Sew what?

Hello, my name is Jennifer and I'm domestically deficient in the sewing department. How bad is it? Suffice it to say, I can't even sew a button on a blouse or manage a simple hem. For these things, I rely on my trusty costumer for the Voodoo Darlings troupe, Curtis Kidd - aka: Arthur Couture, Saviour of Sewing. For anything that needs my immediate attention, safety pins or a hot glue gun has always done the trick.

Now, when it comes to certain household duties, I can hang. I've got laundry down to a fine art. I can organize a closet like nobodies business, but when I got word from Tru's kindergarten teacher at school that his Friendship Quilt needs to be tied and returned by Wednesday, I had to wave the white flag of sewing surrender. In defense of the Open Classroom where my son attends, they did provide all the necessary materials, complete with adorable drawings on the fabric by each of the kids in the class. All I have to do is tie the thing. "Easy as pie", one of the other mothers said--a phrase that has always confused me, considering pie baking is hardly something I view as simplistic. To be fair, it's not like Tru's teacher burdened me with this impossible task last minute, but somehow I missed her previous 5-10 email reminders about the Quilt Completion Deadline.

So, now the domestically-challenged part of me wants to shout, SEW WHAT? Who needs a well-tied quilt anyway? Surely, Tru will survive and manage to secure friends without a masterfully done Friendship Quilt. If I put his materials together with safety pins and hot glue, not only will he love it, but the other mothers in his class may even congratulate me for my ingenuity, right?

Wrong.

I suppose a superior mother would Google "Quilting for Dummies" and stay up for the next 48 hours slaving over a sewing machine or whatever exotic contraption is used to assemble a quilt. But for me, it's time to man up and pay the piper. I don't call it the "Memoirs of a Mediocre Mother Blog" for nothin'. So here goes...fast cash to the first person who can tie Tru's quilt for me by Wednesday morning and potentially allow me to take all the credit when the time comes.

In return, I'll compensate you monetarily, appreciate you eternally, and transform one of your closets into a space organized enough to set up shop inside. You'll be able to call it a second bedroom and rent it out to a tenant and I'll have a Friendship Blanket to turn in, guaranteeing that my son will, in fact, make friends in the future--which was probably not the point of the project. At the end of the day, Wednesday to be exact, I just want to rest easy knowing that if Tru turns out to be a lifelong recluse it won't have anything to do with my inability to sew on a button.

The Not-So-Promiscuous Prom Queen

Had there been a Prom Maternity section or willing teenage suitor during my own Senior Prom, I may have attended, swollen belly and all. How ironic that the daughter I was seven months pregnant with during my own Senior Prom was just crowned the Prom Queen at hers. Isn't life funny?

Happy Hands-Off Mother's Day

When I said all I wanted for Mother's Day was a nice, relaxing picnic at the park with the family, that wasn't entirely true. Oh, I meant it when I said I didn't want any gifts (wrapped that is), but there is a short list of things that I'd like to include as Must-Have's for Mother's Day.

People who live with me: Please pay attention.

I don't want to do dishes, laundry, cooking of any kind (social or survival), wipe noses, butts, tables, or chocolate pudding off the walls. I don't want to de-poop the yard, refill the snake's water dish, find missing mates to shoes, socks, wayward Lego parts, or the ever-elusive remote control. I don't want to remind anyone not to fart at the table, but if they do to say "excuse me", or not to fiddle with their boy parts or that--for the last time--diarrhea is not called dynamite, but perhaps, should be. I don't want to cringe today when my son calls a fat woman fat to her face in public when he genuinely meant it as a kind of compliment for being so big, a mere observation of a physical fact and not an insult in any way. I don't want to be the mother who loses her kids in the store when they run away from her and hide under the clothing racks, only to race to the front to have her paged over the loud speaker just so they can hear their last name announced for all the world to hear. I don't want to sweat or swear--unless it's for sheer enjoyment and not out of frustration. I don't want to make peace, paper airplanes, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut in half diagonal NOT horizontal. I don't want to kill spiders or anyone's formative hopes and dreams. I don't want to clean a toilet, dog, or toys from the floor of the boys bedroom for the gazillionth time in a day. I don't want a teenager--mine or any other on the planet--to give me attitude, grief of any kind, or a last minute list of expensive things that need to be purchased, like, yesterday. And most of all, I don't want anyone to be unhappy, especially myself, meaning no tantrums, tears, lost toys, pets, or tempers, on this: My very special day of celebrating the many joys of motherhood.

Basically, all of the things I do twice on a regular day, I don't even want to do once today. I just want a healthy, happy, hands-off Mother's Day where I can sit in a patio chair and watch--from a safe distance--my children engaged in relatively unsupervised, but safe and mess-free play.

Is that too much to ask?