It was exciting because it was different. Most days blend together. Monday is the same as Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. Saturday and Sunday aren’t even all that different, aside from the fact that Kent is home more and we go to church for a few hours. That should feel nice and helpful, but it’s more of a disruption to our routine. Clara’s poop baby was like when breaking news interrupts Dancing with the Stars. It’s a little annoying at first, but then you realize, wow, I’m glad I knew a tornado was heading for our house. Kent being at home is like when they try to introduce a new coach on The Voice, and the chemistry is off, and you just think, Why couldn’t Gwen Stefani stay out of this?!!
One morning this summer, Bernard stabbed me in the leg with a fork while I was making lunch. I think it was an accident—people get stabbed every day in America!—but it sure was an exciting afternoon. The urgent care doctor said that next time I get stabbed, I could feel free to go right to the emergency room.
THERE’S A REASON MY MOM AND DAD CALLED ME MISSUS Peepers growing up. Two reasons, I guess. I have giant blue eyeballs, and I watch people. Only children get used to observing the world around them. As a kid, I saw motherhood as both a duty and a full-time job. All the moms in Minot were the same. They wore the same crewneck sweatshirts, which changed with the seasons. Typically, they were silk-screened with nature scenes, but every mom owned a few special seasonal sweatshirts, fancy ones that were embroidered with Christmas scenes or an Easter bunny. The fanciest ones had a decorative polo collar attached, which would be embroidered with a coordinating pattern. During our summers, the moms would switch to a wardrobe of loose, elastic-waisted pants, cut to land in the least flattering part of their calves, and switch to a palette of pastel tees and tanks. Their wardrobes changed with the seasons, but not with the years. Sometimes, when I’m homesick, I concentrate really hard and try to imagine what my mom is wearing that day before I FaceTime her. My predictions are spot-on.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to wear now that I’m a mom. The fancy sweatshirts I have seem out of place here. I would have been fine staying in Fargo, but Kent’s job offered him a much better position and a lot more money if we’d just move a short ten-hour drive from everything and everyone we’ve ever known. I didn’t think we needed more money, but Kenton wants to be debt-free and retired by fifty-five so we can spend our golden years driving through all forty-eight of our contiguous United States in an RV.
“You’ll be fine, Keeks,” he promised me. “Everyone always likes you, you’re the best person I know!” But I don’t think that’s true. About everyone liking me, I mean. Last year, I wore my Christmas sweatshirt, the one with a giant teddy bear dressed as Santa Claus, the one with actual bells sewn to it? And someone at Target told me that it was hilarious. Here, it seems like moms are always dressed like they just went to the gym, but they’re never sweaty or dirty in any way. Or they’re dressed like sexy teenagers from one of those CW shows.
When I was growing up, a few of the moms in Minot worked part-time jobs at the school, or the dollar store, but otherwise, being a mother was their full-time job. They spent their days making lunches, vacuuming the sitting room, making dinner, and watching Oprah. In the winter, they’d snowblow the driveway and drive us to school on the back of a snowmobile. At night, they’d call one another on their home phones. I remember my mother, sitting at the kitchen table, laughing hysterically with Sharon Mulcahy or Mary Beth Jensen. Motherhood was like a club they’d all joined together. One they all belonged to, as equals. All of them except for Janice Holmes, because she was a real b-word.
The moms I knew were all soft and inviting, like worn-in couches. They didn’t moisturize, they just put on Pond’s Cold Cream every night. They didn’t run small businesses or have blogs. They weren’t influencers, or mompreneurs. They were just . . . moms? I wasn’t even aware that there were different food groups until I went to college. Dinner at every house I ever went to growing up was simple: casserole, whole milk, a slice of white bread. For dessert, a bar made from some combination of flour, sugar, butter, chocolate, and caramel. The vegetables we ate came from a can, or from our own gardens. I don’t know if our gardens were considered organic, but I once grew a prize-winning zucchini and got a blue ribbon at the county fair because it really did look exactly like a giant question mark.
I love my kids. I l-o-v-e my kids. But I don’t love being a mom the way I thought I would. I love macaroni necklaces and #1 Mom mugs that Kent buys the day after Mother’s Day when they’re on clearance. I don’t love feeling like Missus Peepers, watching the world from the outside while my daughter gets another piece of pea gravel stuck in her nostril.
Today, Gwendolyn posted a photo of Blair and Gandhi sitting quietly in their Adirondack chairs, finger-knitting chunky scarves from what looks like hand-spun, organic cotton yarn. The caption read: “We are what we love, and I love every minute with these two.” I double-tap it immediately.
I want to love motherhood. I want it to be effortless and fulfilling. I want to be a part of whatever club this is.
I want to be like Gwendolyn.
Gwendolyn James Style
“How do you do it all?”
It’s the question I hear most often.
“How do you run a successful blog, raise two beautiful children, maintain a happy marriage, find time to train for another marathon, and inspire mothers around the world?”
The secret is this: I just do.
Do you want to know what you have in common with Beyoncé and Oprah and me and Gwyneth and Hillary?
We all have 24 hours in a day.
All of us.
24 hours to mother, to run, to train, to inspire.
24 hours to live, laugh, and love.
You can fill that 24 hours with action and accountability, or with excuses and regret.
You can spend that 24 hours wishing you had the life you wanted, or making it happen.
24 hours.
How will you use yours today?
In Love,
Gwendolyn James
Click here to sign up for my “Mega-Mom” eCourse. Just $599 with code GWENJ.
7
Carla
There’s a reason why I use a flip phone. There are lots of reasons, but here are the most important ones:
The government has a harder time tracking them. An iPhone is probably real slick, but I don’t need the CIA knowing what I look up on the Internet, and that’s also why I use my library card when I need to Google something. It’s nobody’s business what kind of rash I have, and I want to keep that between me and WebMD.
Russians will watch you through that stupid camera phone, and if I’m going to be on camera, I want advance warning and I don’t want it to be at that weird angle where my neck looks like an elephant leg coated in self-tanner.
I don’t need all that email shit.
I mean, I have an email address, but that’s only because I need something to give to salespeople that isn’t my phone number. My phone number is a prize to be won, not something I’m handing out at Walgreens so they know what kind of vitamins to give me coupons for. How about no vitamin coupons? How about a coupon for Nyquil or nicotine gum or something actually useful? Giving someone my phone number is like giving them my home address. Giving someone my email address is like telling them, “Good luck finding me.”