Mommies Magazine

Help, We Are All Being Held Hostage

Posted on 23. Oct, 2007 by Lisa Barker.

©Lisa Barker

You’ve got to be really, really ill to want to stay home in our family.  My eldest daughter had a fever one night.  Her head felt like it had swelled five times its size and her throat and ears ached.  Still, she dragged herself by her teeth down the hall to the bathroom and took a shower.  She was bent on going to school.

But she only summoned the strength to stand for five minutes.  She was desperately sick with the flu and reluctantly went back to bed on my command.

Soon enough, the four-year old awoke.  My daughter tried to stifle her breathing.  If he heard even the faintest noise from her room—like the death of a skin cell—she would be found out.  Sure enough, she inhaled and he pounced.

“Rachel’s home! Rachel’s home!  Rachel, are you home?  Are you sick? Are you staying home all day?” and so began his incessant chattering.

“Momma!” she croaked.

“Aiden, leave your sister alone.  She doesn’t feel well.”

There is no one who looks more disappointed than our four-year old when he can’t visit with an ill sibling.  And being under the weather is one thing, but being sick and feeling guilty is too much to bear.  Eventually, Rachel gave in and camped out on the sofa.

“Rachel!  Move your feet!  I’m sitting there!  Move your feet!  Momma, Rachel’s not moving her feet!”  He pestered her until she woozily sat up.  “Play Candy Land with me!”

She relented.

“NO!  I’M RED, YOU’RE BLUE!  I WIN, NOT YOU!”

Her head must have felt like shattered glass.  This is why my husband drags himself off to work everyday no matter how he feels.  He’s got an office all to himself.  If I had a room all to myself at home, I’d be in it.  I’m sure the teens feel the same way.

But there is no escaping the little one, though I’ve tried.  I have to lock the master bedroom door as well as the bathroom door to ensure a few moments of privacy, but sooner or later somebody picks the locks and I am found out.  Even my husband will ask what I am doing.

“What do you think?  I’m in the bathroom!”  (Oh, sure, it’s just me, a bag of chocolate and a stack of magazines to catch up on, but they don’t need to know that.)  Everybody has their hiding place and stashes of goodies to soothe them.

We don’t know when the four-year old took over the house.  It was probably when he started screaming “NO!” as a two-year old and then whined through age three.  We’ve given up.  We’re being held hostage – HELP!
. . . . . . . . . . .
Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of “Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane… Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad Parent!” and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly Mom™, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!

Continue Reading

Lost & Found: One Mind

Posted on 23. Oct, 2007 by Lisa Barker.

©Lisa Barker

Many times my husband will come home from work and ask me how my day went and I will tell him, “I know I was busy all day, but I don’t have any idea what I did!”

Well, I finally figured it out.  I’m not losing my memory I’m losing my mind.

Every day I make a list of things to do and every day several things get crossed off the list, but I can’t even remember doing them.  Now I know why.  My four-year old has been checking things off my list behind my back.

See, I told you kids are out to get their parents by giving them gray hair and dementia!

Another thing he does is un-do everything I’ve done right after I’ve done it.  I’ll clear the table, leave the room to fold laundry, then come back and see the table set again.  While I’m second guessing myself in the dining room, he’ll be in the hallway dumping clean clothes into the hamper.

I think he’s ready for school.  It’s time that he messed with the mind of some other adult.  The teacher will collect papers, then turn around and see more papers to collect.  Where did they come from?

While she’s collecting those papers, my son will be taking out blocks.  Before she sees who did that he’ll be doling out snacks.  And knowing my son he’ll recruit helpers.

I thought it was an odd coincidence that each teacher my eldest son had was only one school year away from retiring.  Well, they better hire a bunch of fresh recruits because his little brother has been a great understudy.

My mother calls him a leprechaun.  My sister, who calls her son Wheels, just shakes her head.  One of the last times we visited her, my four-year old tore through her house getting into things at breakneck speed, grabbing her cell phone for the great finale and speed dialing before she could catch him.  Apparently he was calling command central at 666-####.

This is the same child that takes off running the minute we open the van door when we arrive somewhere.  If we walk anywhere near a patch of dirt he drops and rolls in it.  If there are buttons to push and switches to flip, he’s doing it.

