As you can see, I’m into lists. What about you ladies? What can you do to promote a positive self-image?
As always, humbled to be serving you as,
Rosalyn Ebberly
SAHM I AM Loop Moderator
“She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.”
Proverbs 31:27 (NASB)
* * *
From:
Zelia Muzuwa
To:
SAHM I Am
Subject:
[SAHM I AM] Are worms poisonous?
* * *
’cause Griffith just ate one.
Z
* * *
From:
The Millards
To:
SAHM I Am
Subject:
Re: [SAHM I AM] Are worms poisonous?
* * *
Zelia,
No, he’ll be fine. Tyler ate a lizard when he was 2, and he’s managed to survive to the ripe old age of 8. Don’t worry.
Speaking of Tyler, you all have to cheer for his soccer team tomorrow night. Go PIKES!!!
Jocelyn
* * *
From:
Zelia Muzuwa
To:
SAHM I Am
Subject:
Re: [SAHM I AM] Are worms poisonous?
* * *
That’s a relief. Of course, I should be more worried about whether or not Seamus will live to see his 7th birthday. Turns out, he talked little brother into swallowing the worm. Threatened to cut the head off Griffith’s Big Bird if he didn’t chow down. When Tristan got home, Seamus had to confess it all to daddy.
So Tristan puts on his James Earl Jones voice, all low and rumbly with that Zimbabwean/English accent (oooh, gives me tingles just thinking about it) and looks WAYYYY down at Seamus, whose little brown body is now trembling in boxer pj’s. “Seamus,” he says, “did you force your brother to eat a worm?”
Seamus has the nerve to squeak out that he did not FORCE Griffith to eat the worm, he merely SUGGESTED that it might be the only way to save Big Bird. So Tristan says, “Son, you will go TO your room, and I will dee-al with you in a moment.” I tell you, even I shivered at that. No one is as good at sounding ominous and foreboding as my husband!
Daddy’s little girl, Cosette, knows no fear. She marches over to him, looks up with those huge brown eyes and says, “Daddy, be careful with Seamus. He’s still in his formative years.”
Tristan remains granite-faced. He taps Cosette’s nose and says, “Yes, little one, and so he shall be formed, while there’s still time for it.” I just LOVE how he talks!
The short of it is that Seamus will not be able to go with us to the children’s museum tomorrow, but instead has to stay with Molly—a friend of mine who has a five-year-old girl, Allison, who loves to play “getting married” and makes Seamus be the groom every time we visit. A worse punishment couldn’t be found!
So, to quote the Bard, “All’s well that ends well” and “Come, come, you froward and unable worms!”
Z
* * *
From:
Connie Lawson
To:
SAHM I Am
Subject:
[SAHM I AM] Topic of the Week/Reminder
* * *
Hi Girls,
Loop Mom Connie here. I just wanted to send a friendly reminder to put OT for “Off Topic” in the subject heading of e-mails not pertaining to the weekly topic. We have over three hundred moms on this loop, and including OT in the subject helps us sort through the e-mails we aren’t interested in. Not that I’m not interested in all the little details of your lives, like worms and soccer games, but we really need to focus.
TTFN,
Connie Lawson
SAHM I AM Loop Mom
* * *
From:
Zelia Muzuwa
To:
SAHM I Am
Subject:
[SAHM I AM] OT: Off Topic
* * *
I really don’t think anything related to children could reasonably be considered off topic in a discussion group for stay-at-home moms.
Z
* * *
From:
The Millards
To:
SAHM I Am
Subject:
Re: [SAHM I AM] OT: Off Topic
* * *
Zelia Muzuwa wrote:
I agree.
Jocelyn
* * *
From:
Rosalyn Ebberly
To:
SAHM I Am
Subject:
Re: [SAHM I AM] OT: Off Topic
* * *
I’m quoting from the SAHM I AM welcome message:
Please do not send one-liner messages such as “I agree” or “Me, too” to the entire loop. Send it to the individual to whom it is directed.
Thanks!
Rosalyn
“She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.”
Proverbs 31:27 (NASB)
* * *
From:
Zelia Muzuwa
To:
SAHM I Am
Subject:
Re: [SAHM I AM] OT: Off Topic
* * *
Sorry.
