Author: Anxious Mom

Back To School

/ Anxious Mom / 7 Comments

Yesterday was the first day back to school. Back to school in-person for the girl and virtual for the boy. The anxiety level was running high on BG’s behalf. Will they really enforce their mask and distancing rules? Is it possible for her to even enjoy being there or get anything out of it with so much change? Most people seem to think no for the younger ages.

Baby Girl went from the worst meltdown yet and threatening to “cancel school” on Sunday night to “I had the best day ever and didn’t want to come home!” on Monday afternoon. She also complained last night about not being at school.

Thank the lord. But she’s not going to be too please with the five-day break.

I noticed that every child going into and coming out of the school had on a well-fitted mask. BG said that they kept their masks on at all times except lunch and recess. And at recess they weren’t able to use the playground equipment and couldn’t stand close. They talked and played shadow tag and that was plenty. The letter home from the school also said it would be a very strict rule for everyone to wear masks properly and that if anyone had a medical exception, a face shield was required. So I feel a lot of relief on the safety end. (Compared to LM’s teacher, who included their mask policy and said they only needed to wear it in halls or when doing group work or otherwise sitting close. We made the right call with him.)

You’d think that first graders who aren’t with their whole class, can’t use playground equipment or class toys, have to wear masks, have to eat in their classrooms, can’t leave the classroom except recess, etc. would probably not be too overjoyed with being there. BG has gone so long without interaction with other kids and people (exception being seeing my husband’s mom, my parents twice, and her cousin once) that she was just overjoyed to be able to go to school and be around the kids. I’m guessing a lot of kids who have distanced from almost everyone for the better part of the last six months will feel the same.

It made me tear up to hear the excitement in BG’s voice over just  being in school. It really hit how hard this has been on her. She said her #2 best friend was in her class, too, which she was super excited about. Based on the amount of talking those two did in their kindergarten class, they may soon come to regret that lol.

Little Man wasn’t very impressed with virtual school. Being on a computer for the better part of seven hours wasn’t his idea of a good time. He did say that he preferred it to going and being away so long, though. It helped that he got to watch part of the Avengers Endgame movie during lunch. And he only has to be online for two full days plus a half day on Wednesdays, so at least it won’t be all week.

He said some of the teachers had a hard time streaming, so it’ll probably take a couple of weeks to get adjusted. Those seventh graders were savage with the comments they were leaving on class stream while they waited. 😮 They are letting them be on video too like on Zoom, so it’s neat they will be able to see their classmates. LM showed me that some kids were doing TikTok dances while waiting and DURING the class.

Most Viral TikTok Dances

This is going to be interesting.

Here’s to a great and safe school year.

Sock It To Me, Baby

/ Anxious Mom / 8 Comments

Last week I wrote about underwear. This week, I’m writing about socks.

You’re probably thinking one of two things right now: this is turning into the most boring blog in existence or I did not sign up for a fashion blog.

The first part may be true sometimes, but I think BG’s hilariousness helps a bit. The second part — no, you did not, and this will probably be my last post related to what I wear. Unless I decide to write a post about my bras, which are equally unflattering as my granny panties.

I am not someone who dresses up often, and even when I do, that usually looks like “dressy jeans and a comfy blouse.” I don’t really get into fashion and all that and prefer my non fancy jeans and t-shirts, but I have an exception — my socks. I love the hell out of fun socks and have a couple dozen pairs. Even when I dress up a bit, the fun socks are there. (Also on the super rare occasion that I have to wear dress slacks, which was twice in the past year.)

My family knows how much I love socks, so that’s often one of the gifts I get for Christmas or my birthday. One of my favorite brands is Blue Q, as they have the cutest socks with funny phrases. Whatever your personality or interests are, you can find something fun.

I prefer longer socks since they don’t slip under my shoes as much, and I give zero fucks about wearing them in the summer. Zero. Crocs, loafers, sandals, whatever. Back in the day, it was fashionable to wear longer socks and Adidas sandals, so if I bide my time, I’ll be in with the fashion again. (I know this because my dad was shocked when bell-bottom jeans were in style in high school because that was from his generation.) But maybe not with the Crocs, which people love to hate.

Teen Titans Go is the absolute best, and no matter how much hate it gets, I won’t be convinced otherwise.

It’s the God of Thunder! In cutesy form! What’s not to love about that?

Blue Q socks. It has freshly sharpened pencils, y’all. My former teacher self loves these.

And speaking of freshly sharpened pencils, any You’ve Got Mail fans here? Remember when Joe says he’d send Kathleen bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils? The bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils hit my soul, and I’m disappointed my husband never made one for me.

And I Don't Think I'm Alone In This, Especially Among Readers. We Love Nora Ephr... | Gfycat

Also Blue Q. And have been worn so much that I’ll probably have to toss them soon. I strive to be punctual and would never be less than 10 minutes early for an appointment or whatever if I could help it. My husband and son are basically villains in my world of punctuality and always make me late, so these socks are accurate.

These were a part of a big back of DC socks. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. The major heroes and villains were all represented.

Another pair of Blue Q.

Not represented are my Star Wars socks. Six pics seemed like enough, plus my favs are in the wash.

Here are a pair of socks I really, really want but won’t get because they have “fuck” on them. I mutter that word under my breath a lot, but the girl hasn’t picked up on it yet, and I’d like to keep it that way because she absolutely will repeat it at school.

These are pretty cool, too.

Do you like fun socks?

