Stay-at-Home Mom – Page 3 – The Cynical Woman Website

Why I Haven’t Posted Lately

By Cynical Woman March 2, 2007 March 2, 2007 Parenting, Sleep, Stay-at-Home Mom, Work-at-Home Mom

Here are my top five excuses…

1) I’m hip-deep in a new short story, and it’s giving me almost as much trouble as the last one. You’d think I’d learn. By the way, the last story was rejected, albeit very nicely, by the editor of the anthology I was submitting too. He said the story was wonderful, but because of the downer ending and an extremely unlikable narrator, he didn’t think he’d be able to convince the publisher to go with it. However, he said I had talent and I should continue to write. You tell me, do I laugh, or do I cry?

2) I’m tired. I go to bed at 10:30 PM. Sam wakes me up at 2 AM and then again at 4 AM wanting to nurse. I’ve been trying to ignore the 2 AM howling, but she still wakes me up, thus totally screwing any chance I have of sleeping more than four hours straight. I’m so tired that I can’t get out of bed at 5 AM, which is when I really should be getting up if I’m going to get a good start on my day. Oh well.

3) I’m lazy. Let’s face it, I don’t feel like doing anything right now. Today for example: I woke up late, didn’t care; I fell asleep after putting Sam down for her morning nap; I spent the afternoon shopping for blank books and gel pens, neither of which I really need. I just don’t feel like doing anything I’m supposed to do right now. I’m just in one of those moods. It’s probably tied to my writer’s block. Hopefully both will pass soon.

4) I’m busy. Because I oversleep, I’m always running late. Oh, and I’ve added something to my already full schedule. Cassie started karate lessons this week. Now I’ve got to stop work twenty minutes early to pick her up and get her to the dojo on time. So we’re a bit hectic right now.

5) Sam won’t cooperate. As I type this, she is latched onto me and slapping me in the face with her tiny little hand. She’s also kicking the crap out of my arm. I think someone is going down for her afternoon nap real soon, no?

Uh-oh. I just put Sam down in her crib and she is howling. She looked absolutely furious at my betrayal. Apparently smacking me in the nose while I’m trying to work is her right and her duty, and I am an evil tyrant for depriving her of it. Oh well. I have a steamy sex scene to write. She’ll just have to fuss it out.

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And The Absent-Minded Mom Award Goes To…

By Cynical Woman February 21, 2007 February 21, 2007 Baby, Stay-at-Home Mom

I swear I’ve got a screw loose. Yesterday morning after breakfast, I gave Sam her bath, rubbed her down with lotion, zipped her up in her snug-sack and nursed her for half an hour before putting her down for her morning nap. When I went to get her up at 10:30, I put her on the changing table, unzipped her snug sack, and said, “Uh, Sam? Where the hell is your diaper?”

Fortunately, she was only soaking wet.

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My Real New Year’s Resolutions

By Cynical Woman January 6, 2007 January 6, 2007 Parenting, Stay-at-Home Mom, Work-at-Home Mom, Writing

Okay, forget the “no eating anything larger than my head” list. This is the real deal. Right now, I’m sitting in the glider, nursing a seven month old bundle of LUV, and I’m thinking about the upcoming year. I’m only a little sleep deprived (Sam woke up twice last night, Cassie once), so I should be clear-headed enough to write something coherent.

Resolution #1: Do less. Yep, you heard me. I resolve to do less. Usually, at the beginning of a quarter or a new year, I usually put together a long list of projects that I want to complete, along with a detailed plan of how to do them. I do have the list, and it’s pretty long – a series of short stories, a novel to begin work on, some computer graphics, some animation, and oh, I promised Rick some illustrations for his video – but I am actually looking at doing less. How, you may ask? Normally, I work on a couple of projects at once. I dedicate my morning work hours to writing, my afternoon work hours to graphics and animation. Not doing that any more. I’m working on one project at a time, and only one. Sometimes a project may get interrupted, like say a short story with a tight deadline may take priority over the novel I’m working on. But that’s okay. I’ll finish the short story and go back to the novel. My hope is that by focusing my efforts on a single project at a time, I’ll actually accomplish more, not less. I plan to do this for at least six weeks. By the end of February, we’ll see if it’s worked or not.

