Ok, I just canNOT with all this sexual misconduct, y’all. I mean - Matt Lauer? Are you freakin’ kidding me right now? I can’t even believe it.
I’ve grown up watching Matt. But not just watching him, knowing him. Matt and I shared some laughs - albeit unbeknownst to him - over his Halloween costumes throughout the years.
We shared tears through the unbearable sadness of the events of 9/11.
We traveled the world together through his annual Where In The World Is Matt Lauer series.
We shared the same disdain for Tom Cruise when Tom used that gorgeous mouth of his to blast Matt with an embarrassing misuse of his vocabulary by calling him “glib.”
A few weeks ago I was sitting on the train heading into Austin for the Texas Conference for Women. I spent the hour ride visiting with my new friends, the veteran train riders, and also reflecting on last year’s conference.
Last year, I was honored to interview Carla Birnberg, a local author and blogger. She and I had a 15 minute time slot, but she gave me nearly an hour of her time, and she’s so easy to connect with, that hour flew by.
The story is that your birthday wish won’t come true if you share it. But I’m feeling frisky, so I’m throwing caution to the wind.
Hopefully, by sharing, I’m not changing the course of my life’s direction, which is something I’ve worried about before: when I got my driver's license renewed one year and checked the box labeled “Organ Donor,” and I stepped outside the DMV, I was suddenly paralyzed with fear, worried that I’d just set in motion a new purpose for my life - to be the body parts for someone else’s.
I’m blaming the fact that I’m running late on Christmas prep on the fact that I was still wearing shorts until just last week, and I just cannot force myself to get in the mood until I have to wear fuzzy socks and pajama bottoms when I take my dogs out back to potty (I apologize to any neighbors who can see in my backyard when it’s warm outside, because I tell myself that wearing a t-shirt and undies is no different than wearing a swimsuit and coverup.)
We just got our first cool snap last week, so it was in the upper 70’s until then. Now it feels like winter, but this weekend it’s going to be almost 80 degrees.
Texas weather is a box of chocolates, y’all.
Not to air out my medical dirty laundry, but I have a mental condition that you may have heard of: I have ADHD. I haven’t been diagnosed by a doctor, but trust me: it’s obvious.
I fill my days with all the hundreds of things I want and need to do, trying to cram it all in, rushing around to keep the house together, letting dogs in and out and in and out and in and out, writing words for this very blog, with the hope of making other moms realize we’re all dealing with the same B.S., and that, yes, they are “doing it right,” whatever that means, and that it’s totally okay that their kids think their name is “Ja-Co-Li-Coo-Dammit!” because - by the end of the day, our brains are just piles of slop.
A week or so ago, a young man that goes to my son’s high school was arrested for graffitiing a terroristic threat on the school’s bathroom wall. I texted a picture of the kid’s mug shot to my son and asked if he knew him, and he said that, yes, he did - that they even worked together, and that he’d given him a ride home from work a time or two, and that he’d told me about him several times.
I’ll tell you what irritates me more than the itch of a growing-out bikini area, it's finding out my son’s been talking to me, and I haven’t been listening.
I immediately searched all the local news media posts about the arrest, not just to fulfill my need for juicy gossip (but that, too), but also because - now that I was paying attention - I realized how close to home it hits: the guy's being my son’s age, going to the same school, working at the same place, and **gulp** riding in my son’s car.
Sorry I’ve been off the grid for the last week or so. You may remember that we’ve been prepping for a new addition to our family, and last week, Mark and I drove the six hours (one way!) to pick up our new little puppy-nugget.
We argued for the entire six-hour trip over what her name would be.
Me: I love the name Ivy.
Mark: **Crinkling his nose up in disgust** But that's a plant. No. What about Rio?
Me: Ew, no. Rio Braziel? No. That sounds like a strip-dancer. What about Birdie? Or Bunny?
My teenager asked if he could stay home from school this morning because - get this - he didn’t have any clean clothes, and he even went so far as to say, “...because you didn’t do my laundry.”
But yesterday - as a favor - I offered to throw some of his things into the washing machine, and he of course jumped on-board.
I promised my youngest last night that we’d go for a jog this morning, and I immediately regretted making that promise when I woke up because I had a screaming headache. Since I get them almost daily, I figure I might as well plug on through. I’d never get out of bed if I waited till I was headache-free*. Besides, I'm trying to be a role model of health and responsibility to my kid.
We’ve been thinking of cancelling our gym membership because we’ve been paying for a family membership for years, and we suddenly realized: that gym doesn’t freaking work.
