I went to the doctor this week to have her look at my elbow, which has been hurting terribly for quite some time.
During my exam, the doctor asked me what kind of motions I do with my arm.
I just looked at her a second, not really knowing how to answer that question.
I am a mother of four, after all.
What arm motions DON’T I do?
“Uhhhh. All of them?” I answered, wondering if it was a trick.
“I wave at kids to COME HERE RIGHT NOW,
I text message my friends for emotional support,
I dump pulverized and mostly uneaten school lunches into the trash,
I pet and then push multiple animals off of me,
I block roundhouse kicks from my seven year old who comes into my bed at night and tries to bludgeon me with her heels until the sunrise,
I snap at kids because I. AM. ON. THE. PHONE,
I have helped wipe the butts of upwards of 400 children,
I raise them high in the air when I can land sleepovers for all three little ones at once,
I rub my temples a lot…”
In the end I left with instructions to ice my elbow, and a referral for a full-body massage.
When her computer asked her the reason for a massage referral, she spoke it out loud as she typed, “Full. body. pain.”
Finally a prescription I won’t hate to take.
While I was gone to the doctor,
back home Greyson, the little boy I take care of, was “napping” under the care of my husband Justin.
Upon entering my home, referral in hand, I received the report that not 10 minutes after I had left the house, he heard a noise in the bedroom and went to discover that Greyson had bitten open a glitter squishy, and was then covered in its glittery goop, which Justin said he had cleaned off.
However, when I later went to get Greyson up from his nap,
I was shocked to find him not only covered still in glitter, but when I went to change his diaper, I also found a folded dollar bill tucked in the front of it.
Now, I cannot be sure what was going on here while I was gone,
I only know that it is generally frowned upon to send daycare babies home looking like you’ve spent the day training them to be dancers in a strip club.
As I used my sore arm to scrub the glitter explosion, I sighed.
Justin had tried to help me.
Bless him.
I think he just sometimes doesn’t know how.
Lately neither of us know.
We spend a large amount of time lately looking at each other silently with eyes that say,
“What on EARTH is even happening here?!”
The girls were so next-level irritable with each other last night that he faked to open his car door as we drove and to roll out onto the shoulder and start a new life.
But he tries.
I even wrote him a report card this week:
“Housework: A+
Yard work: A+
Family Skills: A
Quiet Sleeping: C-
This is Us Watching Etiquette: D
Justin is a good student with excellent class participation.
He is strong is spacial perception, direction, and is proficient in both sports literature and statistics.
I am currently working to help him focus on proper This is Us watching etiquette, including not playing loud videos on his phone during key scenes,
but overall Justin is a pleasure to have in class, and I believe he will go far.
– Mrs. Green”
We’re just doing the best we can over here, man.
With our painful joints, and glittery stripper babies, and pre-teen hormone surges that have us ready to abandon our vehicle and run.
What happens next will be anyone’s guess,
which brings me back to one arm movement I cannot believe I left out:
The Shrug.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
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.
