be interested. Generally that number of people tops out at about 5. I generally know these people that I send something to. I don't send to people that I've answered a random question from...you know, my Time Warner account sales person. Nor do I send to people that I hijacked an email address from because I got it off another person's mass mail out. (FYI people, rookie move here giving away your entire address book...especially when they are business contacts)

I've noticed something that is happening with alarming rate of frequency lately. Maybe it's the industry that I'm in or perhaps it's because people assume I want to know or maybe it's because people have no real clue to mass marketing etiquette.

First and foremost, if you are planning on sending out emails on a regular basis to people other than friends and family (I am not talking to you dear sweet friends who send pictures of their kids or other updates...I WANT THOSE....I am talking about the people I have never met who got my email addy from somewhere and now send me career updates....in Spanish....cause no matter how I wish I spoke the language I do not, so your career updates are not being read) please do us all a favor and subscribe yourself to Seth Godin's blog. Please go find his very important article on PERMISSION MARKETING and make it part of your check list before you send out mass emails to people. Believe it or not, by just sending ad hoc you're now contributing to the same spam that everyone hates. You're no better than the subject lines trying to convince me that everyone needs an extra inch.

Just because you now front a band that was huge in the late 80's early 90's does not mean that I want the updates on your solo career just popping up on my Blackberry taking up space.

If you're going to send out mass marketing please use a very solid medium like Constant Contact. Not only is it more professional than you just typing out an email newsletter to your entire address book it also has the most important part of any permission marketing newsletter. The all important subscribe and unsubscribe link. By geebus at the very least give me an out to not receive your newsletter if I wish.

I'm not a mean person. I don't like confrontation at all so I really do not want to have to hit reply and explain to you why I don't want your updates of the week each week when I didn't sign up for the updates at all in the first place.

Psst...this doesn't necessarily pertain to just music. I get quite a few 'newsletters' from people regarding their political views or religious thoughts and quite frankly if we've never ever met and I don't know who you are, and you have no social media platform that I could google and learn more about then I don't really give much thought to it.

Again, I'm not at all talking about people I actually KNOW...I love all your updates and miss all of your faces and wish I could see you and your precious families more.

As for you peeps that couldn't pick me out of a crowd (no i am not the crazy lady with 5 kids following me) or if I were to introduce myself you would have no idea you send me 3 emails a week, I am in fact talking about you.

Clean Slate

Nothing like a clean slate to start everything over right?

In the midst of trying to import my old blog over, something technical happened and it didn't work. Since it's about 432 on my list of things to get done today I think that today is a fantastic day to declare the day "Clean Slate Day" and start fresh.

I decided to start fresh due to the fact that each time I went to update my old space I just felt like I couldn't get the ball rolling again.

Another thing that struck me is this: I am many things as are many women. I really don't fit in any specific category, nor do I want to. Yet as independent as we all try to be, there is a certain alienation that seems to come with being fiercely independent. I don't think many of us want that whether it happens intentionally or unintentionally. I think we all believe strongly in the power of women regardless of what label or non label we affix to ourselves and yet bridging the gap between all women is something that I feel needs a little work.

I know I don't have all the answers, but maybe I have a few that will resonate with others and might just help someone bridge that gap a little closer together.

Besides, unleashing your inner rock star could be a lot of fun....right?

*update - out of no where my old blog stuff appeared. This is why technology boggles my mind some days.

photo credit: Nathan Sudds

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

I won this......isn't it pretty. I can see myself spending lots of money at this site. I love cute dresses that don't look like I should be standing on a street corner.

It is my first ever internet win...and boy am I excited about it.

a little something

A Little Inspiration

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, It is between you and God;
It never was between you and them anyway.

Author Unknown

why average is perfect

i am certain that it gets very old that i say things are generally ok all the time.

i guess it's just that i know so many who have it so much harder every single day.