Resolution #2: Draw a little every night. Even if it’s only for fifteen minutes. I’m not talking masterpieces here either. I want to do a little cartooning, a little doodling. Some of these cartoons may end up in my new paint program, Art Rage (it was only $20 and it works like a charm!) and get the full on treatment. We’ll see. But all I really want to do is fill a sketch book, maybe even several sketch books over the course of the year. Who knows what might come of this? At least I’ll be drawing.

Resolution #3: Set aside a little time every day to think and daydream. Thinking and daydreaming are the foundation of everything I do, especially the writing and the art. I bought a bunch of composition notebooks yesterday and labeled them all with the names of stories and ideas that I want to work on. I’d like to take some time each afternoon to just sit at a table with a cup of coffee and write out ideas for those projects in the notebook. J. K. Rowling actually writes in notebook at a café, and I love that idea. I can’t afford the café, but I can make my own coffee at home and write there. This way I can capture all those wonderful story ideas that keep popping into my head without actually doing more than one project at a time. I just give myself 15-20 minutes or so each afternoon to write in a notebook. This will hopefully save my sanity.

Resolution #4: Do a little physical therapy every day. Even doing just two exercises a day would be a huge help to my knees. And I need my knees, if I want to get down on the floor and play with my kids.

Resolution #5: Learn to relax and enjoy my family. If there’s anything I suck at, it’s taking time off and spending it with my husband and kids. I just about went crazy this holiday having Cassie and Michael home for ten days straight. I felt positively ill because I could not find time to sit and work while all the holiday stuff was going on. How wrong is that, I ask? I need to figure out how to take time off from writing and actually enjoy it. I need to remember that my family is my first priority, and work is a distant second. I don’t know how I will accomplish this, but somehow, I’ll figure it out.

Okay, I think that’s plenty of resolutions for now. I don’t want to add any more to my plate. And hopefully, some of these resolutions will take some things off of my plate.

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16th Anniversary

By Cynical Woman December 23, 2006 October 27, 2009 Marriage, Parenting, Stay-at-Home Mom

December 19th was the sixteenth anniversary of Michael’s and my first date. Wow what a night! I’m talking sixteen years ago, not last Tuesday. Actually, Tuesday night was something else too. Sam screamed through most of it, refusing to fall asleep in her own crib. I of course refused to bring her into bed with us yet one more night. Needless to say, it ended up being a long night.

But sixteen years ago I had one of the best nights of my life. Michael and I barely knew each other, and probably would have run away from each other screaming if we knew what was in store for us back then. Two kids? A mortgage? Helen becomes a stay-at-home mom? Are you kidding me? Of course, it’s not as boring as it sounds. I am not just a stay-at-home mom; I’m a stay-at-home mom who writes porn and has a black belt in karate and kobudo, thereby qualifying me to write kick-ass dirty stories during naptime.

Sixteen years. Who’da thunk we’d last this long? I wonder where we’ll be sixteen years from now?

I’m crossing my fingers and hoping for Mars.

Note: Someone pointed out to me this week that I have slacked off on my ‘art-a-day’ promise. Too true. Between the holidays and the sick kids, I’ve been too swamped to draw, even at the computer. That’s not to say I haven’t been doing some creative stuff. I just haven’t been drawing. I may try today to spend twenty minutes with my sketch pad. We’ll see what happens.

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Hair Today…

By Cynical Woman December 13, 2006 October 27, 2009 Life and stuff, Stay-at-Home Mom

Did I mention I cut off eight inches of my hair over the weekend? I got tired of Sam ripping it out by the double handfuls.

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Not Dead Yet…

By Cynical Woman December 11, 2006 October 27, 2009 Bitching & Moaning, Parenting, Stay-at-Home Mom

To quote Inago Montoya, “Let me explain. No wait, that takes too long. Let me sum up.”

