The accumulation of stuff – especially after kids arrive – is a blessing and a curse as are so many things in life – wine, dairy, sunshine, toddlers, marriage. The new trend toward minimalism is shouting at us to wake up and see past the shiny lie of consumerism, but I can’t seem to hear the call over the roar of my 72” LCD, the battery-powered four-wheeler screeching through my kitchen, and the gigantic new-to-us Suburban sitting in our three-stall garage.
It’s Saturday morning, and I’m trying to warm myself from the inside out with a mug of lukewarm coffee. We’ve just returned from watching my oldest play football in the unforgiving air of late October, observing from the sidelines in our bag chairs, using our two youngest children as human blankets to shield us from the cold.
In a house filled with penises, I am determined to keep my feminist spirit alive. This is not easy. It feels insurmountable some days, especially as my boys age and I find myself shielding my sons’ eyes from everything that makes me female while they prance like tiny peacocks on display.
Marriage is hard. People who lead you to believe otherwise are hiding vodka bottles in the crawl space or a secretary on the other side of town.
I have nothing left to give, and it's only Thursday. My husband doesn’t come home for another 12 hours and the last 72 have been…heavy. I took the kids grocery shopping on Monday. By the time we got back, one was crying, the other was starving, and I juggled their needs, the 19 bags, and my piercing headache with little to no grace. I finished multiple loads of laundry and tried to piece our house back together after an exhausting weekend. I stole time away from my kids to crank out some freelance copy and served leftovers for dinner because who has time to cook? Stay-at-home moms do, right? Wrong.
My Facebook game is strong. I have a cover photo boasting a towering mountain range from our last trip out west. There’s a profile pic with three happy children and a smiling husband.
I’m learning to parent like I’m dying. Tomorrow, or next Tuesday, sometime soon. Death is imminent. And really, it kind of is. In the grand scheme of things, the hundreds of millions of billions of souls floating back and forth from Earth to sky, our death is imminent. We are all dying. Every day. Every... Continue Reading →
A few summers ago, I convinced my husband to join me, our rapidly growing fetus, and our two-year-old and ten-month-old boys, on a 3,500 mile, 13 day trek to Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. This Canadian adventure was the very first of what has become our annual (sometimes semi-annual) family road trip, these unruly journeys that have cemented themselves at the very top of my favorite way to travel.
I left on a Tuesday morning and figured I would find her by noon, somewhere after my second Bloody Mary in an airport bar. She’d been out wandering, but I was finally going to catch up with her. The reunion had been playing in my mind for years, but lately, her face was fading and I couldn’t quite recall the sound of her voice.
When you fail to learn a lesson, the universe tries again. After the unfortunate travel potty incident and subsequent sleepover from hell described in my last post, one would think I could have kept both my butt and my family at home for a while. Instead, I took us camping.
The Wandering Wirgaus 