I will never, ever go on vacation again. Normally, I find myself saying this after carting my three kids under five years old to Boston and back on the red-eye that stops through Denver to switch planes. HELL ON WHEELS – or wings, in this case.

But this time, I will never, ever go on vacation again because I left my household of three kids, one giant yellow lab, one German student, one wide-eyed husband and many unwelcome vermin in the basement – and went ALONE on vacation with another mom.

Yes, ALONE. No children. Solo. Single. Alone.

“What???” you scream at me. “Why, that sounds like BLISS, freedom, peace!!!”

And it was. Four nights and five days of Hilton Waikiki heaven. Palm trees, SPF 45, gorgeous, trashy magazines. What’s Britney up to these days???

And we relaxed – hard. We wiggled our toes. We flipped from front to back. We took 20 minutes to slowly, slowly tiptoe our way into the medicinal Hawaiian waters.

No splashing. No whining. No “Mommmmmmmmmy!”

No responsibility for the frying of small parts of tiny ears, backs, noses and butt cracks. No up at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., 5:30 a.m., ready to play. No peanut butter and jelly encrusted with sand fingerprints on my new, sassy bathing suit.

It was a strong Mai Tai away from a Calgon moment.

“So why won’t you ever, never do it again?” you ask, scratching your Mommy head?

Because – simply – I came home.

I came home a relaxed noodle – a slippery shell of the “chop-chop-chop,” on-time, driven, schedule-schedule-scheduled Mommy of old. I came home a non-supermom. I came home a peaceful, mumbling, relaxed idiot – shocked at the level of chaos that I’d become so used to, and unable to jump right back into the diaper/playdate/mommy-wheres-my-other-sock fire.

So I made a vow to my husband as I wept in the shower after day two of being back. “I will never, ever go on vacation again!” I sobbed.

Well, until next year, at least – Mai Tai’s here I come!!!

By Annie B. Yearout

Labels: Annie Yearout, Bliss, Calgon, German student, Hell on Wheels, Mai Tai, no children, sassy bathing suit, trashy magazines, vacation. vacation with another mom, vermin, Waikiki

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I admit it. I’m a fan. Or an addict.

As I watched Jason, the formerly dumped dad, finally pick his whisper of a bride-to-be on a Monday night on ABC, twirling and twirling her gowned figure around and around, as only a short man can do with an itty-bitty woman, I thought, grabbing a tissue, sniffle, True Love!

But then, at the Most Shocking After The Rose Ceremony Ever on Planet Earth, where we’re supposed to finally meet, live, and have kids, the happy couple who’d been twirling and twirling and pulling the moon into an alternate orbit -- the bomb drops. Jason doesn’t really love his ex-Dallas Cowboys cheerleader sprite. He wants the other one. The one he dumped. Flat. On. Her. Incredulous. Face.

If you don’t watch the show, let me lay it out for you. Single, unlucky in love dad goes on a date with twenty-five women. He gets to play with all the women however much he wants – kiss, tickle, tempt them with his shirtless body, take helicopter rides and laugh – ha ha! – for the countless cameras that surround their every move. And then politely dump them by not handing them a rose. Dating under a microscope is the appropriate cliché, ‘cept this microscope has twenty bazillion fans (addicts) who just can’t get enough of poor Jason’s quest for love.

This season, according to Chris, the well coiffed and patiently disgusted host of the show, Jason’s journey has drawn more viewers than ever. And I can see why. To add to the drama/trauma, we viewers all already knew and held a stake in Jason’s fortune as we had all watched him fail at finding love on last season’s Bachelorette. The one with the Greek gal we all had girl-crushes on. Deanna. You see, Deanna dumped Jason last minute, and chose the completely inappropriate snowboard dude instead.

A nation wept.

Of course, to make the soap opera circle complete, (and feel free to skip this paragraph if your kid needs a diaper change or Ed McMahon is at the front door) back to this season, the same Deanna flies all the way to New Zealand where Jason is about to propose to his itty-bitty slut, I mean, fiancée, while unhappy Deanna confesses that she made a BIG mistake last season and wants Jason back!

Can it get any better than this? Reality TV soap opera at its best!