Cassie’s ear infection came with a nasty case of strep, which I didn’t know about until she’d been home five days straight. Her fever finally broke that day and she went back to preschool just in time for Sam to come down with the creeping crud. Or should I say the creeping croup? My baby sounded like she was trying to hock up a bag of wet cement all last week. The pediatrician put her on antibiotics and sent me home with a nebulizer so I could spray her in the face twice a day with steroids to open up her lungs. Not fun. However, my best friend Mary, who is a nurse, says the screaming helps Sam inhale more of the medication.

Needless to say, I got no sleep for a week straight, because if Sam couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t sleep. She ended up in my arms all night every night. The less she slept, the more tired she got, and the more tired she got, the more she screamed, and the more she screamed the more she coughed, and the more she coughed the less she slept. And on and on and on.

I had such different visions of how this holiday season would go. I had planned to spend my weekends baking and my afternoons sewing doll clothes for Cassie’s Barbies. Instead, I got non-stop screaming and endless hacking and wheezing. My peaceful holiday is shot. And since I’ve had my hands full with sick kids, I haven’t been able to do any holiday shopping for my friends. So I got nothing but love for you guys, and in the spirit of that love, let me just say this. Stay the hell away from the Madden family unless you want to die a lingering death brought on by the plague.

Merry Christmas.

Damn. I just realized I missed Bodhi Day entirely.

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Still Sick And Teething

By Cynical Woman November 30, 2006 October 27, 2009 Bitching & Moaning, Stay-at-Home Mom

Cassie’s been home four days straight now with a temperature that bounces around between 99 to 104 degrees. Sam cut her first tooth last night, but a second one must be coming in right behind it because she keeps screaming all evening when I try to feed her.

Somebody shoot me. Please.

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You Know You’re Tired When…

By Cynical Woman November 15, 2006 November 15, 2006 Humor, Parenting, Stay-at-Home Mom

You brush your teeth with facial cleanser instead of toothpaste.

You use a tube of bright red lipstick instead of a tube of flesh-toned concealer to cover up the circles under your eyes.

You keep asking the other moms in the play group, “Has anybody seen my kid?” And they keep pointing out to you that she’s sitting right there next to you.

You put orange juice in your coffee instead of creamer (yes Yvonne, I’ve done it too, and you’re right, it is a complete f@cking waste of perfectly good coffee).

You can’t find your eye glasses because you put them in the refrigerator… again.

You call someone every name of every female in your family, trying to get that person to come down for dinner… and the person you’re yelling for is your husband (last time I checked, he was male).

You put your nursing bra on inside out.

You go to change the baby’s diaper, but somehow the clean diaper ends up in the gin and the dirty one ends up right back on the baby.

You give the cats baby food and the baby cat food… and you don’t figure this out until after lunch is over.

There are more signs, I’m sure, but I’m too tired to remember them.

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Stress And The Stay-At-Home Mom

By Cynical Woman October 30, 2006 October 27, 2009 Bitching & Moaning, Stay-at-Home Mom

Today is not a good day. I feel frayed and tattered, like one of those terry cloth rags I use to scrub the kitchen every night. I’ve got holes worn through my fabric, and lots of loose threads just waiting to unravel at the wrong moment. Then there’s what feels like a big knot of matted cat hair wrapped up inside me. Naturally, I’m also covered in spit up.

What was it Bilbo Baggins said? “I feel like butter scraped thin over too much toast?” That sounds about right this morning.

Between my parents’ visit and Michael’s business trip, I’m worn out. The house is a wreck, Sam and Cassie are all off-schedule and even worse, I got almost no work done during the last two weeks. If there’s any sure indicator of my mood, it’s the level of work I’ve accomplished. No work means no joy in my book. To top things off, money is a little tight right now, which bothers the hell out of me because I don’t contribute financially to the household – I just suck out more funds. I’m trying to remind myself that there was a time when I made 42 grand a year and paid half the bills, and yet I was miserable because to make that kind of money I had to put in 80 hours a week at a job I absolutely loathed. If I still had that job and that paycheck today, I’d probably still feel even worse than I do now because it would mean I’d be spending 80 odd hours a week slaving away for some idiot instead of spending time at home taking care of my kids. I try to remember that. I try to imagine feeling worse than I do right now.

