Chapter One: Advice to My Daughters

Untitled Love Story

Chapter One: Advice to My Daughters

First high school boyfriend: Head gamey jerk who cheated on me. I went for the first guy who showed an interest in me. Don’t do that, girls! Go for who YOU like, not the first scrawny guy with a car who asks you out!

The Waid's waitress at age 16.

High school boyfriend B: Showed more interest in cars than in me, nothing to talk about. Don’t be oblivious, girls, and value yourselves!

Boyfriend B was my prom date junior year

High school boyfriend C: Let’s try an older guy with his own apartment. Let’s get in a car wreck and total our car on the way to his place while skipping school. But he had a motorcycle! But he cheated on me … AFTER I loaned him money! Don’t go for material stuff, age and power, girls! Oh, and never loan money to a guy.

Me and Debbie ... do you know how long it took to get those rockin' bangs? And how much Aquanet?

Extremely short-live high school boyfriend D: Let’s try a totally sweet guy who is cute AND who likes me. Let’s kiss one of his friends just for fun while completely sober. Girls, I don’t have to tell you that went south fast. I cried and cried at my own stupidity on that one.

A lot of Sun-in and QT (Quick Tan) went into the making of this girl.

Summer after high school: Can’t hurt to meet some random cute guy cruising and go back to his place because his parents are out of town, right? Then put a big ole Long Island Iced Tea in my 110-pound body. This resulted in the next 5 years of my life being a roller coaster of domestic violence and so many other horrible things I don’t want to even tell you about ever. But these things we do to ourselves and let happen to us shape who we are in the future and how we behave later, for good or bad. Some of the things that happened to me during that time certainly made me the kind of mother I am now … an attachment parent who values her babies above all and who likes to keep them close. Girls, you might call that “suffocation” and “a controlling mother” but I call it good parenting!

Early twenties: Well, let’s switch gears now and date a psychologist (not mine; I certainly don’t need therapy … ha!) who is about twice my age. That can only end well, right? Nah, he peed in my Cheerios and told me it was raining (caught him with another woman – and her kids! -- at his house; he ended up marrying her briefly; his third wife). In an attempt to keep this guy, I proclaimed that I did not need to have children since he didn’t want more. EEEEEK!

Which brings us to our much happier story. And the lesson that GREAT things come out of CRAP things. And that the highest high you will ever feel (lasting love) often comes from the lowest low (crying yourself to sleep from rejection and a broken heart).

1995, I’m 24. I’m sick to death of men. But I know it’s my fault because I do the ultimate picking. A friend gives me a copy of Dr. Laura’s “10 Stupid Things Women do to Mess Up Their Lives.” She looks like a witch. She looks mean. I also start listening to her radio show. Holy crap, she’s talking to me! Have I really done all 10 of those things? Have I really broken every Commandment in the process? Things can’t get any worse. Guess I’ll start looking for someone decent, or not looking. Maybe I’ll make a good lesbian … I hate cooking and cleaning, after all, and like to negotiate. I might look good with short hair. (oh, the stereotypes)

This could possibly be the reason I'm the way I am: my pregnant mother gettin' her drink on in Germany in 1971. (not really!)

One Man's Quest to Be Penniless

Yes, it's Men Living Simply on the show this week, people. Check out this little gem I found and love. Could you do it? Of course you could do it. But if you have kids and do this, you would get them taken away. As a married person, could you convince your spouse to do it?

The county appraiser's website says my house is less than 1,300 square feet big. Currently that's too big for us ... and if it starts to feel cramped, I just get rid of more stuff. My closet is so sparse I think I might have a penis. Wait, except my husband has like 3 times more clothing than I do, but I bet I can convince him to kill some of that. I think he might have more shoes than I do, too. But he has a regular job, too, and needs to look nice sometimes.

What's my point? My point is that I need to go out and start collecting designer handbags or something to be more like a female. I paint my toenails pretty colors; does that count?

Do you, like me, catch a show every now and then with hoarders in it (or visit an actual hoarder house) and then go home and get rid of 3 trash bags of stuff?

Have a great Cinco de Mayo. We'll be in town still. I get to go to a CDM party that was supposed to be at my house but our plans got changed so often that my good friend is taking it over at her place. I get to hang out with a bunch of fellow hippie-ish homeschoolers and it just might be my first adult party in like 10 years .... taking the kids, of course. I will be calling everyone a hot tamale.

I love this site so much .... check out someecards.com for the funniest stuff you'll ever find online.

A Man Quits His Job

You hafta check out this friend of mine's blog post. He has voluntarily quit his sweet job so he can spend time with his daughter while she is young. You see, he's a stay-at-home mom trapped in a man's body. Click on the words "blog post" above to be escorted there digitally.

This guy and his family live next door to one of my very best friends, who also homeschool. The house next to them is in foreclosure and I'm thinking if we bought it the neighborhood could go to homeschool hell in a Chanel handbag!

By the way, does anybody else know how they get all those lightening bug butts in glo-sticks? I mean, is there a lightening bug farm somewhere?

Animal Tales at Crown Center

The Animal Tales exhibit at Crown Center in Kansas City is going on right now, and it's a blast! Here are some pix I snapped before one or another of my kids had to pee and we had to take a little hike to the bathrooms and then didn't go back because we played in the fountains!

Momma Guilt and Confirmation

I know the other day I said I wouldn't be blogging this week, but I had already written this one and just moved it up in the schedule! Enjoy!

Michael says he doesn't look directly at the camera because the light bothers his eyes, something I never knew.

This is a picture from Jordan's 8th grade Confirmation recently. I have 3 stories to tell, the third being about this photo, but they are all about Confirmations.

1. The first year I was a Confirmation sponsor Sam was only about 6 months old. Aron wasn't in town, so I took the other 4 kids with me and they sat with my friend. Sam was fussy so I put him in the sling and carried him in during the procession of the 8th graders. I was a little embarrassed to be carrying in a baby when the focus was on the older kids, but I didn't want to leave him crying with my friend upstairs while we lined up, processed outside and then into the church. That's just not the kind of mom God made me, and I've learned to not worry too much about what people think about that. When it came time to present my Candidate to the Archbishop, Sam was still fussing and I was going to just take him on up, knowing it's not probably general protocol, but also thinking, "I have 5 children and now God wants me to take care of them, even in front of the entire congregation." My friend took him from me at the last minute before I went up, and I heard him crying all the way out of the church. I know he lived and is fine and won't remember, but I hate that sound!
2. The next year I was able to leave all 5 kids at home with Aron for over 3 hours, which I had never done until that night. There was an after party but it was like 9:30 and I had to say no. I wanted to hang with my Candidate, but I felt called to go home and put my kids to bed.
3. This year Aron was going to have to be gone again and I was scrambling for a helper since Jordan was the Candidate and she's pretty much our only sitter! I left the kids downstairs with a family friend while we processed in. Sam was sleepy and needed a nap and I was worried I would have to carry him up to the Archbishop and all that later, so I prayed about it. Jordan said she was okay with it and would not be embarrassed, but she is such a sweetheart that I knew she would prefer it to be about her, and rightly so! I fretted and worried and prayed until time to present her. Then I handed Sam to Joel in the pew behind me and he was FINE for just those few moments! Jordan got her moment, I got to focus on her, it all worked out. Then Sam crashed on me for the rest of the night, as you can see in the picture above!

Anyway, it chaps my butt when people refer to Catholic Guilt. I don't really have that, but I do seem to eternally have Momma Guilt about something or other!!!