Mom Outnumbered: An Intro

I’ll never forget the moment.
The standard stay-at-home-mom moment right before the message came.
I had just picked up the same 10 toys I always did, and I had just changed a diaper that should have been brought up on criminal charges.

I stood there in the hall for a second,
basically rethinking every single life choice that had led me to that point.

I whispered a prayer that went something like,
“I KNOW I am meant for more than cleaning up the same messes,
Please God, Let there be more than this,”
and then I sighed and carried an armful of randomly discarded items upstairs.

Not two hours later and there was a text on my phone.
A message from Sheri Lynch.
Why was she writing me?
Whoa.
That message looked long…
But there she was,
offering me this opportunity to do the thing that most makes me feel like me as if she was some shimmering Angel of Hope.
Her message mentioned she had had her eye on me. She believed in me.
She asked if I would want to write.

Now, I don’t know where you are at in your life, but I have been a stay-at-home-mom of four daughters for 11 years.
And not mellow, docile daughters, either.
I bore a roller derby team.
Now add to that churning pot of girl drama doing daycare for other people’s kids that entire time,
and a husband with OCD that in no way meshes with any part of in-home daycare.
(He has built literal cardboard shelters around himself in order to eat his lunch without having to see the kids eat theirs, merely for self-preservation)
And it’s easy to feel invisible sometimes as a mom. To feel like your life is only to pour out on others, leaving nothing left for you.

My life hasn’t left a lot of room for spa days,
if you know what I mean.
Instead of cucumbers on my eyes,
I basically got circles of room temperature liverwurst.

When I read that message that day,
my look was
“Chewed Up and Spit Out” chic.
That “Would you want to write” felt like a rescue rope,
because there I was, as worn to bare bones as a person could feel, just staring at my phone,
and being offered my absolute dream,
just like that.
Me.
Thinking I’d maybe been lost in the shuffle.
Often feeling like I’d not only lost my sense of fashion, but maybe also lost my voice.

But dreams don’t have to die just because your clothes make you look like you recently did,
or you feel like you are standing in your life, unseen.
Sometimes it’s about just fighting to stay standing right there in your spot while you wait for your moment to come,
and then still having the strength to fight off the panic that comes along with actually getting your dream when it does.

And what would I write about?
“Whatever you want,” her message said.

So,
I will open a window to my home, and my life.
A loud, colorful place where the circus people dwell.
My husband, Justin: Old enough to know better, which seems to never matter,
a manager at Costco, lover of a good deep clean, often lacking a filter.
Funny, exhausted, the only male in a house with one bathroom.
Looks confused a lot, because girls.

My oldest, Alena: 19,
quietly witty, amazingly entertaining.
Loves animals, silence, her boyfriend Aaron, and memes.

Chloe: 11, Cautious, nurturing, anxious.
Will definitely care for me when I’m old.
Might actually never move out, and that’s fine with me.

Tessa: 9, Will definitely one day be on Broadway.
Intelligent, sneaky, talented, personality larger than life.
Will most likely sign me over to a nursing home one day just to stress Chloe out.

Paige: 6, will one day be your boss.
Your karate loving, Beast-Master,
shows-up-for-work-in-a-hovercraft boss.
Hilarious, original, will one day own a Harley, *might* have ties to the mafia.

And Me:
Older than I feel,
but young enough to still be excited about the possibilities,
trying to aim this spaceship on a safe course while taking notes as I go;
Seeking to find humor and beauty in everything I pass along the way,
and ready to take hold of my dream.

Mom Outnumbered

Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.