Kris Kringle Style

Here's something to entertain you while you wait for our new layout! Happy Holidays!

Hello Friends & Fans of Mommy Confessions. As you may have noticed, our site is temporarily under construction as we gear up for a new format to be introduced in 2013. We've enjoyed the last 5 years with all of you so much, but it was time for some changes. Have a wonderful holiday season and we will see all of you in 2013. 

School Days, School Days

Confession: I love my kids, but....

I am not having a hard time saying goodbye to the summer! Sure I'll miss the cookouts and pool parties, sleeping later and a more lax schedule, but after almost 3 moths, I. Need. My. Space. For Pete's sake people, it's all that I have!

Just in case you're not fully on board, I've prepared a little helper list for you.

5 things that will help you say goodbye to summer (just in case you're having a hard time)

1. If you're a large busted girl- and lets face it I am, I have 2 words for you: boob sweat.

2. The earlier it gets dark, the earlier I can convince the kids to go to bed.

3. The 3 loads of towels a day can stop.

4. It's easier to hide figure flaws in jeans and hoodies than in bathing suits and sundresses. 

And 5. The #1 thing that will ease the pain of saying good bye to summer...

The kids will be gone for 6 hours a day! 

I realize this makes some moms sad. I assume they must be those with very quiet, calm, exceptionally well behaved children. Or those with really good drugs. Either way, not me.

Bring on the fall!

Why I can't wait for school to start.

Confession: Sometimes you have to cry to blog.

And today, today was a crying day. Nothing especially bad happened. No one was hurt. No one is ill. Just a routine run of the mill summer day filled with your run of the mill chaos. It's just that today, I let it get under my skin. Instead of relishing all of the good, instead of focusing on the awesome, I let the chaos bog me down. I try so hard never to do that. It's no good for the soul.

What is good for the soul, apart from spending these lazy summer days with the ones I love the most, is the approaching end of summer break and inevitable return to school.

The first thing I want to do once school starts is take a bath. Seems like a simple enough desire, right? To me too. Except I haven't taken a bath since I was 8 months pregnant.... WITH MY ALMOST 11 YEAR OLD!

One of three things is happening right now. You are gasping in disbelief- you are thinking about how long it's been since you relaxed in a hot bath- or you're all like "what the hell is wrong with you?"

Listen, I have blogged abut the subject before. I have talked about my lack of personal time. I just try not to do it too often because, well frankly, there are lots of people out there who perceive it as whining, and feel that I live far too charmed a life (nice house, able to stay home with my kids, healthy children) to be whining about anything.  And they might be right. But everybody has a bad day sometimes, and that's abut the time I remember that I was once a person before I was the entity now known only as mom or _____'s mom. Before my needs got pushed to the bottom of the list. Before I couldn't read a book, hell, even a chapter, until everyone was fed, washed, clothed, and put down for the night. Before a day without a shower turned into 4 because I was busy planning for Christmas, or a birthday party, or a Tuesday.

So yes, it has been 11 years since I have made time for just me. 11 years since I soaked in a tub with a candle and a glass of wine. 11 years since I had a scheduled time where I could work-out regularly. 11 years since I had a mani-pedi. 11 years since I went to the salon and had my hair colored instead of doing it myself while the kids napped from a $6 box of color I got on sale at Target. 11 years since I had an hour or two carved out to do nothing that has anything to do with cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundering, hosting, or even blogging. And now, for the first time EVER, all the kids will be away from me at school all day!

Sure, I get out occasionally on my own, and by occasionally I mean 4 or 5 times A YEAR. And usually the chaos and mess that I have to deal with upon my return almost makes it not worth it to go. Almost. Except for the fact that if I didn't take those few times that I do have, I might actually go totally ballistic. And when Momma's not happy, ain't nobody happy. Although, I don't think they got the memo around here.

