Bad Hair Days

Momsomnia

May 21, 2012 By Blonde Mom 3 Comments

Hubby snapped a picture of me as an exhausted new mother in August 2002. Yes that’s a dog and a baby in bed with me and you can see I’m passed out in my nursing bra. No I don’t recommend doing any of this but hubby was there as my spotter.

Young mothers who longingly desire nights of peaceful slumber as the holy grail of sanity? I’m here to burst your sweet dreams bubble.

Once your precious baby is sleeping through the night it is, for a short time at least, a slow cruise toward Snoozeville. Mastering the sleeping through the night milestone is nature’s way of making sure we don’t totally lose it from lack of sleep, because Lord knows we all need our sanity for the Terrible Twos. This dangling carrot of parenthood, however, eventually gets eaten by your own brain known as a disorder called momsomnia. This is a disorder that most typically affects parents of elementary school age kids.

Blame it on the end of year activities calendar on steroids. Blame it 40-something hormones. Blame it on that piece of dark chocolate you ate at 10 p.m. with a red wine chaser.

You can no longer remember the last time you slept through the night.

Your kids are well past the baby monitor and baby food days, but you’re once again not clocking in consecutive zzzzzs.

My endless Post It mental notes wake me up almost every night, or to be more precise, at 2 a.m.

This is a sampling of my stream of consciousness to do list during the end of school year crazies.

Did I sign that permission slip? Did we RSVP for that party? Did I miss that soccer tryout deadline? Did I pay for that field trip? Do I still owe the cafeteria two bucks? Do we have a dress down day this Friday or NEXT Friday? When am I supposed to bring snacks to school? Have I washed my hair this week? Who’s this guy in bed with me? (Ha…just checking to make sure you’re still reading. Simmer down.)

So here’s a little advice to all you young couples sans children.

SLEEP! Sleep like you’ve never slept before. Do not take sleep for granted. Some day you won’t be able to remember the last time you clocked in 8 consecutive hours of uninterrupted slumber and you’ll be a walking mom zombie, making turkey sandwiches and putting them in the bread bag with the rest of the loaf instead of into your kids’ lunch boxes.

Not that I’d ever do that.

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Filed Under: Bad Hair Days, Parenting 3 Comments

Lost And Found

May 11, 2012 By Blonde Mom 9 Comments

My marathon girls!

There aren’t many situations quite as terrifying for parents as losing sight of their child at a public event.

Two weeks ago we had a frightening incident involving our 7-year-old daughter, Miss A, at the ING Kids Marathon in downtown Nashville. I will preface this by saying that she was fine the entire time and was technically not “lost,” but 40 minutes went by from the point my husband watched her turn the final corner toward the finish line with the other 1st grade runners to the point he finally laid eyes on her again.

40 minutes.

The traffic going into downtown as completely backed up before the event, which started on a Friday afternoon at 5 p.m. – the heart of rush hour. It seemed, at least to us, that the inflow of participants had not been anticipated. We have come into town for Titans games and gotten to the stadium with ease. Traffic was so slow, though, that hubby and Miss A got out of the car while we were stuck on the off-ramp and ran the rest of the way so Miss A wouldn’t miss her race.

Because Miss C and I were trying to find a parking place the entire time hubby was with Miss A (finding her school’s tent, finding the starting line, finding her group, watching her start, watching her round the corner toward finish, then vanishing), I wasn’t really aware of the situation until she and I finally arrived at her school tent at 6:05. I texted hubby to let him know we’d finally parked and were at the school tent waiting for her race, which was scheduled for 6:30. He didn’t respond because he did not want me to yet know that he had not been able to locate Miss A, whose race began at 5:15 and who had been seen and photographed by a couple of her P.E. teachers crossing the finish line.

She should be waiting for him to retrieve her at the finish line, right? Wrong.

I found later that hubby had managed to get to the end of the “corral” that Miss A was supposed to come out of on time. When he got there, the kids were packed like sardines waiting for their parents to produce a matching number. There was one girl from our school that he recognized and she was at the front of the line, crying as she didn’t see her mother and there was pressure on her as other racers finished and the corral bottlenecked. When the mother finally got the girl after 25 minutes, hubby was able to ask her if she had seen Miss A. The girl had, and said that Miss A had finished AHEAD of her. That’s when he got really scared.