I used to want more babies, but now I just want a nap.  Some people hire a ‘mommy’s helper,’ but I can’t imagine having another adult in the same room I’m in telling my son what to do while I veg out.  Oh, wait.  Yes, I can.  I do that the minute my husband walks in the door at the end of the day.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of “Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane… Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad Parent!” and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly Mom™, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!

Continue Reading

Cooking Up a Comedy of Errs

Posted on 23. Oct, 2007 by Lisa Barker.

©Lisa Barker

On September 6, 2007 I, Lisa Barker, did not burn, cut or maim myself when I cooked dinner.

Don’t laugh.  This is a big feat.  If there were chain mail I could wear while cooking dinner my husband would buy it for me.  But he would have it asbestos-lined because, he reminds me, metal is a great conductor of heat and without him to look out for me, I might be writing a future column from the burn unit of a hospital somewhere.

So the next day I ventured into the kitchen, perhaps with a bit too much confidence, and burned my finger and stabbed it twice before I got dinner to the table.

My body is a battlefield of scars and nicks from the culinary wars.  The end result is usually a great meal, but not without sacrifice.

Take cheese graters for example.  I never know which knuckle I’m going to sacrifice that day.  Hot oil.  That’s a burn waiting to happen whether it’s a splash, a spill or worse, a deep fried fingertip.  So I try to limit the amount of deep fried food we eat—for my own longevity.  I don’t think our insurance covers accidentally french-frying yourself.

I can’t even cook toast without injuring myself.  How, you might ask?  It’s very simple.  My hand is drawn to the hottest spot on the toaster.  Yeah, that’s right—the part where the bread is supposed to go.

The most injuries happen just before I serve.  It never fails.  While kids are clamoring and tripping over themselves to either help or get first dibs on the food, Mom is earning a new scar.  I’m in a hurry and the kids are congregating and the same thing happens every night.

“Mom, what’s for dinner?”

“Food!” everyone else replies.

I don’t have to say anything anymore because the rest of the family chimes in to give the same answers to the same questions asked every night while I drop a hot potato pancake on my foot.

“What kind of food?”

“Edible food!” they chorus, while I cut my hand on the sharp edge of the lid of the applesauce can.

“What did you do now, Woman?”  My husband is tallying the bruises, blisters and cuts for the evening.

“Nothing,” I always say.

“Do you need any help?”

“No, I can kill myself just fine on my own.”

Later the kids are inspecting the sausages carefully and wondering out loud if any looks like a finger.  “Tastes like chicken, right?”

You know, after an evening of this I need something I can do to relax.  My husband suggested I get a hobby.  I like to do home improvements.

So I bought power tools….

. . . . . . . . . . .
Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of “Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane… Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad Parent!” and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly Mom™, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!

Continue Reading

Look Out! It’s The Estrogen Express

Posted on 23. Oct, 2007 by Lisa Barker.

©Lisa Barker

My husband is a manly man.  He takes great pride in being the head of the household and he does a great job as a husband and father.  I don’t mind deferring to him…but he’s about to be dethroned.

There are three women living in our house.  Any sane man will tell you that that is two women too many.  No longer will Mars rule this household because Venus is rising.

Very soon the moods of we women will wear down my stalwart husband and drive him underground into the dark recesses of a male mind hiding behind the sandbag wall of computer games and sports.  This is the season when the head male of the household learns to grunt and retreat, while the lionesses roar…and burst into tears, their emotions in sync, locked together like train cars charging through the night.  It’s the Estrogen Express.

Already, my daughters and I make late night runs to the store for chocolate, the darker the better.  And don’t be thinking about touching that ice cream.  It’s ours.

Oh, we make sure there is some token bucket of ice cream out there for the men folk, but it’s one bucket for the three of them and one for each of us.  And chips.

And yes, we cry.  A good cry never did anyone any harm.  And we don’t have to have a reason for crying.  We just do it.

We also hug.  And we fall over each other cooing and crooning over babies, puppies and kittens because they’re so cute!  Because instinctively we know how precious life is.  We have the capacity to bring forth life.  We have power. 

