On Field Trips and Sharing Ketamine

Ugh. Field Trips.

I received an email last week (that said to reply by Sunday... and I replied yesterday... that's only 24 hours, I win) that informed me Conner's class would be taking a field trip to a local veterinarian's office tomorrow (Wednesday) and some combination in the correct order of the following things must occur:

1) If I were driving my child, I had to bring a copy of my driver's license and insurance and birth certificate and a lock of the child's hair and a fresh set of finger prints and an i.d. card with the outfit he'd be wearing and a recent photo and well... hell.. go ahead and make a flyer for that says "Have You Seen This Child?" - just in case, because it's best if we already have that on file to expedite finding your child.

2) If I were unable to drive my child, to have him or her dressed in the official Your Parents Pay Money To Go Here Tshirt and dropped off by 8:45 (...and school starts at 8:30... so yeah.. I kinda FIGURED to have my child there less than 15 minutes late...) (unless they are secretly just playing dodgeball all day and sending him home with pre-colored pages so it doesn't *matter* when he is dropped off normally) and the child's car seat.

No siblings are allowed.
In full disclosure, I find it necessary to remind/inform all of you that I live in a military-centric city and in the part of town where the majority of those military peoples have been relocated and ergo, don't have a army of acceptable babysitters or family to keep The Stray Child in the Middle of a Work Day. So, not being able to tote Chase around on my hip while Conner looks at puppies boggles my littlest brain pieces, especially if I stay all Out Of The Way.
Whatever.

So, I got my panties all bunched because A) I have to drive PAST the Vet to meet his class only to drive back to the Vet and then... um... wait in the parking lot for an hour and a half with Chase? Ha! NO!
or
B) Let Conner ride with! another! person!

Really, for you to understand the extent of The Freaking Out... here's The Crazy I *actually* made another complete stranger endure, she's the room mom:

[introductory, apology and confirmation of the crap I just talked about above]

 ...

Basically, I don't know what to do here. I hate to be that "over protective mother", but I mean.. there are mothers out there just like that women who drove her 2 kids and her brother's 3 to their death and no one ever even knew she was an alcoholic.

See!? I sound JUST like "that" mom!!

But hey... I'd rather be "that" mom with my children safe...

Anyways, I guess what I am saying is either:

A) Is there room for Conner in someone's car? And I can follow them to the Vet's office and critique their driving down to a T all the way there?? (JOKE!)

or

B) Is there any way I can drive Conner myself and know exactly when to pick him up?

She replied hours later, after surely calling her husband or her mom and having a good laugh at me, and replied offering to personally drive Conner (she had room). I mulled over it for a bit and replied with lots of "thanks" ... o.. and this:

I'm leaning towards letting you drive him, if that's ok with you. I figure if you are capable enough of organizing these emails and whatnot SURELY you aren't hitting the wine at 8 AM. :)

I mean, the smiley negates The Crazy, right?

But still! She didn't acknowledge that she in fact was not a raging alchy till the next email when she said "I promise I'll be sober at 8AM".

Well, that's all fine and dandy, Mrs. Room Mom Lady, but I think I noticed the field trip wouldn't begin till 845... how about 9? Will you be sober at 9? 

And we *are* going to a vets office. Can I get it in writing that you won't be hitting the ketamine and horse tranquilizer stash? If you do, can you a) call me to come get Conner and b) save some for the class (as in - other moms - I am in NO way condoning the use of horse tranquilizers on children... sheesh... what kind of mother do you think I am??!!?) (that's why they make Benadryl) (and rum)

Sharing is a corner stone to preschool, lady.

Marbles? MARBLES?! Where are youuuuu?

I feel like prefacing this entire entry with one very, very important note: No matter how “complain-y” I might sound, no matter how much it sounds like I’m being unappreciative or ungrateful, I am not. I am very, very thankful for what appears to be mass-chaos in my life right now. This is not a complaint, just a vent in a space that couldn’t be more right for the job.