When we spoke on the phone again, he said “There is NO SIGN OF HER ANYWHERE, Jamie, and it’s been 30 minutes!” My heart had that sinking feeling, like a rock slowly falling to the bottom of a pool. I had to help him find her. I left Miss C, our 4th grader, with other parents at the school tent as her race was about to start, so I could help locate Miss A.

A few minutes later hubby called to say he had FINALLY spotted Miss A behind some marathon workers in the finish line area in the wrong corral. Because of the way they were situated and she was situated she had been virtually hidden. By then I was ready to have a nervous breakdown. I was so proud of her for being calm…but she had no idea that anything was wrong!

So, facts and questions remain:

Everyone we dealt with from school during this situation was SPECTACULAR. We are so very lucky to have the excellent teachers and staff that we do at the girls’ school.

Hubby saw dozens of first graders crying as they were waiting in the “corral.” They were packed like sardines, and parents waving numbers to claim their child were at least 12 deep. He said it was slightly organized chaos, and parents were busting through and pulling their kids out on the sides rather than wait their turn. He said it was like the floor of the Stock Exchange, but with kids. How did that happen?

When my husband was advised to go to the medical tent, he saw no injuries…just 4 children who were “misplaced” and a line of frantic parents reporting that they could not locate their kids.

How can you be a gate worker and have a small child right beside you who has been waiting for 40 minutes…and NOT be proactive by using your walkie talkie to see if she was reported lost or missing?

Miss A wanted to participate this year and I was all for it. The P.E. teachers at our school do a superb job of organizing our runners and keeping parents informed of the race day details. All the kids wear matching t-shirts and parent volunteers run with the kids. All kids are required by marathon organizers to have their names, grade, and school printed on their official marathon number tag pinned to their t-shirts, as well as have a parent’s cell phone number written on the back.

With that said, the logistics of having 7,000 kids and their parents in a small area, running in sequence in a short time frame, created a scenario that was one of the scariest of my life, and quite a few other parents, as well.

Have you ever lost your child at a public event? Were you at the Nashville kids marathon? What do you think could be done to improve logistics of crowd control and safety?

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Filed Under: Bad Hair Days, My Girls, Nashville, Parenting 9 Comments

Pneumonia, Missing Dogs, And Beheaded Possums Oh My

March 17, 2012 By Blonde Mom 8 Comments

It’s been kind of a crazy time for us since we returned from Disney World.

It’s almost like karma said, “Well now, ya’ll are havin’ too much fun all up in here. Let’s really SCREW THINGS UP.”

Thankfully we have been all been well this winter but as I type this my husband is down for the count with full-blown pneumonia (he and Miss C actually got sick on the plane home from Disney and although she bounced back he is still sick and is on his second round of antibiotics) and Miss A has a 102.8 degree fever. I had to reschedule her birthday party that was supposed to be going on RIGHT NOW.

Last night around 8 we were all in settled in family movie night mode when it occurred to my husband that something was missing.

Something like our new dog, Zoey.

Old man Jack was curled up on the floor by the sofa but Zoey was no where to be found.

“Where’s our other dog?,” hubby asked.

I panicked. We all did. I hadn’t actually seen her since dinner. And then it dawned on me. I had left the window in our bonus room slash office open. A ground level window that is NOT within our privacy fence area. This was exactly her method of escape from her former owners when we found her lost in our neighborhood Christmas break.

So this is how it came to be that Miss C and my just diagnosed with full blown pneumonia deathly ill husband ended up driving around our neighborhood scouting for a lost dog on a Friday night. (He took off with her out the back door before I could say, “WAIT! I’ll go on lost dog duty!”)

By the grace of God, Miss C caught a glimpse of Zoey bolting in the dark in the street about 10 houses down from ours and heard the familiar jingle of her collar. Zoey has one heckuva guardian angel. I was consoling a sobbing Miss A who was curled up on the den floor with Jack asking me pitifully if we would ever see Zoey again and I honestly could not say yes. Even with her collar and tags on, she could have been hit by a car or picked up by someone who wouldn’t do the right thing and call.

We gotta watch this one. She’s like an antsy teenage girl in too tight jeans hell bent on sneaking out of the house on a Friday night. Next time she could come home with a cheap tattoo and a pierced nose. And I’ll have a few more wrinkles.