Yet I still can’t shake that worn out dish rag feeling.

Self portrait, 30 October 2006

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The Perfect End To A Lovely Day

By Cynical Woman September 22, 2006 October 27, 2009 Parenting, Stay-at-Home Mom

I had a lovely day Wednesday. Wednesday is Cassie’s day at home with me, and a day I don’t have to be at karate, so I’ve decided to make it an all day play date of sorts, where I just focus on the kids. This past Wednesday I took Cassie and Sam to the YMCA. Poor Sam had to stay in the nursery, but Cassie got to go to the pool with me and swim for almost an hour. Afterwards, we went to Chic-Fil-A for lunch with Cassie’s little friends and then hit the local playground for another hour of frolic and fun. Cassie had a great time, and we only had one melt-down the entire afternoon. Sam just sort of went along for the ride most of the day, but she did get to lie on a picnic blanket with me at the playground, and she seemed to enjoy that.

After all the running around, we headed home, where Cassie and Sam both ended up taking a three hour nap. I used that time to work on some story ideas and do some drawing. I felt very productive and was in a great mood by the time both kids woke up and Michael came home.

For dinner that evening, Michael grilled steaks and corn on the cob (YUM!). Afterwards, I sat with Cassie and Sam and watched a Disney movie that didn’t involve a princess (yeah!). Cassie went to bed fairly easily, and Sam was down shortly after with very little fuss. As I put on my pajamas, I told my husband I had had the perfect day.

Then I went and broke my damn toe.

OUCH! OUCH OUCH OUCH!

See, what happened is this. I was all tucked in bed, snuggling with my husband, when I realized I had forgotten to do my physical therapy exercises for my knees. So I hopped out of bed. Sam’s bassinette is right next to my side of the bed, so I was being very careful not to trip over it as I walked toward a more open part of the room to stretch. I was so careful, in fact, that I failed to notice the iron bedpost on the other side of me and I slammed my left foot into it, thus breaking my little toe. The conversation between me and my husband in the twenty minutes following that event was rather interesting.

Me: *%&^#^$*!!! Oh &$%(^$&!

Michael: Sweetie? What happened?

Me: @#$@#%%^^#*&^!!! I broke my $%^*@#! toe!

Michael: Are you okay?

Me: No, *^%&@$#%! Do I sound okay? I broke my %^$&#$%#$% toe!

Michael: Do you want me to turn on the light and look at it?

Me: #$*%&$%#&!

Michael: Okay, do you want me to go get some ice then?

Me: %&$%*#@(^&%^$##%^!!!

Michael: Maybe you should lie on the bed and elevate your foot.

Me (collapsing on the bed and writhing in pain): *&^#$*&%^#$^!! I can’t believe I broke my *#&%#^*(@&^&# toe!!

And so on. Note that in my moment of distress, I naturally lapsed back into my native tongue – swearing.

So after a perfectly lovely day, I smashed up my little toe and now I’m hobbling around the house in constant pain. The toe in question is twice its normal size and very, very purple. I did go see a doctor, even though I didn’t want to, and listened to him as he explained that the only thing he could do is tape the mashed toe to the one next to it (which is something I already knew, and that was why I didn’t want to bother with going to see a doctor but my physical therapist insisted). I’m out of karate for the time being because I can barely walk. I can do my physical therapy stuff if I’m very careful not to knock my left foot around. And I can still take care of Sam. But most of the time I’m pretty much immobile with my foot elevated and packed in ice.

So there you go, a perfect example of the Cynical Woman truism. Just when you think everything is going great, something goes horribly, horribly wrong, and then Cynical Woman raises her ugly head and says…

Well, you know what she says.

***

Here’s the artwork from yesterday. My plan yesterday had been to continue working on drawing torsos and maybe start adding legs. Somehow I actually ended up completing one of the figures. I’m thrilled with the results. The pose is complicated, especially the angle of the head, yet I didn’t need to look at any reference guides to make it work. I was able to draw it straight from my mind with a bit of experimentation. Practice has definitely made all the difference in my artwork.