Last week I was about to make a left into the driveway of my kid’s school, and the lady opposite me was making a left, too. She and I started going at the same time, which would have been perfectly fine, except that the lady behind her didn’t want to wait, so she cut around, putting her car and my car nose-to-nose before we both slammed on our brakes, puckering us both up in the anal region nice and tight.
I waved in my, “Omg, I’m sorryyy!” at her, dropped my child off, then raced home to get on Facebook and make sure she hadn’t posted something in our neighborhood page about me and what a horrible person I am.
We’re expecting! Not a human, good God, no. I’m almost 47 years old - my eggs are like the crusty old raisins you find when you pull your oven out to clean behind it once every five years, surrounded with fur and dust bunnies so big, they require vaccinations.
Scrolling through all the First Day of School pics in my Facebook feed a few days ago made me think about how different life is nowadays than it was when I was a kid. Not that I’m a cane-wielding geriatric, but I’m no spring chicken, either.
And, let’s face it, if you’ve got kids in high school, you aren’t either.
When my kids come home from school, they’re sucked into the zombie-creating arms of technology. My 8-year-old doesn’t even put his iPad down when he goes to the bathroom.
He takes it with him, which launches me into a full lather, because I’m worried the child has addictive tendencies - what starts now as an addiction to his tablet, will surely progress to a full-on addiction to booze and heroin later in life.
Let me start by first saying that the title of this post is not meant to discourage you from putting a 504 Plan into place for your child. In fact, we have one in place for our son.
The purpose of this post is to help parents understand “the system” and become aware that these services exist.
But also to make sure you & your child understand what the Plan’s purpose is: to give them equal access to an education, and what its purpose is not: to give them less work or to get them out of certain classes or assignments. Although the accommodations might cut their work load down or allow them out of certain classes or assignments.
I've gotten into what some would view as being a very bad bedtime routine with our youngest son. At his bedtime, I go upstairs with him and we snuggle up together in his bed, and read a story. Then it's lights-out, but instead of me tucking him in and leaving the room, I continue lying next to him reading on my phone or iPad until he falls asleep.
Isn't it funny how people will give you their opinions on this? "Oohh, you're going to regret that!" they'll say.
But I haven't regretted it, yet.
If you've followed my blog for any length of time, or if you've read my book, you know that the battle between me and my mouth is very real.
From cliche's, which I slaughter to pieces like some sort of harebrained butcher, to awkward small-talk exchanges that are so heavily wrapped in social anxiety, I invariably say something that earns me a furrowed brow and a silent look of confusion.
And sometimes I just get my words all jumbled up.
We went to Florida last week for a family vacation, and on the way there, I pondered whether I'd fit in my swimsuits or not (I did, but only the super-stretchy ones.)
I didn't wonder whether my foot fit in my mouth. But, alas, it does.
My teenager was forced to emerge yesterday from his dark hole of a bedroom because it was the first day of summer break, and we had to go get his passport renewed.
Just a few days before, I'd stood on the front porch, bantering with him as he walked out to his car, watching him pull out and waving goodbye to him as he left for one of his last few days of his junior year.
He hates when I do this.
"Why do you do that? It's so weird," he'll say in a tone that makes it clear he's disgusted by the whole thing.
An awkward and alarming email came through from my son's teacher last week, saying he'd been caught stealing cookies in the lunch line, and could I talk to him because it seemed a bit out of character.
I assured her I'd speak to him right away because - as I mentioned to her - everyone knows that stealing cookies in the lunch line is the first step toward a lifelong pattern of crime. One minute, your kid's pinching a few cookies, then you blink, and they're all grown up, showing colors and throwing gang signs.
Before I could get to the bottom of my kid's new hobby as a shoplifter, I visited with one of the other moms* waiting for our kids after school. I mentioned my sadness and concern over my child's dark turn toward crime, feeling like she couldn't possibly understand my strife.
My inner dialog this morning as I stretched myself awake: "Hooray! It's a school holiday, so no early rush to get lunches made!"
Followed immediately by: "Booo, it's a school holiday, so the kids will be home with me all day." (don't judge me)
Then, "Hooray! It's Friday, so we can sleep in the next two days!"
Followed by, "Booo, I have a dentist's appointment this morning."
I trudged downstairs to make my beloved coffee, then went back up to get ready for my day. I reached for my contact solution, tipped the bottle over, and poured my perfectly-brewed cup of coffee over my unsuspecting contact lens.
Kristan (Braziel) LeBaron is an author, writer, marketing professional, and the voice of the blog, Bring Mommy A Martini. Mom to two hilarious boys: one in college and the other in middle school, she writes “real mom” stories on life with anxiety & depression, and choosing happiness as a daily practice. She lives outside of Austin with her two sons and two lavishly kept dogs.