Don't get me wrong, most days I get along just fine. It's a happy, albeit hectic existence. But once in a while....
Today for example, my day was filed with dogs (not just my two but the extra one I am sitting for this week- yes for those keeping score I did sit another dog all of last week as well), anyway, the day was filed with dogs, dishes and diarrhea. Not my finest hour. Still, I keep on keepin' on. I know that there is a relaxing hot bath just around the corner for me. Knowing, knowing that 4 weeks from now, in 29 days from now, in 696 hours from now, in 41,760 minutes from now, in 2,505, 600 seconds from now... I will get my bath.

I know some of you are looking forward to peace and quiet in your homes. I'm sure some of you would love for the endless empire of Legos to finally be toppled. And the parade of kids in and out eating you out of house and home on a daily basis is probably something that you will not miss in a few weeks when school begins. But for me, it all starts with a bath.

As I type this, I have asked the children to give me 5 minutes. 5 minutes to finish up the post I have been trying to write since last night. One of them is singing, another is poking me with a plastic pitchfork, and one of the dogs is licking my feet... so much for 5 minutes of peace.

September 6th. Say it with me... nice and slowly... Sepppptemmmmber 6thhhh. For us, that is when everything just STOPS! At least for one day. The revolving door (both to the pool and the fridge) will slam shut. The food line will come to a halt. And all that you will hear coming from my house, will be the sweet, sweet sound of running water...

Repurposed.

One day, I will inevitably blog again. Hopefully, that day will come before all of my readers, subscribers, and advertisers abandon me entirely and forget they ever knew me. Here's the thing- I have suprisingly few things to confess these days. As the kids get older (and more annoying) my stories go more from madcap hijinx like stalking the school bus on the first day, to stuff that can land me on human services radar (It's really okay to drink shots of vodka in the afternoon when they just. won't. listen. right?)

So basically, the blog is in a reevaluation phase. Gone will be the confession format we have known for so long. Gone will be the talk limited to my foibles and faults as a mom. And gone (much to the delight of a few folks I know) will be the white on black.

I can't say exactly when this will take place. Nor can I promise what the new face of Mommy Confessions will be. But, at least I'll have something to say again. And I hope that you will still be here when I do, as you always have. 5 years strong and I thank you! 

Mangia! Only not quite so much please.

Welcome to 'No Confession Wednesdays'! Or as I also like to call it- the day where I can't think of anything clever and appropriate for this spot. 

Luckily, or perhaps due to a great deal of work and dedication to healthful eating on my part (though luck is probably more like it) none of my kids have a weight issue. I know there are all kinds of reasons why childhood obesity is such an epidemic in our country, and someday, I might have a serious enough blog that I will touch on those issues. But for now, I just wanna talk about my problems. Well, yours too. I guess. But mostly mine- because that’s what we do here.

My 10 year old daughter is average weight and very athletic. My 5 year old son is well, about as average as you can get, scoring 50th percentile for height and weight at his last checkup. And my almost 8 year old is actually pretty tiny, weighing in at barely 50 lbs. So why is it that I feel like I’m raising a band of Sumo wrestlers (no offense to any of my Sumo-esque pals out there)?

These kids are eating me out of house and home!

I’ve gone from shopping at the market to shopping at a wholesale club so that I can get bigger quantities, to being nearly ready to just throw 3 troughs of food out on the floor and let them have at it! 

So, do tell, what are you spending on food? Because I am both interested for my personal peace of mind, and also compiling this information for my dissertation- okay I lied about the dissertation part, but you should still totally help me out here. I really want to know where we are on this. I have asked this question before on Facebook, and on Twitter, and the answers I have gotten range from “a mere pittance each week” to “taking out a second mortgage to pay our grocery bill”. I find myself closer to latter. 

How many adults in your home? How many children? Any pets? How often do you grocery shop? What is your food budget? Weekly? Monthly?

Please feel free to share this on social media outlets and with friends. There will be a follow up post at some point, and if you feel the need, you can comment anonymously- though I say “man up” and tell it like it is!

Thanks.

Signed, Pantsless in Pennsylvania

Today instead of a confession, we start with a disclaimer: This post is really depressing. For real. It's like what would happen if you created a bitching club and merged it with Whiners Anonymous and then took away everybody's Zoloft.