We have cramps.

So stay out of our way.  No, wait!  Make us orange juice and pick us up some headache tablets.  And those other things.  You know, the ones with wings, but not too long, or too thin!  And no perfumes, but make sure there are at least 18 in a pack.

Please don’t grumble.  Just turn up your collar and pull your hat down low and go.  Be back soon.  Thanks for running to the store.

Now let us be.  Let sleeping lionesses lay.  It won’t be long before these days pass and storms gather again, some exploding into thunder and lightning, others passing quicker than you can blink.

Don’t flinch.  We just want to hug you.  We love you.  Really.  You did remember to pick up that magazine and a Crunch bar, right?  Well, did you??  How could you forget!  You don’t love me, do you?

No, that’s okay.  I’m fine.  Really.  Nothing’s wrong.

If you really loved me, you’d know what the matter was.

And so it happens.  The Estrogen Express has run down another man.

. . . . . . . . . . .
Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of “Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane… Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad Parent!” and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly Mom™, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!

Continue Reading

Top Signs of Volunteer Burn-out

Posted on 23. Oct, 2007 by Lisa Barker.

©Lisa Barker

One of the best things parents can do for their children is to volunteer in the classroom or for an after school sport or club.  But sometimes parents, especially moms, can over-commit and that can quickly lead to burn-out and resentment.  Post the following list on your refrigerator to help keep your volunteerism in a healthy range.
You might have volunteer burn-out if.
 
1.  You know the teacher’s planner better than she does and she has to ask you where to find such and such in her classroom.
 
2.  Whenever you eat pasta you think of a dozen wearable art projects you can make with it.
 
3.  On the average there are more kids at your house daily than you have actually given birth to.
 
4.  You have a PDA to keep track of all the things you volunteer for.
 
5.  Your husband, sitting next to you, has to call you on his cell phone just to schedule some snuggle time.and you have to clear it with the P.T.O. first.
 
6.  Whenever you hear the timer on the stove or the alarm in the morning you snarl because it reminds you of how much time you DON’T have.

7.  You’ve started volunteering for more projects to get out of the ones you are already committed to.

8.  You realize that you’re in this for life, which is funny because you no longer even have one.
 
9.  You spend more evenings out than you do at home but you’re not having any fun.
 
10.  You’re away from home so much you need to be reminded where it is.

11.  You know exactly how many days, hours and minutes until the next holiday break.
 
12.  You’re thinking of committing a petty crime so it will show up on your next background check and prevent you from volunteering.
 
13.  Your child innocently asks for dinner and you give a thirty-minute speech on how all you do is give and you’ve got nothing left to give.

14.  You fantasize about sending a bill for your time to those you volunteer for or wonder if your time and talent are worthy of a tax write-off.

15.  That sarcastic voice in your head is demanding to be heard and you’re only too happy to oblige.

16.  Every time somebody praises you for your volunteer work you eye them suspiciously, certain that they will give you more to do.

17.  You’ve decided that the Golden Rule is for sado-masochists.

18.  The kids want you to volunteer for some activities on the weekend.  At home.
 
19.  You’ve contacted the witness relocation program to hide you from the committee chairperson.

20.  You’re thinking of going back to work full-time just to cut down on your workload.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of “Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane… Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad Parent!” and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly Mom™, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!

Continue Reading

Signs That You Are a Chocoholic

Posted on 23. Oct, 2007 by Lisa Barker.

©Lisa Barker

1.  You like to dip strawberries, cherries and bananas in chocolate so you start experimenting at dinner with broccoli and cauliflower substituting chocolate for cheese.

2.  You buy a bottle of chocolate syrup and carry it around in a small paper bag for a quick nip when you need it.

3.  You pour yourself a cup of coffee in the morning and use twelve chocolate spoons.  You never touch the coffee.

4.  You were delighted to discover that they make a chocolate bar for PMS, so you buy yourself three every month to get you through pre-menstrual, present-menstrual and post-menstrual syndrome.

5.  Your significant other buys you a five-pound box of chocolate for Valentine’s Day and you eat the whole thing in one night.  The next morning you try to call in sick, but you can’t dial the phone because your sugar levels are so high you can’t calm the tremors.  So you nurse yourself back to health with little nips from that chocolate syrup bottle.