Z
* * *
From:
The Millards
To:
SAHM I Am
Subject:
Re: [SAHM I AM] OT: Off Topic
* * *
Me, too! :)
Jocelyn
* * *
From:
Connie Lawson
To:
The Millards
Subject:
QUIT IT, YOU TWO!
* * *
I mean it!
Connie
* * *
From:
Zelia Muzuwa
To:
Connie Lawson
CC:
The Millards
Subject:
Wanted: Sense of Humor for Loop Mom
* * *
Come on, Connie, we were just giving Rosalyn a hard time. It’s late, the kids are in bed, and Ducie never showed up for our Monday online chat. What do you expect us to do for entertainment?
Z
* * *
From:
Dulcie Huckleberry
To:
SAHM I Am
Subject:
[SAHM I AM] Yesterday was…
* * *
…the worst day of my entire life! I may sound like a melodramatic teenager, but I’m not exaggerating. I came home from a church meeting last night and curled up on my bed in a fetal position. FETAL, mind you—not in the position of actually carrying a fetus, as some older women have asserted upon seeing my jogging-pants and T-shirt swathed body. No, fetal—as in lying on one’s side and tucking head and knees in toward body so as to create the sensation of prenatal security and comfort. A form commonly assumed when one begins one’s day cleaning up smelly diaper artwork off bedroom walls and ends it by being publicly humiliated in front of one’s church peers, with a trip to the gynecologist in between.
Oh, and so far today isn’t much better. Went to the grocery store and the cashier tried to talk to me in SPANISH!
I get so tired of that. Just because one is adopted from Guatemala as a 3-year-old does not mean one is fluent in Spanish. Will people never stop judging me by my appearance? ARGH!
Adios, amigas,
Dulcie Huckleberry
* * *
From:
The Millards
To:
Dulcie Huckleberry
Subject:
What on earth???
* * *
Dulcie,
We missed you last night! What happened? Is everyone okay? Are YOU okay?
Jocelyn
* * *
From:
Dulcie Huckleberry
To:
“Green Eggs and Ham” (Zelia Muzuwa
Subject:
I am SO SORRY!
* * *
Dear GE and Ham,
I’d never tell the whole SAHM I AM loop this, but since we have our own little sub-group, I know I can trust you. So if you want the whole, pathetic tale, fine. Grab a box of Kleenexes and settle in. I already alluded to the episode with Haley and her dirty diaper—all over the walls and crib. Having twins is hard enough without one of them trying to become the 1-year-old equivalent of those modern artists who hang a toilet on the wall and get paid millions for it.
In the afternoon, I had my annual gynecology checkup. First, I discover I am still ten pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight from the twins. (You don’t even want to know how far over I am from before McKenzie.) And since I am now older than 25, they thought it would be good to check my cholesterol. Is there anything more middle-aged than having to get one’s cholesterol tested? I think not.
It turns out that I have low GOOD cholesterol, and so am at HIGH RISK FOR HEART DISEASE! Can you believe it? I am 26 years old, for crying out loud! How can I possibly be at high risk?
I asked the good doc, and he said it was probably because I haven’t been exercising much. I’m like, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN? Not exercising, my foot! I chase after a 3-year-old and twin toddlers all day long, and I live in a two-story house where I have to run up and down the steps every time McKenzie tattles on her sisters. I most certainly do get exercise!”
But he just shrugged. Evidently, low good cholesterol is as bad as high bad cholesterol and cannot be changed much by diet. So the only chance I have to rescue myself from premature heart attacks is to increase my aerobic activity.
I personally think it’s a bunch of nonsense. It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. The doctors are all in league with the fitness clubs and exercise equipment manufacturers—they’ve signed a secret pact to scare their patients into spending thousands of dollars on gym memberships and elliptical machines. Not to mention the Ab Blaster. They’ve been so successful on our parents that now they’ve turned their malevolence against us innocent gen-Xers.
I’m so mad, I’m going to have a 1,200-calorie burger for lunch, in protest. No, wait…nobody could possibly be THAT mad.
Waiting to die,
Dulcie
* * *
From:
The Millards
To:
“Green Eggs and Ham”
Subject:
Re: I am SO SORRY!