Confused? Head a-twirl? Good. Because isn’t that what love is, confusing? Dizzying? And that is what has drawn so many (educated!) suckers like me into this orgasmic, minefield of drama played out for us on Monday nights. This isn’t a sappy, happy story of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy marries girl happily ever after. This is the 2009 version of how love really works (uh, sorry, Shakespeare), and Jason’s angst and complete bungling of making the “right” choice for his small family reminds me of some of my friends and acquaintances who have recently made their own tough, love choices and are leaving their marriages and relationships even after ten plus years and three point two children.

Fortunately or unfortunately for them, my friends don’t have helicopters whisking them and their kids on date nights or long-stem, red roses determining their fate. But their world is twirling, around and around, as I watch and hope that their new, single-mom ride is smoother than the bumpy, public one our sweet Jason, Bachelor Dad, has chosen to take. And, hopefully, I will watch them and engage with compassion and empathetic angst on a different level than I do with my guilt-ridden Bachelor addiction.

By Annie Yearout

Labels: ABC, addiction, Annie Yearout, Christmas, Dallas Cowbosy, Deanna, dude, Ed McMahon, Jason, New Zealand, Reality TV, shirtless body, Soap Opera, The Bachelorette, The Bachlor

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I admit it. I’m a fan. Or an addict. As I watched Jason, the formerly dumped dad, finally pick his whisper of a bride-to-be on Monday night on ABC, twirling and twirling her gowned figure around and around, as only a short man can do with an itty-bitty woman -- I thought, grabbing a tissue, True Love!

But then, at the Most Shocking After The Rose Ceremony Ever on Planet Earth in our Universe, where we’re supposed to finally meet, live, the happy couple who’d been twirling and twirling and pulling the moon into an alternate orbit, the bomb drops.

Jason doesn’t really love his ex-Dallas Cowboys cheerleader sprite. He wants the other one. The one he dumped. Flat. On. Her. Incredulous. Face.

If you don’t watch the show, you may be scratching your head. Let me lay it out there for you. Single, unlucky in love dad goes on a date with twenty-five women. He gets to play with all the women however much he wants – kiss, tickle, tempt them with his shirtless body, take helicopter rides and laugh – haha! – for the countless cameras that surround their every move. And then politely dump them by not handing them a rose. Dating under a microscope is the appropriate cliché, ‘cept this microscope has twenty bazillion fans (addicts) who just can’t get enough of poor Jason’s quest for love.

This season, according to Chris, the well coiffed and patiently disgusted host of the show, Jason’s journey has drawn more viewers than ever. And I can see why. To add to the drama/trauma, we viewers all already knew and held a stake in Jason’s fortune as we had all watched him fail at finding love on last season’s Bachelorette. The one with the Greek gal we all had girl-crushes on. Deanna. You see, Deanna dumped Jason last minute, and chose the completely inappropriate snowboard dude instead. We wept.

Of course, to make the soap opera circle complete, (feel free to skip this paragraph if your kid needs a diaper change or Ed McMahon is at the front door) back to this season, the same Deanna flies all the way to New Zealand where Jason is about to propose to his itty-bitty sprite (because of course, he can’t propose State-side – this amount of sap just isn’t legal here anymore) and old, unhappy Deanna confesses that she made a mistake last season and wants Jason back!

I mean, can it get any better than this?

Confused? Head a-twirl? Good! Because isn’t that what love is, confusing? Dizzying? And that is what has drawn so many (educated!) suckers like me into this orgasmic, minefield of drama played out for us on Monday nights. This isn’t a sappy, happy story of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy marries girl happily ever after. This is the 2009 version of how love really works (uh, sorry, Shakespeare), and Jason’s angst and complete bungling of making the “right” choice for his small family reminds me of some of my friends and acquaintances who have recently made their own tough, love choices and are leaving their marriages and relationships even after ten plus years and three point two children. And are ripped up inside about it.

Fortunately or unfortunately for them, my friends don’t have helicopters whisking them and their kids on date nights or long-stem, red roses determining their fate. But their world is twirling, around and around, as I watch and hope that their new, single-mom ride is smoother than the bumpy, public one our sweet Jason, Bachelor Dad, has chosen to take. Hopefully, I will watch and engage with compassion and empathetic angst on a different level than I do with my guilt-ridden Bachelor addiction.

By Annie Yearout

Labels: Annie Yearout, Bachelorette, Greek, helicoptors, New Zealand, roses, The Bachelor

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I have a favorite picture. It’s lost in someone’s basement. Probably my Dad’s, possibly mine. I’d always thought I’d be more organized than my Dad. Nope.

