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Desperate Tears Times, Desperate Measures

Desperate Tears Times, Desperate Measures

Last updated on: September 1, 2015 at 12:22 pm by Calah Alexander

Desperate Tears Times, Desperate Measures 2015-09-01T12:22:29-04:00 Calah Alexander

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I had thought by now that my blogging would be back in full swing. Once I sent the oldest three off to school, I imagined that I’d have an endless oasis of time in which to opine on all manner of frivolous things. I pictured myself baking, playing with Lincoln, writing, drinking tea, playing with Lincoln, teaching him his letters, going to the park, drinking more tea, reading books…basically, I constructed an elaborate fantasy future unsullied by actual reality.

Because once the oldest three went back to school, here’s what really happened:

7:50 am: collapse on couch after finally getting everyone out the door to school

8 am: get beaten over the head by plastic Voltron sword

8:15 am: stop trying to ward off blows, stand up, get nauseous, rush to bathroom to throw up

8:30 am: resort to Netflix

9 am: open computer to blog, check facebook first for *just a minute*

3:15 pm: look up from facebook, realize school gets out in 10 minutes, it’s raining, and Lincoln has taken off all his clothes

3:16 pm: stand up to rush for clothes and the car, get nauseous, rush to bathroom to throw up

3:30 pm: pick up children late with naked toddler in carseat, feel like worst mother in the world, decide not to blog about it after all

Granted, that’s not what every day has looked like. I have done some adultish things, like joined the PTA. No, that’s not a joke. I actually joined the PTA. I realize that sounds out of character for me, because it is. But my friend Anna is the co-chair of the PTA this year, and she’s the only person I know who’s willing to discuss The Walking Dead (and now Fear the Walking Dead) obsessively with me. So I figured if I was on the PTA, we could talk about TWD more. Two birds, one stone. Or something.

Unsurprisingly, much like my fantastical life with Lincoln, the PTA has featured a lot less Walking Dead and a lot more Lunch Duty Logistics, which is not nearly as much fun as zombies but almost equally as stressful. Then the Ogre and I decided to simplify our lives by transferring Sienna to a different school an hour away.

Yes, we actually made that decision while sober. There are lots of reasons we chose to make such a drastic move (among them the fact that almost everything is an hour away, so it doesn’t seem quite as drastic as it would if we had, say, 10 schools in a 10-mile radius), but Sienna’s getting older and I’m less and less comfortable talking about her on my blog. Just because I have no compunction about blathering my personal struggles all over the internet doesn’t mean I can do the same with hers.

However, since I can still blather my own personal struggles all over the internet, lemme tell you about how I ugly-cried for 45 minutes in the car today.

I know this might come as a shock, but I’m not exactly the sappy/sentimental type. I don’t make baby books for my babies or save their first locks of hair, and I file almost all of their artwork directly into the trashcan. Never once have I cried on any of their first days of school. Usually I’m more like this mom:

So this morning, after I completed mountains of paperwork and watched Sienna walk down the hallway of a brand-new school, I was confused by the water leaking out of my eyes.

I quickly hustled Tank back into his car seat and joined the queu of cars heading out of the parking lot, figuring it was all just pregnancy hormones and would fade momentarily. But it didn’t. By the time I got back to the highway, I was full-on ugly-crying.

speaking of zombies

Everything bad that could possibly happen to my oldest child flashed through my head during the 45 minute drive home, from social embarrassment and isolation to death and dismemberment via tsunami (yes, really). By the time I got back to Ave, I was a snot-fest of hyperbolic anxiety. So naturally, I headed straight to the Ogre for comfort.

He took one look at my face and immediately attempted to ascertain the severity of the situation. As soon as he realized that “the situation” existed entirely in my mind, and that his unsappy, zombie-loving wife was actually having a first-day-of-school-cry-fest, he burst into laughter.

“It’s n-n-not funny,” I hiccuped, wiping tears and mascara across my face.

“Yeah, babe,” he choked out, “it really is.”

And that was the moment when I decided to simplify my life by doing laundry for 5 people, instead of 6.

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Thank You, Baby Jesus

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September 2, 2015 Conversations with the Ogre

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