As for the title, yes I am aware that I live in New Jersey, but I am from PA and the title just sounds so much better than Pantsless in NJ, don't ya think?

Plus with Jersey Shore and Jerseylicious and Mob Wives and all that crap- Pantsless in NJ sounds like just another day of bad reality t.v., right?

So here I am, in New Jersey not Pennsylvania, sitting around being secretly jealous of other moms- ok not so secretly since I'm blogging about it. So really just sitting around being blatantly jealous of other moms. I'm not talking about celebrity moms or New York Times best selling book published moms- though they hold a special place of jealousy for me- for now I just mean every mom. Yes, every mom on Earth, everywhere period.

Why? Mostly because I feel like they are all getting so much more done in life than I am. I feel like they're all in some secret club of getting-doneness (shut up- I told you before- my blog, my made up words) that I am not a part of.

I just know every one's house is cleaner than mine.

I just know every one's bills are all filed away neatly in a cabinet and not tossed in a box (AKA vortex) next to the desk in the basement FOR FIVE YEARS.

I just know that they all have time to APPLY MAKEUP and comb their hair and put on actual non yoga pants or pajama bottom type clothes.

And I don't get it. What am I doing wrong? Or better yet, what am I not doing wrong?

Yeah I have 3 kids. Yeah I have 2 dogs that are like having an extra kid most days. Yeah I write, I blog, I cook, I clean, I wash fold put away and repeat...repeat...repeat...repeat... but big deal.. so do a GAZILLION other women.

I know moms with 5 and 6 kids who still find the time to go to the gym every day. The gym. Hello? Seriously?

I know stay at home moms who have 4 kids home with them ALL DAY and yet whenever you seem to drop by, everything seems to be perfectly in its place and neat and tidy. So tidy that I wanna "accidentally" spill my cup of Starbucks all over the freshly mopped floor. 

I know working moms who work all week, take care of dinner, kids, etc. after they get home and still have the energy to go to book clubs one night a week, and take the kids to the zoo and the park on the weekends.

I try not to obsess over this- as a matter of fact I have made not obsessing over it a mission in my life- to a point where, well, I am obsessing over not obsessing over it.

What the hell am I doing wrong? Or what drugs am I not taking? 

Because for real- I feel like all I do ALL DAY LONG in pick up clothes, put away toys, wash dishes, and feed people. 

I feel like the house is always a mess. 

I have a list of projects as long as my arm, knowing full well that none of them will ever get done. How am I supposed to re stain the dining room set when I can’t even get the stains out of the baseball uniforms?

Every day I set out with a plan- a plan of what I could feasibly get done that day. Maybe it’s pulling up all the weeds in the garden. Maybe it’s reorganizing the filing cabinet so that maybe, you know, files can actually go in it. 

But at the end of the day, I have done the same things every single day. I’ve gotten up, fed dressed and sent off the kids. Put in laundry. Emptied the dishwasher. Switched laundry. Made the beds. Folded laundry. Planned dinner. Put away laundry. Retrieved child 1. Made lunch. Probably more laundry. Retrieved other children. Helped with homework. Pretty sure there's laundry involved here. Made dinner. I'm starting to see dryer sheets in my sleep. Cleaned up from dinner. Gotten everyone ready for bed. I swear to *** I am gonna break this ****ing washing machine.

And even if I could pull myself away from the treadmill of domesticity that I ride every day, I still have my doubts that there’d be a shred of difference. 

You see, I seldom have a moment to complete a task before the children are bellowing for something. When I do decide to take a moment to say, write this blog post, I will inevitably hear the cries of all 3 kids on at least 2 different occasions. Usually the cries are proceeded by moooooom I want..... mooooooom I need..... or mooooom so and so did......... and there goes the neighborhood! I am off again riding the treadmill. By the time dust settles, most of the time I have forgotten what I had started to do, or like in the case of this post, have had to come back to it 12 or 13 times just to get it done. 