It’s a picture of me as a two-year old in a field of bursting yellow dandelions in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I’m on my Dad’s shoulders – piggyback, which I now appreciate, as a mom of three, as quite a test of strength.

My body starts aching after the first 100 steps, with a little twenty-pounder on top. How did my Dad do it??

We’re hiking. Dad’s in his black and red L.L. Bean lumberjack, wool shirt. I’m in some hand-knit ‘70s vest -- a hand-me down from my big sister, perhaps? Or maybe a Christmas present from some crafty Great Auntie.

A colorful testament to the colorful times.

I think it’s a picture of us from behind because I don’t remember our faces. I remember my Dad’s shirt and my fuzzy, blonde pigtails poking out of the side of my head like little fountains of cuteness. And I remember the dandelions. Hundreds and millions of dandelions.

The sun is coming up over the hill in front of us, filtering through my pigtails, making them glow like little Tinkerbelles next to my head. It means it’s either morning time, when the birds are twittering about, eager to find that early worm. Or it’s an evening hike, just when the sun is heading down over the Aspen trees and rows of Evergreens, getting ready to tuck itself in for a good night’s sleep.

My twin girls are just now turning two-years old. And I was caught completely off-guard the other morning when, as I walked into the kitchen to get my good morning snuggle before an early meeting, both of them had their heads full of bouncing and wiggling pigtails, courtesy of my dexterous and brave husband.

A lump in my throat, an ache in my heart.

How could these flops of hair bring about such an emotional reaction? An innocence, I suppose. They bring back a memory of my life when it all was about riding on my Daddy’s shoulders before I knew that I’d need to support my own shoulders, keep them thrown back, and make it up that big hill on my own.

Step-by-step.

I must remember to call my Dad to thank him. And to show him a picture of his gorgeous little granddaughters and their pigtails. But, most importantly, I must remember to thank my own little girls for the gift that they have given me -- their pigtails.

By Annie Yearout

Labels: Annie Yearout, Colorado, daddy, fathers, granddaughters, L.L. Bean, pigtails, Steamboat Springs

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My girls were born at 8:01 and 8:02 a.m. on a nippy February day, screaming in their full pink-faced, harmonious glory. They’ve shared a birthday, a hairbrush, a room, and a mommy for every single moment of their twenty-three plus months.

Today we split them in half. Madeleine was shuttled off with Daddy down to grandma’s house. And I had Charlotte and all of her delicious one-ness to myself.

WHAT JOY!

A twin on her own is like the clichéd kiddo in a candy store. A happy, fulfilled, joyous little creature who has Mommy all to herself.

No sharing. No turns. No wait-just-a-minutes.

No being bonked on the head by the OTHER two-year old who can’t control her urges. No need to screech EVEN LOUDER than that bothersome sibling to get my attention.

Just Mommy and Me.

BLISS.

And what a day we had! Hand-in-hand we waddled on two-year old legs through our neighborhood greeting kitties and mailmen, savoring every single precious focused moment of mutual worship.

“What a delightful creature,” I thought to myself. “Just where the heck did she come from???”

And where the heck did that Creature from the Deepest Lagoon of Whining and Discontent go???

Who would have thought that something as simple as splitting up my Charlotte from her Madeleine for a whole day would be such an important moment for the two of us? A pivotal moment in our mutual admiration – hopefully leading the way down a path of mutual respect and mother-daughter FUNCTION instead of mutual, typical dysfunction.

Who knows? But for the moment, we found each other – a mommy and her daughter.
A day on our own.

By Annie Yearout

Labels: Annie Yearout, time with Mommy, twins

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Once a month, the warthog emerges. Like a werewolf in a full moon, she bursts, full-throttle, from the dark, sinister depths of her home office, hair uncombed, breasts throbbing, voice peeling the paint and the crayon doodles off the walls.

Run, children, run, for this creature shall force you to eat all three carrots on your plate! Run, children, run, for this creature shall make you put your dirty clothes in the laundry basket instead of on the floor next to said laundry basket. Run!

The warthog has no patience and likes to nibble, slowly on naughty, defiant children. Foraging in the refrigerator and cabinets for something sweet or salty, she ROARS with frustration that only organic squeezie yogurts and Annie’s Ranch Bunnies are available for devouring.

“Who wants to go to 7-11?!!!” she trumpets at 6:30 p.m. so she can grab handfuls of contraband Raisinettes and Cheetoes for late night snacking with US Weekly, ignoring her husband’s raised eyebrow.

