Not in the trophy mom club

I have long since known that I am not a trophy mom.

You know the ones I'm talking about. They look like they are completely dressed and ready to go to a great cocktail party at eight A.M. every morning. They usually have two kids (anymore than that and it tends to make it hard to remain a trophy mom) because one kid isn't enough to get you into the trophy mom club. And if there was a way for them to be gender specific they would try and have a boy and girl each. And well their kids are always dressed in clean name brand clothes. Did I mention that they are always clean? They never let their kids get dirty and usually have them enrolled in one or two activities each (but only if they can drop off their kids). They have perfectly manicured fingers and toes and their roots never show. They usually drive way to big SUV's or else sporty little cars like BMW's. And the trophy mom must always be a stay at home mom. It doesn't matter if her kids are both in school all day long. That is a requirement otherwise you have to forfeit your membership. And they usually have a Starbucks coffee(venti) in their hands.

So now that you know who I'm talking about you will completely understand how I'm not in the trophy mom club.

1. I have to many kids.
2. My kids are almost never in name brand clothes unless they were given to me by a friend as a hand me down.
3. My kids are always dirty, within seconds after a bath or getting dressed you would find something on them that would automatically disqualify me from the trophy mom club.
4. My van is now considered old and there is nothing sporty about it. However it does hold all my kids comfortably so that's a plus.
5. I am very seldom dressed and ready to go to a cocktail party at eight am. That's usually the time of day I'm driving my kids to school in my nightgown (And just for the record school starts here at eight so yes we are always running late in our house).
6. I can't really keep up with my nails so much. My roots however I never have to worry about. That's because I still have my original brown hair with lots of gray making an appearance these days.

No, I am definitely not in the trophy mom club. I am in the unnamed mom's club that has to many things going on to deal with all the requirements of the trophy mom club. I show up to school functions with an oily face that has long since lost track of any makeup. I may or may not be wearing clothes that have boogers on them courtesy of one of my children. I'm in the mom's club where as much as I would like to help out with my children's classrooms it's hard to do because I always have one or two in tow with me. And no, I can't guarantee that they will behave perfectly. So instead I send things to school or do things that don't require my actual presence. I pay dues in the PTA program but have yet to actually make it to a meeting. I don't get to serve as homeroom mom because of this.

I'm in the mom's club that lets her kids eat breakfast at school because it's easier some days. And in all honesty if it weren't for that my poor kids would probably get a cold breakfast most mornings. I love my kids, ALL of them. And yes, I do all know their names and the names of their teachers. I know when their lunch accounts are running low and need money. And although it may look otherwise some days, my kids do start out the day clean.

So please don't judge me by my appearance or by how many kids are getting out of my van in the drop off line in the morning. I already know it takes us longer to get unloaded but just for the record I am car pooling so technically they aren't all my kids you see. Just most of them belong to me.

One day, when my youngest goes off to school I may actually qualify to join the trophy mom club. And I may do it and run for office (because I'm convinced they have secret meetings and elected officials). I'll become the president of the trophy mom club and it will be all downhill from there. I'll show up to meetings in my nightgown and no makeup and take control. Before long the trophy club moms will all look like the rest of us moms out there just doing the best we can and the best we know how.

But just to fit in, I may have to go out and buy me venti Starbucks coffee.

Learning the Cheese

Some days I just have to laugh at how I hear myself in my children's voices. And how my children's voices can twist what I say into something completely different.

I was dusting off an old (and I do mean old) exercise video the other day. Let's just say it was fifteen years old. I didn't really think it would be as dated as it really was. I was wrong. I suffered through the first few minutes of it. And by suffered through it I don't mean the exercise portion. No I mean the belted workout clothes, the obvious use of a green screen with the instructor leaving no obvious shadow on the beach she was working out on, the music was awful and the exercise it self was just to much. There was lots of booty shaking and I kid you not...dancing with finger pointing. It was at this finger pointing, booty shaking moment that I decided I could take no more.

Now during all this "exercise" my girls were watching the strange lady on the screen. So when I stopped my oldest asked me why I was stopping. I replied that I couldn't do this one anymore because it was just to cheesy and a bad video. And went on to find one that was a DVD that wasn't so cheesy and didn't think anything more of it.

But it apparently made quite an impression my oldest because the second Hubs walked into the house she ran to tell him all about it. She informed him about the bad lady on the TV who was trying to teach her mommy the cheese and how mommy had to turn it off and do a good one instead.

If nothing else, I laughed so hard that the cheesy video did ultimately give me a workout.