6.  Whenever you see ‘Back-to-school’ advertisements you drool because you know there will soon be kids at your door selling the World’s Finest Chocolate bars for a dollar each.

7.  When kids come to your house on Halloween you ‘make change’ by depositing hard candies in their pumpkins and withdrawing Snickers, Crunch, Hershey’s and 3 Musketeers bars.

8.  Whenever there is a morning meeting scheduled at work you grab a double chocolate monster-sized muffin to go with your cup of cocoa, then sit on the edge of your chair all through the meeting waving your arm calling, “Me, me!  I know, I know!” and they have to call a break so you can walk off some of the effects from all the sugar.

9.  You actually call it a ‘hit’ at three o’clock in the afternoon when that chocolate craving strikes and you need it to get through the rest of the day.

10.  You’ve eaten all twenty-four pieces of chocolate in your advent calendar by December 1st.

11.  You think the best after-holiday sales follow Halloween, Valentine’s Day and Easter.

12.  You think Hershey’s 65% cacao bars are for rookies and Lindt’s 85% cacao bars are for professionals.

13.  You think it’s great when you go on a diet and the breakfast bars, snack bars, protein bars, and shakes come in chocolate and you’ve actually tried diet chocolate-flavored cola.

14.  You plan to start a grassroots movement to get the cacao bean listed in the protein section of the food pyramid.

15.  You think the woman in the Dove commercial who’s satisfied with just one piece of chocolate is faking it.

16.  You’ve got ‘Chocolate Forever’ tattooed on you somewhere.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of “Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane… Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad Parent!” and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly Mom™, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!

Continue Reading

I’m A Soul Woman

Posted on 23. Oct, 2007 by Lisa Barker.

©Lisa Barker

I tried one of those self-tanning gimmicks.  It took me almost an hour to choose from all the products and if I had just spent that amount of time in the sun, I wouldn’t have had to spend twenty dollars on an experiment.

Everybody’s going to know I got a tan out of a bottle if it goes bad.  1) I’ll have a complete body rash.  2) I’ll look jaundiced, or…  3) I’ll look like George Hamilton.

It turned out to be none of the above.  Instead I developed a fascinating case of upper body acne.  Lovely.  Now I know what I missed out on in high school.

It’s been two months and the acne still hasn’t cleared.  It’s like my skin said, “Let’s party!” and my pores said, “Bring it on!”

You know a lot of women my age—pushing forty—go under the knife to look twenty years younger.  Ha!  I have them beat by five more years.  And now I have a sudden urge to read Teen magazine and join the Drake Bell fan club.  Okay…I joined the fan club two years ago.

Have you ever done that?  Have you ever expressed an interest in the younger generation?  You can really creep your teens out when you express an interest in a celebrity their own age.  Of course, you can’t slobber all over the guy’s picture—or marry him unless you’re a forty-year old and a celebrity yourself—but you can say, “My he’s quite a talented young man!” right?

Pbbft.  I have Drake and Josh dreams.

Now I’m not saying I need to start staying 30 feet away from children, I’m just saying that occasionally I dream of a television episode.  In its entirety.  I think the boys are cool.  I think they’re talented.  I think it has something to do with the Nickelodeon station being on 24/7.  I think I need to move this column along.

So I got the tanning products.  I loyally slathered it on and worked the cream into my skin.  I denied that I was on a carrot-only diet.  I gave up.  The inside of my clothes were not stained (because it washes off), but I certainly wasn’t about to let my husband see my grimy laundry.  “Geez, woman, don’t you shower??”

“Hey, I wash!”  I yelled down the hall after my husband, just as my eldest emerged from their bedroom affecting their best “Yea-ah, whatever,” look.  I hate to lose.

“Hey, I had one of THOSE dreams last night…”

“Mother!”

“I’m a soul wo-man, dada da dada da, I’m a soul woman!”

One thing is for sure.  I might be a pimply old woman with an odd orange hue to her skin, but I can dance!

. . . . . . . . . . .
Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of “Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane… Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad Parent!” and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly Mom™, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!

Continue Reading