Last New Year’s Eve we were freezing our asses off in front of her fire place. She had this brilliant idea to go someplace warm for Thanksgiving. Eleven months later we were on our way. She was smart and flew down. Us? Well we were cheap.

Driving 27 hours in a car with your husband and two children leaves you 27 hours to amuse yourself with random thoughts and would be tweets if only I was talented enough to tweet and drive at the same time.

Hour 1 wow the girls are being so excellent. Why the hell did we pack so much crap?

Hour 2 no it is not time for a snack (husband)

Hour 3 thank goodness for rechargeable batteries and this doohickey thing that lets you recharge anything while driving



Hour 4 husband and girls asleep, I have control of the radio and not one person is talking to me

Hour 5 If Connecticut is in New England and therefore obligated to be a Boston sports fan why am I listening to the NY Rangers hockey game and not the Bruins?

Hour 6 New York  drivers are fruitcakes.

Hour 7 Dude from Maryland, when entering the NJ Turnpike and the sign says DO NOT SLOW DOWN you are not supposed to come to a complete stop in the EZ pass lane.

Hour 8 Suri, How long is the New Jersey turnpike? (FYI 122.4 miles)

Hour 9 Boo wakes up because we stopped for gas. Abby wakes up because she needs to throw up. I guess NJ will do that to you.

Hour 10 Apparently Delaware has decided to balance their budget by having a toll every 50 feet

Hour 11 Maryland has a specific area on I-95 for DUI enforcement. But you can drive anywhere else on 95 drunk?

Hour 12 Virginia’s answer to unemployment is to hire State Troopers and place them every 50 feet.

Hour 13(3 am)  Holy crap I’m tired

Hour 14 – 16 sleeping as comfortably as you can in the front seat

Hour 17 wake up because Abby kicked me in the head

Hour 18 New York drivers in North Carolina are still fruitcakes

Hour 19 The Border does close. In South Carolina anyway. When you drive through the night and arrive at 7am. After seeing their signs every 2.2 miles for the last 50 this was kind of a disappointment.

Hour 20 How can the battery in the IPAD, IPOD, DVD Player and the IPHONE all need charging at the same time?

Hour 21 They should make turn signals optional in cars. Since no one seems to use them think of the money they would save.

Hour 22 I owe my mother a debt of gratitude for giving Boo head phones for her birthday. They were such a great idea we got Abby a pair too.

Hour 23 If you have to have a sign that says Bridge Ices Before Highway can you please have a sign that says “Hey you, the one trying to exit the highway from the left lane there is a turn signal on your steering wheel”.

Hour 24 Dinner!

Hour 25 I just realized that no one has asked “are we there yet”

Hour 26 We are so close….

Hour 27 how many red lights are there in freaking Florida?

The end of hour 27 we made it! Welcome to Cape Coral

Having Abby and Boo gives me a split view of the world. I am Abby’s mom–that typical mom doing homework, planning activities and navigating the world of tweendom. I am also Boo’s mom–therapy planning, advocating, educating others and most times trying to do my very best.

Being a mom of two completely different children has allowed me to realize that being a ‘special’ mom is sometimes easier than being a typical one. For example,  this morning with Boo I didn’t have to:

• Deal with eye rolls
• Have wardrobe fights in the morning
• Listen to her talk back
• Tell her to clean her room
• Get her to understand that clearing the table doesn’t mean just dumping the table contents onto the nearest counter
• And tonight I don’t have to help Boo do homework

Of course, I also didn’t have help her in the bathroom.  

Okay, I cannot believe she did it. DJ Jen took my crazy idea for a mix-tape and is making you all suffer from my craziness. The good kind of crazy, I think. I hope. Hey it’s Thanksgiving no one is reading posts this week, right?

Here is what happened: I’m driving along and almost got rear ended by a little old lady who couldn’t see over the steering wheel. In the background was Toby Keith:

I wasn’t hit in the head, like you might suppose, but it clicked in my head this song could make me go to jail. If I followed the directions. At least that is what Tipper Gore told our moms in the 80’s….

Just think, you are innocently listening to Steve Miller and realize that the cops will never catch you. So you decide to become Bonnie & Clyde or Joe &  Bobbie Sue….

