You know the least when you know nothing at all

School has started once more! It's a time of silent rejoice for the stay at home mom. But whats this? Rose has moved on? She is no longer a SAHM?
Okay, I'm still living la vida mama. My rock star/deep sea diver husband is still on another long Gulf of Mexico 'tour' but something has changed. I'm in college! Remember that place where you graduated from long ago? Or that place that gave you those skills for that job you quit long ago? Or that place that I dropped out of three times before, still long ago? Yup. There. Though I had to travel thousands of miles and wait through residency hooey (oh God, I just said hooey, I really am turning into a mom, eh?)finally I am there. I have survived the humiliation of a hellish first class of a superfluous class, I'm still in school.
I did, however drop that class. I know I'm a yeller-bellied, chicken-livered excuse for a ballsy writer, but I'm trying to be gentle on myself and resist the temptation to take unnecessary classes and putting myself through emotional torture. I'll leave the thumbscrews for the folk's that want them. Excessive emotional trauma in the classroom is only good for writers without children. They have yet to experience the sympathy pain of a child stung by a bee, or one that lost a friend because of her own strong beliefs. Writers without kids don't know the short-lived victory over the mopping, only to find a child has played the 'wedding game' by throwing rice all over the living room.
On the other hand, they'll never know the feeling of birthing a baby for 19 hours only to realize that you'll never want to sleep again so you can bask in the love of your baby forever.
With that love, I have gained a new sense of purpose. I'm not just going to school for me, I'm in it for the kiddos! I have to learn to write (which day by day I'm feeling like I'm knowing less and less) so that I can finish that mystery novel that Magnolia has been hounding me for.
So, as a warning, my posts might be less and less frequent for a while and they might be dreck such as this. I'll tell you a story soon!

Clashin' fashion

"Wow, your little boy's Mohawk sticks up so well. What a little fashion plate!WHat do you use?" A woman at the gym asked me. I kind of think she was trying to be 'outside of the box', and dropping her standards of conversation to those whom don't wear designer workout clothing.
"Ummm, family secret. Generations of Mohawk wearing prohibits me from divulging the ingredients." I groan. It's not my intention to lie to someone that I have just met, but it's better than telling her the truth. And sometimes fashion products come from very different places.

Julian had been quiet for a few minutes when the panic set in. I rushed to the kitchen and found him on the counter, sticky forehead and a fistful of fruit gummies. Ew. I transferred him to the table where his tepid Top Ramen sat patiently, congealing. Magnolia had finished her sub-par snack and went to change for play rehearsal. In her attempts to be a Bohemian hipster, she emerged from her room, drenched in three shades of tie-dye. A loud shriek rang through my brain, converting itself into a deep sigh just before it crested my lips.
What do I do? Yes I want her to be original and creative, but when I have to watch orange and green wrap around each other at the same time brown speckles pink a visual induced nausea creeps in. I have to take a stand for fashion sense here."Magnolia, do you think that it's a little too much tie-dye?"
"But Mom, I look like a teenager. I'm cool!" And there you have it. How can one possibly dissuade another's ideas of fashion? Hip is in the eyes of the wearer.

And as Magnolia strides into the car looking like she had just been bludgeoned by a rainbow, I take another quick glance at Julian. He is still sticky and has something something on his forehead....
"Jules where did you get sticky?" I asked, not really ready to stomach the answer.
"Up there, on the counter on the sticky thing" He chimed as he led me to the culprit.
Waving in the air conditioning, there it was, the fly strip. Stifling yet another shriek, I plucked the dead fly bindi off his forehead and ran Jules into the bathroom to clean him up before we left for rehearsal and a gym class.
Fly paper has a strange consistency. Similar to burnt Teriyaki sauce. And the only way to get it off of hair is to treat the slime like you would bubble gum. Mayonnaise. That's the trick. We gave his hair a half-arsed scrub down and went on our way, his Mohawk unwavering in the wind.
These kids have a odd sense of style about them and for a minute, I thought that I should take it upon myself to give them some much needed fashion lessons....
...Until I looked in the mirror at the gym. Standing there, in all of my glory. A very stained white tank top with bits of sports bra sticking out around the edges, unshaven legs that were squeezed in to a pair of tighter-than-visually-palatable biking spandex and to top it off, a birds nest of three day uncleaned hair. EW! I think that I'll think twice about casting the first fashion stone at my children now.