The warthog feels fat. And hairy. “Pants again today,” she mumbles to herself on a 90-degree day… the warthog has no tolerance for Gillette stubble or Nair wounds right now.

The warthog feels misunderstood. For she sobs about the kids, the state of her marriage, the job that she used to have, the job that she wants to have, the word “job,” and her bumbling and stumbling writing attempts. Her hooves feel all scratchy and dull and even a mani-pedi doesn’t make her feel better, well, at least for more than an hour or so.

Signs pop up in the front yard of her house – “Beware: Warthog on the Loose” and “Come Back in Five Days” – for any unsuspecting friends who might think of zipping over for an impromptu hello. The mailman throws the mail from the sidewalk. The paperboy, from the porch of the house five doors away. And as for the FedEx guy, that’s the last time he shows up with a package that didn’t come overnight like it was supposed to.

She had him for lunch. Grunt. Snarl.

But then the warthog begins to feel better. The curse slowly lifts and large rainbows appear and her children come out from behind the couch. “Oh, Mom, you should have seen her this time…” Ah, yes, who was that diabolical creature that inhabited her body for those five days? And what shall we do next month when the snaggletoothed warthog raises her hairy head yet again???

As her brave and loyal husband unzips from his camouflage jumpsuit and emerges, slowly, carefully, from his barricade from behind the ficus plant, he not so subtly says, “Next month, we’re taking you to the vet.”

By Annie Yearout

Labels: Annie Yearout

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The flight home from Boston to SFO is over five hours and we don’t have our kids this time. That means five hours of flipping peacefully through Newsweeks and Oprahs and lip-reading the actors’ lines in the straight-to-video box office bombs that United forces you watch despite your best intentions to read War & Peace. Thank God my headphones don’t work. I look out at the clouds, so puffy.

My husband and I are on our way back from our 20th high school reunion. We went to the same high school outside of Boston, were in the same class, and, later in life, re-found each other and ended up living “happily ever after” with three kids, a dog, and a white picket fence. Ok, scrap the fence, but the rest is true.

This was my first reunion since graduation in ‘87. Teens of the ‘80s – Madonna, Billy Idol – with hardly a Rebel Yell and always ready for a holiday, our class of 85 students skipped through our four years, high on Fresca and high-school hormones. We were “a good class” without extreme bullies and with a strong female force.

Twenty years later, we step into the tented, reunion event on the senior quad – a sacred ground that only teachers, visitors and seniors are allowed to walk on during the school year. As a freshman, it is a terrifying patch of grass, filled with threats of humiliation by a squad of seniors if you are caught with a toe on it. Now it’s just another square patch of grass I don’t even give a thought to as my high-heels squash down into the turf, marring its pomposity.

Everyone is exactly the same at our 20th, except nicer all around. The hormonal, cocky sheen of high-school attitude has been replaced by the humble reality of being hit by “real life” over the last twenty years. Jobs, babies, parents, hair, friends, youth lost. Everyone’s been hit by something, and there’s almost a “truce” feeling – an eagerness to connect – with everyone who’s made the effort to come. Geeks sit with beauties. Jocks joke with wallflowers. The old high-school labels hover slightly, but are ignored. We all want to make this work.

My husband and I visit the tree honoring a classmate who died our freshman year. It sits quietly at the end of the football field, looking into the entrance of our school. We take off our shoes and lie down, looking up, through the leaves that are so much higher now after twenty years. Would he be here today? Would he be nicer, too? I hope so. He would.

Back on the plane, I switch to my Vogue. Some mush for my brain. I feel content, a feeling that I rarely felt in high school. The pressure to be someone I am not, or don’t understand, is gone. I am just me, and I realize how lovely that is.

By Annie Yearout

Labels: Annie Yearout

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Have you seen that e-mail going around about the way to remove things caught up in your kids’ noses? I think it was originally sent to me via my twins group – which was then followed by a group replys of – “Hey, we had that happen, too!” and “Ohmygod, that is the coolest home remedy ever!”

It’s as simple as closing your little rascal’s mouth completely, airtight, and then blowing gently into the one nostril that DOES NOT have the alien object imbedded in it. A little blow and – poot! – the offending item flies out of the clogged nostril.