After watching Grease for the 999th time this week you start to think hey the Beatles might be a good influence for Boo. You find Sgt. Pepper on ITunes and the next thing you know you are getting a little high with your friends. You begin growing strawberry fields while you see Lucy in the Sky. Then Don from Don of all Trades knocks on your door.

Of course you have no other choice but to RUN!

Thanks, Jen for letting my mix-up mind take over your Twisted Mix Tape!

Today I am thankful for M&M’s. No seriously. You are thinking um Kerri it’s the week before Thanksgiving and you are supposed to give thanks for all the blessings in your life. But I am doing that next week, for a special reason. 

Yet I am totally thankful for M&M’s. First they are the breakfast of champions. Okay, not champions but mine. They get me through the work day. On a boring conference call? Pop some M&M’s believe me you will feel better. Abby even ratted me out to the school nutritionist:

My mom NEVER eats breakfast or lunch. Sometimes she has popcorn for dinner. But she made me eat shepherd’s pie last night while she didn’t eat at all. Do you know how gross shepherd’s pie is?

Here’s the thing, kiddo. As your mom it is not my job to eat healthy. It is my job to make sure you do.

I recently started running trails. It is safer than on the road. Less chance of getting run over. Less chance of old ladies tripping me on the sidewalk. The fall is so beautiful. Leaves are on the ground. Life is great.

I had a great run….

Some of the issues I have with today’s music (man did I just age myself) is that the art of storytelling seems to have gone completely out the window. Instead they want to bombard us with sound, light and magic.

Forgetting that the magic is in the words that spring your imagination.

Barenaked and proud of it, the guys told us the classic story of a relationship fight. When you both know your wrong but it will take a week to make you say your sorry.

Taylor Swift, who at just 23 reached the pinnacle of her career. Friends, I’m in my 40’s and still trying to find mine. She has her credits for sure, but storytelling? This is one young artist that knows the way to stay at the pinnacle is to reach your audience.

I’ve used him before and recently. But no one told a story like Harry. 

It is so strange, but I find myself needing permission for me time. I feel like I “need” to be at work, Boo’s therapy, helping Abby with homework and hey being a wife once in a while. I have somehow taken this mantle of having to be there for every moment for everyone else something will go wrong.

Yes, I control that much of the universe. I find when I take time out of the day for something selfish, like a run or meeting friends without the family, I feel incredible guilt.
A couple of years ago I met Tia for a girls weekend. I felt anxious the entire time. Like I was letting David and the girls down by not being there for them.

David doesn’t feel this way. Don’t take that the wrong way, he is a great dad and husband. But if he wants to go hunting, out with the guys, working overtime or take a class he just does. He doesn’t worry about juggling or what it means impact it might have on me. He isn’t being selfish, he always makes sure that I’m okay with him doing whatever. But he just goes.

Last week, for example, he had the day off. The girls are at school and I am at work. He had six hours to do whatever he wanted. He took the dog for a 2 hour walk, visited his mom and whatever else men do get out of cleaning the bathroom. Me? I would be cleaning, shopping, baking, doing anything else other than taking time to just rejuvenate.

Neither of us are wrong in our approach and I know we are no different than any other couple.

A couple of weekends ago we were scheduled to run a race. He ended up taking a class and a friend went with me instead. It was weird, because a year ago I would have just not gone. But I needed it. I needed to check out for a couple of hours. I picked up my friend, we raced and afterwards there was an after party.

Cause after you run 3 miles you should totally drink and eat.

But getting there was a hard decision. It was a we shouldn’t, should we, let’s just go home….wait the restaurant is right there….okay we’ll go in.

It was both of us. Both of us were so anxious that we were not going straight home after daring to take an hour for ourselves. My husband had taken a class that would take him from any family responsibility for 2 weeks. Hers had just left that morning for a business trip where he would be gone at least a week.

Neither man was wrong, but neither man really ever second guessed their choice. Here we were second guessing if we should have lunch!

We sat and talked about just that, how when we were wives we never worried about making sure there was food in the house, the laundry was done or if we were meeting friends after work.

