Oddball Weekend

This past weekend was one very large cocktail of oddity, with a straight chaser of strange. I spent almost 70% of it in the car. By myself. But, you know, with God. And both kinds of music! Country AND Western!

When was the last time I was in a car for 2 straight days, by myself? Probably half past never o'clock is when.

Further, when was I last in the car not passing gummi snacks or being outvoted in the selection of the soundtrack?

It was all very strange, you see. I had to drive to West by God Virginia for a period of 18 hours in order to see my old man get roooooasted by his friends and colleagues. As an included perk, I got to see the following, as well: - Baby Brother - Baby Sister - Baby Sister's Beaufriend - Stepmother - A great portion of elder gamblers in the casino where the meeting was held (quite similar to online meetings we have playing Goldenslot, really) - A great and startling cloud of cigar smoke indoors! Casinos are wildly above the law like that, no?

I was very happy to witness my old man receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for the hard work that he has been doing since, like, Betty White was a baby. He really deserved the commendations, but it also feels oddballs that my own dad is of the rank and file of people who can cut the proverbial greatest hits albums for their careers. I'm still a sophomore in high school, haven't got my learner's permit yet, so Pops is going to pick me up after my Key Club meeting after school, right?

The car ride to and fro was also accompanied by some powerful sermons that I highly recommend, including a 3-part Series on being a Princess by Janice Watson. Amazing, memorable, and one to share with your gal pals who've not yet married.

I also listened to one of the best episodes in the history of "This American Life" which is free for the listening, so podcast it up, y'all.

I arrived home completely spent and wickedly cramped in every muscle of my body. Wah. But at 4 a.m., I awoke in my own bed to find that my husband was gone. I wandered out into the hallway and saw the light to the children's room through a cracked door. There Loverpants sat rocking a little bedheaded boy, lullabying him back to sleep.

Wouldn't trade that scene in my own home for all the road trips in the world.

*** My handsome bro looking very money.

Tie tutorial with Mike and Mike

Pops, Stepmum, Sister

Look at my old man's many faces...

Brother cracking himself up

The old man keeping a captive audience

They call him "Super Stanton" :)

Hot Mess Mama Chronicles, episode #44

To celebrate the last full day of school for Baby Girl, we went to Sonic, because what says "Bring on Summer" more than a little cherry limeade served on rollerskates? I ask you. Beverages were procured at half-price. High five, Mom. You made it in time for happy hour.

We also made it with plenty of time to drop off Toby at puppy camp. Due to his extreme excitement upon arrival to Puppy Camp, the Tobinator, on leash, whipped around Little Man, causing the boy to fumble with his milkshake, of which he had taken one sip. The grass was then drinking 98% of the milkshake. The remnant 2% was left in the milkshake cup which suddenly no longer had a bottom.

Conveniently, there were neither wipes nor napkins in the car, and it was 115 degrees outside at the moment. I proceeded to enter Puppy Camp with one child guzzling a slush, one Garbage Pail Kid all saddened because he lost his milkshake, and a puppy that could have cared less whether this was a concentration camp or a Caribbean cruise exclusively for canines.

The Puppy Camp transaction was successful.

En route to Wal-Mart (judge us if you must), Baby Girl successfully punched her straw through the bottom of the slush. Within seconds, she was wearing the slush.

Now, any other mother having her wits about her would likely have turned around, aborting mission Wal-Mart, and promptly hosing her children down of Sonic beverage with which they had splatterpainted themselves.

Instead, we went to McDonald's and procured more beverages made of 79% chemicals and 21% sugar. Hurrah!

We then persevered with Le Mart du Wal where it is a good thing I did not lose sight of Baby Girl completely for an entire gut-wrenching minute, envisioning her already to Kentucky in a Winnebago with the People of Wal-Mart. Like I said, good thing that is a completely alien experience to which I cannot relate.

Now here we are, at home, where I'll be with my kids full-time for the next few months.

Happy Summer, y'all.

An Open Letter to Time Magazine

Dear Time Magazine, Glimpsed your latest cover (right in time for Mother's Day! ::hugsies!::) and confess that it has had the opposite effect on me than that which I assume your marketers hoped.

Instead of intriguing me with the provocative title framing the lithe figure of the seductively-posed mother breastfeeding her alleged 3 year-old, I actually sighed and thought, "Oh. This again."

Because, this sexualizing breastfeeding to the point that we're practically hearing echoes of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction when looking at this picture? So overcooked. And the toddler (who does seem a hulking little man for a mere three years) giving the side-eye, like, Uh, who invited you to milkfest 2012? Not really all that interesting.

In fact, the incendiary topic of Attachment Parenting? Just doesn't really razzle me. I'm not saying I don't believe in attachment parenting, as in, I don't subscribe to it as a philosophy. I mean, outright, I don't believe there really is something called Attachment Parenting. I know people identify themselves as APs and I know Dr. Sears would love for me and 10 million other parents worldwide to buy his book.

But I won't buy his book or your magazine and I won't buy into this "brand" of parenting.

You see, I believe there's just one thing: parenting. And parenting, like many other jobs and lifestyles and roles is about choices. Choices to do well as a parent, choices to improve, to listen to one's children's needs, to intuit when something might present a challenge for one's child, to surround oneself in a community of like-minded and supportive parents, to bear parenting traditions, to shirk parenting traditions, to grow, to learn, to share, to nurture, to be. A parent. A good one.

So while I won't be reading your articles about attachment parenting and all the presumed subtopics of mommy wars and cloth diapering and to vaccinate or not, I will oblige a question that I know for you was a rhetorical one anyway.

Am I Mom Enough?

I am certainly, doggedly trying to be. For my two most important blessings whose benchmarks and metrics are ever changing.

Their love is far more than enough for me.

Yours very sincerely, Kendra, mother of 2 Chattanooga, TN