Most of this mind you, is my own doing. I would probably get more done if I actually waited until the end of the day to go around and clean EVERYTHING up at once instead of doing it every 15-20 minutes throughout the entire day. I’m not exactly sure who I am afraid will see a “mess” or why i care, but apparently I do.

Not to mention if I didn’t have a fear of leaving my kids unsupervised for more than 3 minutes at a time for fear of what they are going to mess up/ get into/ destroy. 

And don’t even get me started on prioritizing or organizing. (What do you mean sitting up pinning pictures of nice kitchens on Pinterest until 1 a.m. isn't a priority?) For real? By then it’s too late to get anything REAL done anyway. 

Half the time I feel like I am just getting by, living day to day, just trying to get through to the next one without the house falling down around me. Geez, it sounds a lot suckier than it is really. 

It’s just that some days I just feel like a machine. Like I am living life on auto-pilot and I don’t know how to steer myself anymore. Can we say- priorities- out- of- whack? I mean, I don't even bother to appropriately dress myself most days. I mean, I just have to get back into my pajamas later anyway! As long as there's no dishes in the sink, no dog hair on the floor, who cares if I haven't washed my hair in 3 days, right? 

Hell, I walk around pantless half the time because if I start getting dressed, the bellows begin. It’s like they sense the fabric softener hitting my body. (I bet you were beginning to wonder where I was going with the whole title thing, weren't ya?)

So as I wander the house pantsless, with kids screaming at each other, begging for snacks, and whatever else kids do, I wonder... CAN I BE THE ONLY ONE? PLEASE DEAR LORD DO NOT LET ME THE ONLY ONE!!! But, I fear that I am. The only pantsless, exhausted, frustrated, haven't had a manicure in 8 years, mom. The only mom that is so time deprived and organizationally challenged that she literally can't even put her pants on.

If it weren't so pathetic, I just might cry. But instead I will laugh. I laugh because there’s really nothing else to do. I’ll laugh because frowning gives you wrinkles way faster. I’ll laugh because I wrote this entire post pantless. And I laugh because after torturing me with the most inane requests for hours and hours on end finally...FINALLY.... one of the kids looks up at me and says, “MOM! Where are your pants?!” 

Come on Over to my Crib

So, as I have mentioned before, my sister is expecting her first baby. I am so excited to be taking the baby journey again, since my diaper days are over. My kids are 10, 7 and 5, so we are out of all things baby at the moment. Spending this time looking at baby clothes, shopping for trinkets and toys, has been very exciting- and a little scary! A lot can change in the baby world in just a few years. Seems like every time I shop for a friend or family member who is expecting, the products and services available have changed again. Some of what was cutting edge when my now 10 year old was born, is now almost obsolete.

Having this site, I get a lot of emails from companies who provide products and services to parents both new and old. So whenever I find a useful product or service, I like to pass it on. I always love the sites that do all the legwork for me most of all. Sure some may see it as lazy, I see it as savvy.
If you are a new or expectant mom who is currently shopping around for cribs and crib mattresses right now, I've found something that can help. A site that gives you not only the top rated crib mattresses at your fingertips, but also provides reviews, information on cribs and crib accessories, plus a host of crib safety information and answers.

If you want to know 'how a crib mattress should fit' or 'how much you should spend on a crib' than this is a site you'll want to check out.

It's amazing how fast they grow. A crib and mattress are one of the first big investments you'll make for your baby. Don't leave it to chance. Do your homework. Visit them today.


**This is a sponsored/compensated post. The owner(s) of this blog have been compensated to provide opinions on a product, services, or website. All opinions and findings are honest and completely our own. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are based on our first hand use of the products, services or sites described.**

Deja Vu

Confession: I suck at prioritizing.

Or maybe it's time management that I suck at. Or something else entirely. Whatever the thing is that prevents you from having to do the same 3 or 4 tasks over and over and over again each day- yeah, I suck at that. It's like deja vu all the time.