When I saw this e-mail come through, I was in the later group: the, “Wow, what a totally cool thing to know as a mom.” The avoidance of speeding down Sir Frances Drake to Marin General Hospital with a large pea up the schnooz is right up there with flying across country with three kids under age four. Both as high in the fear/terror/I can’t-believe-I’m-in-this-situation level of the parental horror-story scale as you can get! Both worth avoiding like the plague (or today’s Bird Flu), so I burned this e-mail tidbit into my memory with hopes I’d never have to use it.

And then, I clicked the delete e-mail button and forgot about it.

Today, during lunch, one of my two and a half-year-old twin girls – the one who likes to lick sunscreen from the tube like yogurt and swipe Chapstick from my bedside table and smear it over and over and over her lips – was fiddling with her pasta. Elbow macaroni, to be precise, with a delicate, yet slick, sheen of olive oil that made it slither around in her dexterous digits.

Yes, it was the perfect, alluring treasure to subtly squish up her nose. And though she’d been busted “pretending” to do it with a loud, and clearly completely ineffective reprimand, “Not in your nose, sweetie, it’ll give you an owie,” she subtly, deftly stuffs it into her left nostril without this eagle-eyed mommy catching a glimpse.

Two hours later, she’s having a rough put-down for a nap. Whining, complaining, stripping off her clothes, goofing, throwing, and finally just plain yelling.

I go in and calm her. As I snuggle her back into her jammies and pink cotton sack, I notice a gleaming, whitish booger peeking out of her nose.

Taking my pinky fingernail and thumb, I am able to slowly, efficiently extract a ½ inch noodle out of her nose. Noodle??????!!! The look of surprise on her face probably matched the horror of surprise I felt. NOODLE!!!????????

So I didn’t need the “coolest way ever to extract an object from a nose” that the mass e-mail had promised. But, I also didn’t need a trip to the overloaded Marin General’s ER. I just needed me, a mom of three, who’s just about seen it all: ‘cept today’s lunch up my kid’s nose. Go figure.

By Annie Yearout

Labels: Annie Yearout

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Have you seen that e-mail that’s going around about the way to remove things caught up in your kiddos’ noses? I think it was originally sent to me via my twins group – which was then followed by a bunch of group replys of – “hey, we had that happen, too!” and “ohmygod, that is the coolest home remedy ever!”

It’s as simple as closing your little rascal’s mouth completely, airtight, and then blowing gently into the one nostril that DOES NOT have the alien object imbedded in it. A little blow and – poot! – the offending item flies out of the clogged nostril and a panicked trip to Marin General’s overcrowded ER is avoided.

When I saw this e-mail come through, I was in the later group: the, “wow, what a totally cool thing to know as a mom” group. The avoidance of speeding down Sir Frances Drake to Marin General with a large pea up the schnooz is right up there with flying across country with three kids under four. Both as high in the fear/terror/I can’t-believe-I’m-in-this-situation level of the parental horror-story scale as you can get! Both worth avoiding like the proverbial plague (or today’s Bird Flu), so I burned this email tidbit into my memory with hopes I’d never have to use it.

And then, “Delete,” I clicked the e-mail button and forgot all about it.

Today, during lunch, one of my 2.5 year-old twin girls – the one who likes to lick sunscreen from the tube like yogurt and swipe chapstick from my bedside table and smear it over and over and over her lips – was fiddling with her pasta. Elbow macaroni, to be precise, with a delicate yet slick sheen of olive oil that made it slither around in her dexterous digits.

Yes, it was the perfect, alluring treasure to subtly squish up her nose. And though she’d been busted “pretending” to do it with a loud, and clearly completely ineffective reprimand, “Not in your nose, Sweetie, it’ll give you an owie,” she subtly, deftly stuffs it into her left nostril without this eagle-eyed mommy catching a glimpse.

Two hours later, she’s having a rough put-down for nap. Whining, complaining, stripping off her clothes, goofing, throwing, and finally just plain yelling. What the heck?

I go in and calm her. As I snuggle her back into her jammies and pink cotton sack, I notice a gleaming, whitish booger peeking out of her nose. Again, what the heck???

Taking my pinky fingernail and thumb, I am able to slowly, efficiently extract a ½ inch noodle out of her nose. Noodle??????!!! The look of surprise on her face probably matched the horror of surprise I felt. NOODLE!!!????????

So I didn’t need the “coolest way ever to extract an object from a nose” that the e-mail had promised. Dang. But, I also didn’t need a trip to the overloaded Marin General’s ER.

By Annie Yearout

Labels: Annie Yearout

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