I used to be a Gwyneth *gasp*

If you don't know what that means, please check out the best.blog.in.the.interwebz at RANTS FROM MOMMYLAND.

It's totally true, though. Oh, by the way? This might get a little long.

I'm not starting at the very beginning, that would take way too long. Kid #1 was an easy dream; Kid #2 was a surprise less than a year later. Irish twins, they were practically attached at the hip - even now at ages almost 12 and 13, they bunk together on the weekends (each have seperate beds, they just want to be in the same room together).

I WAS uber-mom. It's only looking back that I can truly appreciate all that I did. I still don't know how! My husband got in on the ground level of a new development for Verizon for what is now known as FIOS, and I became a stay at home mom full time (previously, we'd done opposing shifts to avoid daycare). I was bound and determined to be the best stay at home mom that I could be! Plus, we needed to make some extra money, but with DH's new work hours, there wasn't much I could find to work around unscheduled overtime for him.

This was in the day of "Coupon Queen glory". Tom Thumb would triple up to 75 cents on some weekends; later, Albertson's would double up to $2! I still remember the rushes of things like the night I got 80 boxes of baby wipes from Tom Thumb for something like $3.18. And yes, every single box of them got used. I'd get the double deal of papers on Saturday and clip clip clip, then on Sunday I'd go hit all the stores with my lists and coupons all sorted out. I routinely got $200 in groceries for $25 or less. If I saved less than 90%, I was dissappointed. I was hated by some, envied by others, and mentored anyone who asked.

I was "that mom". Every morning makeup, I shaved, my kids were in bed by 6:30 or 7:00pm and then we had adult time till 10 or 11pm and went to bed. I wore clean clothes almost every day. My house was SPOTLESS - and we had routines like cleaning up the kids' rooms every night before bed without wanting to kill anyone or scream about it.

We ate almost entirely home cooked meals (because of the couponing). I'd even mix things up and some nights we'd have tapas or fondue (Stouffer's I hate that you stopped making welsh rarebit!!!), or even pate and gouda with some fresh, nummy Central Market bread. Cooking dinner was just not an issue for me. Making lunches and breakfasts likewise was just part of life.

Once the kids started school, I became SUPERMOM. I volunteered all the time, attended every party (if their parties were at the same time, different classrooms, I popped in and out like a whack a mole to make sure one of them didn't feel left out!). Fresh fruit salad for 40 with one day's advance notice? NO PROBLEM! You need 200 cd's of the class pictures made and the computer's not working? NO PROBLEM!

DH would come home from work and most of the time, dinner was hitting the table, kids were all done with homework and maybe even baths, laundry was done, and nightime was relaxation time.


Fast forward a few years. Our third and final child was born and things started going downhill. The laundry was slipping a bit. Things that I'd always done sometimes didn't get done. Then she got mobile. Then we moved.

And then our middle child was finally diagnosed with Asperger's after a three year fight with the public school district. 2 years after that, our youngest was diagnosed as well.

These days.. I wear the same yoga pants or jeans for maybe an entire week unless something indescribably horrible has happened to them. Febreeze is my best friend. Headbands are awesome to hide that dear-god-I-haven't-had-time-to-shower-in-four-days oil slick on my head. Patchouli smells awful but convinces people I'm just a harmless hippie. (ed note: with bright purple hair, usually).

Homework for a kindergartner who has bouncing-off-the-walls adhd and Aspergers, a 6th grader with Asperger's who starts hers right as her meds wear off, and a gifted thus they pile the work on 8th grader means from 3pm-10pm I juggle karate, homework, dinner, and hygeine routines like a mad cow trying to juggle plates. In other words? Not very well. Totally sucktastically, actually. We've had more McDonald's in the last month than we have Mac n Cheese, and that's saying something. Something BAD.

I have the "luxury" of staying home from 830am-2:30pm in which time I juggle doctor appointments and communications, therapy checkups and appointment, order replacement stuff for broken stuff, try to keep the house in a condition that at least if Home Visit or one of the older's Big Brother or Big Sister comes by that they don't feel the need to call CPS, battle the evil laundry mountain, wonder how in the world *that* got *there* and dear god what is that smell?! And set up the PCS charts for that afternoon, update the almightly Calendar of Doom, keep all the accounts in the green, fight in emails with various teachers about why aren't they doing thing they agreed to do 2 months ago happily and are now snarling about it and my poor kid is confused and that's why they aren't "compliant" in class.. and then there's the grocery shopping, and the shoe shopping, and the clothes shopping.

I miss being Gwyneth, really I do. I don't remember the last kids' party I went to that wasn't a family member. I definitely don't remember the last class party. Fruit salad comes in a can, who knew? The mixed nuts live in my house.

And that is why I've made zero progress on the February challenge so far. Okay, not zero. Maybe 2%. I'm still trying to find a home for the ferrets.