idontbelieveingrammar

I played sports in high school. JV tennis and varsity soccer. But no one I graduated with would call me an athlete. I'm competitive. I like to play lots of sports but have never been great at any of them. Even after both kids I kept playing soccer...until I was taking my son to his own practices and I couldn't how to figure out how to juggle his games with mine. I am a member of the best gym in town, but feel silly in those classes and I hate the treadmill. I do however, love food. I also have the cholesterol level of a 70 year overweight man who is on an all bacon diet. And family history of diabetes and heart disease and am about 2 cheeseburgers away from shopping at Lane Bryant. And the easiest solution to that is to lace up my sneaks, download some terrible music and take a few laps around the block. And I'd come back home sweatier and with a clearer head. At some point those few laps became a few miles and even occasionally a few hours. Back in the fall a fri...

My girl loves pink, lipsticks, dancing in tutus, the Beibs, Barbies, dresses that twirl, painted fingersnails, purple, and any princess Disney has dreamed up. In other words. She is over the top super-sassy-girly. But she is missing one really important girl accessory. Hair. And even though her brother was born with thick full locks, she was bald. Like her PawPaw. People kept assuring me that their little girls were bald too. And that it would grow. Her first birthday came and went. No ponytail. Then her second and we could pull just a few strands into pigtails. And then her third all with very little progress on the hair front. Right now she is three and half and still can’t really rock a pony tail. It has grown of course. But slow and stringy and super fine. Uneven and occasionally matted in the back, well lets just say it is a good thing she has such pretty brown eyes…. I’ve tried bows and hats and clippies and they can only do so much. When I visit her classroom all the gi...

Once I had a conversation with an old friend. It was months ago. And we were hundreds of miles apart but feeling some of the same things. She called while I was on my way into starbucks to meet someone else. But I don’t get to talk to her everyday so I stood outside, leaned against the brick wall and we spoke about how we both felt a little bit broken. And mostly how we don’t want to be. And unsure how to talk about it with other people. And then I went inside and ordered an Americano and I’m sure pretended to be just fine and together. Today, like most weekends, we had a kid’s birthday party to attend. Someone in my daughter’s class that I have never met. And unless it is a really close friend I almost always dread these. They are right up there with organize my sock drawer, clean out the fridge and grading papers for ways I least want to spend my weekend. It is just socially awkward, loud, and boring. The only bonus is that it usually ends with cupcakes. I have several coping mech...

Currently my son is tearing the cushions off the couch. First he set it up like a TV and him and his sister pretended to watch cartoons on it. Then he set it up as a tent. And when her brother asked if she wanted to go camping, Tess quickly took the clipboard out of his hand and signed up. It didn’t bother her that he really didn’t have a clipboard, nor that she can’t write. Then they pretended to look at the stars on the ceiling. They slip in and out of imaginary worlds with ease. One minute they are running from monsters or hiking up a mountain or swimming across the living room. I watched jealously wondering when we lose our ability to pretend. 10? 14? 21? And suddenly realizing that we just get better at it with age. We just start pretending about all the wrong things. We pretend to be ok when we aren’t. We pretend to have it together when we’re not. We pretend to have answers when we don’t have a clue. We pretend not to be scared when we are petrified. We pretend ...