Numb Vulva, Chocolate Chips, and Truth

As a mom, especially a homeschool mom, some days are good – you get everything on your list crossed off and you feel like THE GODDAM QUEEN OF THE WORLD. Other days your child says NO to everyfuckingthing and you push and push and push until any possibility of enjoyment – much less learning – has been sucked into a farty black hole (along with the only pencil your child will write with, your good lipstick, and that two centimeters long Lego gun your child has been whining about for THREE DAYS STRAIGHT).

So. You take a break because all the moms on Facebook tell you to. “Don’t get burned out,” they say. As if every one of us hasn’t eaten Burned Out Casserole (cooked in a ramekin!) for breakfast every day since we HAD these children. So, yeah, you take a break. “I’ll take a day,” you tell yourself. What harm will a day do?” But, then that day turns into two because the next day at 10 AM you have to take your kid to the doctor for that weird rash that turns out to be nothing and then you have to stop by the store because SOMEONE LEFT THE BREAD OPEN (again) and FUCK, I’M LOW ON GAS? WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? followed by LEMME JUST SWING BY CVS FOR THAT PRESCRIPTION I NEED and BOOM it’s 3:00 and all you’ve had to eat are Skittles that have fallen behind the car seat and half a Kind bar you found in the bottom of your purse. So you succumb to temptation and say, “I guess taking two days off won’t kill us.” To which your kid replies, “WAHOOOOO!” Ungrateful little shit.

On the third day, you plan to start again, make it fun this time, but then your little angel wakes you up at 6:30 am with a fever and you spend the morning Googling and asking your mom friends if 101.5 is too high because Little Johnny also has a stomach ache and a loose stool, but not quiiiite diarrhea, and what about that “nothing” rash? Google says it could be CANCER or Hand, Foot and Mouth whatever the fuck THAT is. And the next thing you know…

It’s lunchtime and no school work has happened (because GOD FORBID the kid takes some initiative and do shit without you hovering over them like a goddam DRONE) so while you’re rifling through the fridge trying to think of an alternative to what is likely to be the ONE MILLIONTH GRILLED CHEESE you’ve ever made you spot a bag of chocolate chips you accidentally put behind the cottage cheese no one is ever going to eat when you unloaded the groceries NO ONE HELPED YOU IN THE HOUSE WITH.

You stop.

You look left. You look right. Miraculously, there are no children in the vicinity. Probably off playing Minecraft or setting the house on fire. Either way…

You tuck the bag under your shirt and slip into the bathroom.

You grab your cuticle scissors, the ones you use on your eyebrow and nose hair (and let’s face it, in a pinch, your pubes when you can’t find your BATHROOM SCISSORS because SOMEONE has taken them AGAIN) – and quietly open the bag.

You’ve had to pee for a good 30 minutes so you take a seat noticing every hair on the floor, every bead of mold dancing a Broadway kickline in your shower, every smear of toothpaste on the edge of the GODDAM SINK, and grab a handful of chips – GLORIOUS, CHOCOLATE CHIPS. Then you grab another handful. And another. And slowly, your mind wanders to a time when you weren’t in charge of every aspect of your child’s education, a time when you didn’t worry if you chose the right curriculum, set the right schedule, joined the right co-op, made the best meal plan, a time when you weren’t the principal, PTA president, head of the curriculum committee, custodian, bus driver, librarian, art teacher, music teacher, math teacher, science teacher, history teacher, social studies teacher, DON’T PUT THAT UP YOUR NOSE teacher, PE teacher, home economics teacher, language arts teacher, office manager, receptionist, cafeteria worker, guidance counselor, college admissions specialist, and nurse. A time when you showered every day, not just when you got so itchy (down there) you couldn’t stand it anymore. A time when your nipples and the horizon were parallel not perpenFUCKINGdicular. A time when—

BANG BANG BANG goes your kid on the bathroom door: “MOMMY ARE YOU OK?” MOMMY? MOMMMMMMAAAAAY!” You suddenly realize two things:

a. You’ve eaten an entire bag of chocolate chips

b. Your vulva is numb from sitting for who knows how long

So, you get up, flush, hide the wrapper under the cleaning supplies where no one will ever find it and roll your eyes, “Yes. YES. I’m OK.”

Then you go back into the kitchen, make the grilled cheese sandwiches because FUCK YOU PINTEREST, take your kid to Taekwondo, where you’ll defend your choice to homeschool to not one but TWO nosey mothers and a RECEPTIONIST, come home, make dinner, wrestle your kid into bed, and vow to start again tomorrow and that… THAT is what it is like to be a homeschool mom.

Image credit: Crappypictures.com