I mean, you have no idea how many times I do the same things over again in one day.

I mean, you have no idea how many times I do the same things over again in one day.

I pick up the same toys. I clean the same rooms. I put away the same stuff... over and over and over again.

There was a time that I used to wait until the end of the day to pick up all the toys that would collect around the house. I'd wait until the kids were asleep to fold laundry and wash dishes. That didn't last long. The constant voice of my Grandmom in the back of my head telling me that you never know when company might drop by, kept me from leaving the pile of toys on the playroom floor, or the unfolded laundry sitting on the dining room able. I mean, everyone knows if a neighbor drops by to borrow a cup of sugar- which happens all the time (in 1970's sitcoms)- they will certainly think less of you and spread horrible, gossipy rumors around town if there is an unwashed cup in your sink.
Still, for a while I was able to justify the mess. Having a preschooler, a toddler and an infant made it okay. When the neighbors dropped by (which never, ever happened) I could always use the desperate, frazzled, mom excuse. And that totally would have worked too.

But all good things must come to an end. Just like using baby weight as an excuse for that last 10 or 15 lbs is no longer acceptable when the "baby" is going to first grade, so too must you at some point reclaim your home from the throws of babydom.

So now I walk aimlessly through the house picking up a sock here, wiping down a mirror there, putting an abandoned cup in the dishwasher. And once I've washed off whatever that sticky stuff is all over the counter... I can go back and do it over again as new fingerprints cover the mirror, someone else has tossed their socks aside, and 3 more cups have grown in the place of the one I removed.

I really, really want to be one of those moms that has no qualms about having company drop by despite the piles of papers on the dining room table, or the stack of unopened mail piled on the kitchen counter. But, I can't. Something in my biological make-up won't allow it. No matter how many times I tell myself it's more important to have fun with the kids and play games and be silly now- because the cleaning will always be there- I still can't stop thinking about those 3 dishes sitting on the counter from lunch while playing checkers with the kids.

And the process never ends. Because once I go pick up those dishes, they will remind me that I have a load of wash to do. And when I come back from putting in the wash, I'll pick up a toy- a toy I just put away 4 times this morning. And while putting away that toy, I'll walk by the bathroom, where I'll notice toothpaste all over the sink. And while cleaning up the toothpaste, I'll notice a towel on the floor. While walking to put the towel in the wash, I'll notice a jacket on the stairs that needs to be hung- one that I hung up earlier that day. And while I'm hanging the jacket again, I'll see a piece of trash on the floor. And when I get back to the kitchen to throw away that piece of trash, 3 new dishes will be sitting on the table where the old one used to be....

...and this is my lot in life. Don't get me wrong- my house is far from perfect. There's toys in every room, it's totally disorganized, and I have every paper sent home by the school for the past month sitting on the counter- or stuck to the fridge- in triplicate. But, it's a managed chaos. And one I'll have to deal with until my kids all (hopefully) go away to college. Because, once they hit the dorms, they're on their own. And then I'll just have that one last "kid" at home to clean up after....

Baby Bjorn Giveaway

As promised the last of the 3 posts for giveaways for today. This does not mean the Blogaversary fun is over... stay tuned....

This is one of my favorites! I love me some Baby Bjorn stuff. And when mine were sloppy eating age, okay sloppy-ER eating age, this was awesome! Yes it is the Baby Bjorn soft bib.

No really. It's the only bib you'll ever need.
The bib has a front pocket to catch stray foods and liquids to prevent messes. It's mess proof. Plus it is soft and smooshy, unlike some other spill catching bibs out there.
AND it's made of safe, high-quality PVC-free BPA-free plastic that retains its shape while staying flexible. AND it's dishwasher-safe material is easy to clean or just wipe with a little soap and water.

So yeah, you know you want to win it. Even if you don't have a baby, I'm sure you know someone who does. Or save it as a great shower or new baby gift! I assure you, it's awesome. Now go enter. And share. I know it lowers your chances of winning-- but it's the right thing to do!

a Rafflecopter giveaway