* * *
Dulcie, are you sure you count as a gen-Xer? I’m 33 so I KNOW I do. But 26? I mean, we can’t let just anybody don that title of distinction anytime they want to…. What do you think, Ham? Can we count her? She’s SOOOOO young!
Of course, anyone at high risk of heart disease by age 26 may not live to reach her 30s, so maybe we’d better bestow an honorary designation on her, just in case. Sort of a “make a wish” concession.
Sorry to hear about the weigh-in. I understand—each of my four babies has done something strange and unique to my body. By the way, there are worse things than being told to exercise more. Some of us actually like to do it.
Love,
Jocelyn
* * *
From:
Zelia Muzuwa
To:
“Green Eggs and Ham”
Subject:
Re: I am SO SORRY!
* * *
I don’t know about the gen-X question, she might want to hang her hat with the millennials. They’re the ones everyone is pinning hopes of the future on—as if the future is going to be that bright with global terrorism, disease, poverty and political corruption, but that’s just my gen-X cynicism.:) After all, I turned the big 3-0 last month, so I have a right to be cynical, don’t I?
Enough talk about generations. It’s all nonsense anyway. I want to hear about the rest of Dulcie’s day. So far, it doesn’t sound bad enough to explain us getting stood up. I mean it—I wait all week for the chance to chat with you. I’m still suffering from emotional trauma.
I’ll bill you for therapy, okay?
Z (aka Ham)
* * *
From:
Dulcie Huckleberry
To:
“Green Eggs and Ham”
Subject:
Good Grief
* * *
Am too a gen-Xer. I have baby-boomer parents, both my brothers are gen-Xers, and so is my husband. So, if nothing else, I’m guilty by association.
And I don’t want to hear any complaining about emotional trauma. I went to a meeting at church last night, wearing jogging pants and a baggy T-shirt. It occurred to me that I might want to change clothes, but then I’d have more laundry to do, so I didn’t. The pastor’s wife saw me from across the room and waved at me over about thirty people’s heads. Then she looked me up and down and got a huge grin on her face.
“Dulcie!” she exclaimed. “When, when, WHEN?”
Of course, all thirty heads swiveled my direction, sixty eyes suddenly riveted to my midsection. I got all flustered and my face felt sunburned. All I could manage was, “Not, not, NOT!”
Her response? “Are you sure?”
I’m not kidding! She actually frowned and stared harder at me. What? Does she think I’m lying to her? Or does she expect me to shout out across all those people, “No, I assure you, my husband has been gone on business trips almost constantly the past several months, and when he is home, I’m too irritated by his absence to want sex, so I am quite certain I’M NOT PREGNANT!”
Anyway, she wasn’t done consuming her own leg yet. She shook her head and smiled brightly at me, as if she’d just solved the problem for herself. “Oh, well, I guess you’re just wearing your all-you-can-eat clothes.”
MY ALL-I-CAN-EAT CLOTHES? Why, why, tell me, would a slim, 40-something pastor’s wife say such a humiliating thing to a defenseless SAHM? Was it really necessary to remind me, in front of all those people, that my figure has yet to recover from the distortion of carrying twins? Have I not already been ground into the dust of the earth?
I tried to laugh it off, but Marianne saw me, and you know I can’t hide anything from her. She walked over and told me she had something for me in her car, and when we got there, I just bawled. Marianne is very sweet, but she already has her figure back and Helene is only 8 months old. And Brandon comes home every day from the biochemical lab he works for and spends time with her. And she went to college to get a home economics degree, just so she could become the most brilliant and content SAHM in the world (but humbler than Rosalyn). She spends all day quilting and scrapbooking. The only fly in her utopian ointment is Helene. Where that baby got such a temper, I have NO idea—Brandon and Marianne are both so soft-spoken. But, hey, nobody’s life should be absolutely perfect.
Anyway, I digress. Needless to say, Marianne was scant comfort to my tattered ego. So I skipped the meeting, came home and put the girls to bed, and ate some ice cream and watched a stupid reality show on TV. I thought about chatting with you, and went to put on my all-I-can-chat pajamas. But as I was washing my face, I looked in the mirror, and guess what I
found?
SAHM I Am Page 2
