Rad skillz.

(I'm good, don't hate)

Laundry: A Haiku

Perfect piles of clothes

Kid cannonballs in middle

Motherfucking shit

Glitter hell. I'm in glitter hell.

You know it's gonna be a good morning when you are sweetly awakened by the soft words of, "I tried to make a snowglobe downstairs and I used all the glitter and the glue and some other stuff I found...but it didn't work."

I feel betrayed by every parent out there. And by the Target cashier. I figured if the kids made a mess I'd just vacuum it up. WHY DID NO ONE EVER TELL ME GLITTER IS VACUUM RESISTANT?????????

I'll carry you.

I feel like I should change my name to Atlas. Lately it seems like I'm always carrying something. Guilt, remorse, anger, excitement. Holding stuff up.

There is literally always a monkey on my back.

Along with that, I feel like I'm a puppeteer, going along with the story, making it up as I go but never letting on to other people that I have absolutely no clue what the fuck I'm doing.

When I finally get to go to sleep at night I mostly lay there and think of all the things I did or said that day and wonder if anyone has caught on yet. If my kids are starting to get scared that they've been strung along this whole time. My filter between my brain and my mouth is starting to get clogged with time and good intentions and not work so well. Saying what I mean and having it come out right is starting to get harder and harder.

The only thing that seems to work right is the filter between my brain and my fingers. It works more like a sieve, filtering things into individual pieces so I can sort them in the proper order. It's pretty pixelated; almost like a shittier version of Minecraft (is that possible?), but it works.

The good thing about being the proverbial Atlas is that he will never cease to exist or stop doing his job. He's just out there floating in the universe, unreachable.

Ten seconds.

There is zero reason for silly putty to exist. NONE.

The things they don't teach you...

With Liam turning 5 in July, I've been paying attention to things I've never had to before, such as school. It never really occurred to me that things have changed at all since I've been in elementary/middle school, but apparently they have. Some people argue that it's for the better, and others argue that it's all going straight down in the metaphorical handbasket.

Personally, I don't think I have enough experience with school age kids just yet to be able to voice my opinion on what works and what doesn't, but I do know that one thing seems to be blatantly and obviously missing:

Life skills.

I'm not talking about skills such as interacting with others, sharing, whatever. I mean like, "adulting". Apparently these things started disappearing when I was in school because I was fairly clueless on a lot upon graduating, but now they are all but extinct. I'm talking things like how to balance a check book, how to budget appropriately, how to perform basic maintenance work on your car, cooking/shopping/nutrition, building things, how certain tools work, gardening, etc etc. I'm sure there are programs at schools out there that exist but it's definitely not the norm. I do agree that these are things that could definitely be taught at home by parents...but when is that going to happen? School lasts longer and longer these days, then kids come home with hours of homework. Combine that with parents who work full time and when is this teaching going to happen? No, it's not the job of schools to teach your kids how to change the oil in their cars but really, aren't basic life skills just as important as knowing how to solve an equation or edit a sentence? All the mathematical knowledge in the world isn't going to save you when you burn your spam because you're broke from not budgeting and getting ripped off from paying someone to do something you could have easily done yourself.

I don't want this to be a touchy subject because heck, not all of us have time to instill this vast HOW TO BE AN ADULT knowledge upon our kids. I barely do and to be honest, I can't do it anyway because no one taught me. But because I know what it's like to feel an inch tall when buying a house or going to Home Depot, it's important to me that my kids don't. I want them to excel in academics, yes, but I also want them to be able to take care of themselves and not rely on others. I feel like as a society, we are becoming so technology dependent that we are forgetting how to manually do things for ourselves.

Surely I'm not the only one that's thought of this, and I definitely don't have a plan other than just involving my kids in every daily activity instead of sending them off to watch TV when I'm changing the oil in my car. How do we raise capable kids? Is there a secret?

So here I go. At least for one year. I'm gonna try to school my kid. Pray for me.

Yeehaw.

People around here are all bent out of shape that others are decorating their trucks with confederate flag stuff in retaliation to everything that's been going on. I don't get the big deal. If you want to advertise to the world that you sleep with your cousin and you have the IQ of a goat, knock yourself out.

The contradiction of having a 4 year old

I feel like having a spirited 4 year old is truly something another person will never understand unless they've been down in the trenches with you. Deep, mucky trenches filled with laughter, screaming, elation, anger, mismatched clothing, chocolate milk and questions. Never ending questions.

Sometimes I feel like having a preschooler is basically living one big contradiction. Wait, sometimes? I mean all the time.

Please don't ever stop talking because the things that come from your awesome brain and out of your little mouth are hilarious and amazing. But please, for the love of everything, stop talking! The droning of questions from that little voice is infiltrating my every thought and driving me to the brink of a major bedtime chocolate binge.

Please don't ever stop dancing. I love how you don't care what you look like, and I marvel how every joint and muscle in your body was knit together inside my own and now serves to bring you joy and life...including launching yourself off the couch into the wall (thank you nature, for flexible childhood cartilage). But please, stop dancing, jumping, and squirming! The constant movement! It exhausts me and gosh I miss your naptimes.

Please don't ever stop being persistent. Your determination is a marvel and I can't wait to see the places it takes you. You could out-argue the best lawyer in the world and your confidence and stubbornness in getting what you need surpasses my own. But please, stop persisting you have your millionth cracker of the day. Ask me again and I will fill your bed with crackers and make you take my sorely missed naps on it.

Please don't ever stop being you. Ever. But please, bedtime, hurry up!

With love from the trenches,

Alicia