It seems that two things are happening in my life right now:

1) Everything that I’ve worked so very hard for over the last year, and over the 5 years it took to get my degree in a related field, are finally working out. I set out with a few small goals and one large, collective goal - and it just so happens, darnit, that things are going how I’d want them to.

2) With every silver lining in a cloud, there’s also some rain. The pressure I am feeling to do all the things I need to do and to tackle the challenges set before me are heavy.

I make no attempt to hide the obvious on this blog. I am several-fold in my reasons for running The Mom Job. Some of those reasons and motivations are very similar to a large sect of the “mommy blogger” community (one which I denounce in no way, and find solace in personally) - I blog to connect with others in the same situation, to provide an outlet for myself and others about what it takes to parent children and to just… well, breath.

When I set out to purchase my own domain almost 9 months ago, fittingly, I conceived an entirely separate, yet equally as important, objective. I wanted to provide a space to feature my writing, entertain others, acquire sponsors, review products and endorse things I believed in. Collectively, I wanted to finally make me and my site a “product” or “business” in itself.

Over the past 3-4 months, a small snowball of offers came shuffling into my mailbox. I would weed out the SPAM from the legit offers, and I began replying to those. Simultaneously, I began promoting myself like a 2-cent whore on every blog listing site I deemed suitable for my site and the goals I wanted to achieve. So, ok… maybe a $5 whore… see? I have standards…

Then, over the last month, offer after offer - almost ALL legit, peeked my interest left and right.

I signed on to promote an up-and-coming website that provides a go-to source for all things from pregnancy to parenthood, to what’s for dinner and gardening.

I have more than 4 products in process of either being shipped, being "tried out", or typing up the review. All of those include giveaways, which means verifying entries, assigning numbers, having a random integer picked winner, and announcing it.

And as of last week, I signed a very lengthy contract to begin advertising with a very popular ad-provider company.

On top of all this, the government has required that bloggers, like myself, start using disclosures stating whether or not I have been paid or reimbursed for any endorsement, product review or giveaway. Additionally, the contract I signed with the Very Prestigious Ad Company will require me to stick to a strict regime of guidelines about the reviews and giveaways that, prior to signing the contract, I had already agreed to do and begun working on.

Which means this: I will now have to make a different section of this blog only for reviews and start placing all of my endorsements and product reviews there, unless they fall under those certain guidelines and can be displayed on my main page.

Did I lose you? Don’t worry… remember - this is me venting.

I don’t have an office. I don’t have hours of operation or even a planner for banana’s sakes.

I still have these children, and this life, and this house where aforementioned children destroy a room I spent an hour yesterday cleaning. For a mere 20 minutes, I was fighting with my internet connection so I could actually accomplish some of the things that are now deemed necessary to run this blog as a business, only to find this:

Again, I’m not complaining (ok, I am complaining about having to re-clean and organize that room....).

I asked for this. I wanted this and I still want this. I took countless writing class, advertising classes and public relation’s campaign courses with the full intent on using them one day (novel, isn't it?). This IS what I want to do, yet I still want to maintain the balance of having this website as an outlet for me and my readers to laugh our faces off when Conner answer the door completely naked or Chase pours $20 worth of bubbles all over my bathroom.

I still want to tell you all about my ability to ignore the laundry and manage to eat an entire extra-long chili-cheese coney and extra-large chili-cheese tots as a “lite lunch”. I still want to blog about kicking those girls’ butts at the gym.

I still need to do the dishes, laundry and make dinner. My husband wants to see me and not Me+Laptop occasionally (at least I think so….). My children still want mommy to build them leggo houses or race cars or color for hours.

I’ll still need to brush my teeth.

Or pee… yes… I still need to have time to do that.

I'm still a stay-at-home mom. My children are (obviously from the picture above) still here ALL day and yet, I'm taking on hours similar to those with a part-time or maybe even a full-time job. LE SIGH.

Balance is what I need. And an assitant... sign me up for one of those. (Oh, and a therapist... I soooo need a therapist...)