Then we had children, moved our husbands into a role where we are now responsible for their meals, clean laundry and the inability to think for themselves (this never occurred to us as wives). We became self-imposed hermits, needing permission to do something without our families. We have inadvertently moved ourselves into this role where the family cannot survive without us for 2 hours.

We stopped being women and became the all-powerful mom.

Oh no! our minds say, will they eat? Will they be okay? Will the be able to wipe their own asses? (Okay that was my thought, probably not anyone else would think their family was that inept). But I am sure all of us at one time or another thought: How will they survive without our constant presence!!!!

David is more than capable of taking care of himself and whomever he needs to be responsible. Yet when either girl needs something (even a glass of water) my name is called.

But I am getting better. Okay, not better but improving. I raced and had a fabulous lunch with my friend. Last weekend I met a new friend for a much needed run. Tonight I am meeting a friend for dinner. I am leaving David home alone with the girls. Mind you, the poor man has been alone with them all day because of the Holiday. But I am not feeling guilty at all. I am going out for Kerri time.

Okay, I’m feeling a little guilty.

Since life is beyond crazy I am taking 5 minutes out of my day to write. Just write with a one word prompt: Truth

Ready, set, go….

We teach our children to tell the truth and then we promptly lie to them. We tell them to believe in  the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Great Pumpkin.

We tell our children that everyone is accepting. We tell them that they are not supposed make fun of people. And then we chuckle as we watch a person with CP stumble.

We tell our children to be grateful for what they have and then strive to keep up with the neighbors.

We tell our children to hurry up already and mature. And then we cry when they no longer believe.

We tell our children to dream big and forget to tell them that it takes more than just wishes to make dreams come true.

We let our children believe that their parents are perfect and then they watch us fail at keeping the truth.

The truth is difficult and hard to do. As a parent I find I stumble, a lot, with truth. I want my girls to believe for as long as possible in their dreams. I want to be that perfect parent, the one that doesn’t fail.

And I am so sorry that it takes having a child of your own to learn how to forgive your parents for their mistakes in trying to teach you truth.

End.

I have been hungry.

I have been homeless. Not once or twice.

I am so incredibly lucky because now I am in a place in my life that I know that unless the world goes completely askew my children will never know what it is like to go without M&M’s.

It sounds stupid. But unless you have ever been hungry or homeless M&M’s on the counter mean you are safe and secure.

I have good parents. Not great. They are human. My mom did the best she could for us. She made sacrifices even to this day I might not know about. But I remember being young and scared and wondering why I was in this hell hole. I blamed her for things that were beyond her control.

As a mom I now know she did the very best she could. God, I hope she isn’t reading this post. Seriously I love her and she was awesome. I just didn’t appreciate it at 12 and homeless.

I remember thinking life wasn’t worth living. I am so glad I was wrong. I am so freaking glad that my mom was strong and kept our family together despite all odds.

Today there are over 600,000 people who are homeless. There are so many people who are hungry. Scary Mommy has started a program called “The Thanksgiving Project“. Her goal is that no family should go Thanksgiving without a meal. Our Church is doing a food drive to the same end. But this is real and timely and more importantly needed.

Have you ever forgone a meal so your child could eat? My mom did. I did so my siblings could. Being hungry, frankly sucks.

Today you have a choice. To give to a family in need. 100% of the proceeds directly goes to a family. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible. If you don’t do this, do something locally. I know times are tough. This economy is awful, we are without jobs and scrimping our pennies to get by. Look through your cabinets and decide what you can give to your local food pantry.

We are not hungry. At least I am not. So I am sponsoring a family this year. It is not even November 6th and they have more families than donors. Currently there are 238 families on the wait list.

What are you eating this Thanksgiving?

Remember I wrote about Abby and David doing a word problem? It went like this:

Bob has 3 apples. Susan has 9 more apples than Bob. If Susan has 20 apples how many does Bob have?

David: 3
Abby: I have no idea.
Me: 11

David: No, he has 3 it says it right THERE. This is a trick question!

Last night we watched the movie Little Big League. For all you suffering from 4th grade math homework (or heck any homework) this one’s for you!