End-of-Week Brain Dump

/ Anxious Mom / 8 Comments

Tomorrow is the big day. Back-to-school for the girl and the start of virtual schooling for the boy. How we’re all feeling about this:

Baby Girl: shifting towards excitement
Me: oh god, the anxiety
Husband: chill as hell
Little Man: still livid that he has to restart school

Hopefully all goes well. BG has a ton of practice wearing her mask, and we got some new ones for her (not made by myself lol) that provide more coverage and have extremely good filters. I got some for the rest of us after seeing how good hers was. (Stark face masks, if you’re wondering. Pricier than the other masks and not fashionable, but it has a .3 micron filter, doesn’t crowd the mouth, and is extremely comfortable. I never thought I’d get excited about face masks, but 2020.)

I got a voice mail from a radio station on Friday. “We’ve got some bad news and good news for you. The bad news is, you didn’t win the cruise. The good news is, you won a 30-inch pizza.”

I had completely forgotten about entering a raffle back in January for a local business that was trying to raise funds for something. The main prize was a cruise for two in December on a boat I love and in a good spot on the ship. Sniffle. I wonder if cruising will even be back in three months. Doesn’t seem like it would be, at least not for the U.S. Unlessssss all of my “COVID hoax” family/friends are right and the virus disappears on November 4th.

Imagine actually believing a political party faked a virus so your guy wouldn’t get elected, got all major medical institutions to agree to it, and got every other country in the world to fake having a pandemic. It makes my head hurt.

Moving along.

So, Week 1 of the meds went great for Baby Girl. Week 2? Not as good. A couple of days were fine, a couple others were less bad that a normal day, but then a couple other days were on the extreme end of things. I have some new bruises thanks to one particularly violent episode. And she bit the corner of the bed so hard that a bottom tooth was very loose afterwards and bleeding a bit. (She’s right at the age where she should be losing one soon, so I imagine it was a bit loose already.) There are still less meltdowns overall, though, so we’ll stick with the medicine for now and see how things go.

She has been doing a thing this year for meltdowns where she spins in the floor. She lays on her side and pushes herself in circles. It looks like a clock hand going around. If not for the meltdowns, it’d be pretty funny. Maybe next time I’ll throw a wet rag under her so she washes the floors a bit.

Hmm what else for this week?

I had a virtual doctor appointment this week to discuss weight. I am not a fan of virtual appointments. It seems so awkward. I wish they would do texting appointments. I saved an hour of driving at least. My daughter’s school had a virtual open house. Unfortunately, they messed up and required a school district email and password to access it, which most parents didn’t have. I was able to get on because LM was already logged in under his email, so yay for that. I imagine it will take a while to get the virtual schooling kinks worked out.

My appointment to get the skin cancer spot removed is this Friday. I have a nice, thick packet of paperwork to fill out, too. Hopefully all goes well with that and it doesn’t take too long. I guess I’m addicted to screens myself when the idea of sitting there for 4-8 hours without any form of entertainment is the most worrisome thing for me. Lawd.

Have a good week everyone!

Making This Blog Hot

/ Anxious Mom / 11 Comments

Last week, we discussed making money and blogging. Today, I’m going to teach you about what your blog is REALLY lacking.

It’s hotness.

The office mindy kaling kelly kapoor GIF on GIFER - by Bann

I’m Erika, The Blog Bitch.

So, about five years ago, I was stuck in a writing rut and decided to get help from Google. I came across a website with an article called 101 Blog Post Ideas That Will Make Your Blog “Hot.” 

Hell yes. Hotness is just what this blog has been lacking.

I scrolled through the list and came across some interesting things, like Host a giveaway. Interesting, but what the fuck would I give away? Lord of the Rings toys? Dirty diapers? The right to name my next child (even though a third child isn’t happening)?

On to another idea. Criticize a website/blog or a person. Oooh, yes, I could have my own Burn Book type post and talk shit about all of my fellow bloggers.

tumblr_mdwkwernis1rla5a5o2_500“Fuck John for not telling me more about his swagger.” Or “To hell with NotAPunkRocker for skipping Christmas cards.” Or maybe “Damn that NerdInTheBrain and her gratitude.”

[None of these amazing posters are still blogging as far as I know. 😦 ]

Eh, maybe not. I’m not a fan of people hating me.

Number 9 is Tell a personal secret. Is there anything I haven’t overshared on already, though? Then there is Bust a myth. Is this kind of like Bust-A-Move? (Fun fact: my husband clued me in on the fact that one of my favorite arcade games shares the same name as a song.) Myth busting seems like it would take more effort than trying to come up with a legit blog post, though. And more than likely, Snopes has already got to it

Number 34 is Start a poll. I’ve never done a poll on this blog before, so there’s no time like the present, right?

That doesn’t really make for much of a post, though, does it? I suppose I could discuss my leg shaving habits in a post of its own and have the poll and all, but I kinda doubt anyone would want to read that.

Directly after that is #35 Write a post about things you regret doing/not doing. Um, no. I’m not trying to add to the depression. Maybe I’ll hit that up in January.

Halfway through the list is #51 Create a blog post about your bad habits – Smoking, alcohol, drugs. Tell them something shocking!

Dafuq? That’s just a little too much enthusiasm for someone else’s struggles, person who created that list! And I’m stopping at that one. I now have something resembling a blog post put together, plus I want to save the other half of this list for tomorrow or another day this month when I can’t come up with much of anything to write.

Looking at numbers 1 through 51 on that list only, which is your favorite? Anything you’re likely to use? Maybe the Publish your CV online suggestion?

I may post Part 2 on Friday.

Good Night, Sleep Tight…

/ Anxious Mom / 5 Comments

Yesterday, I published a post about underwear.

I’ve been blogging for six years now, yet I found myself writing about underwear. And not even good underwear. Not sexy underwear, not underwear with cool characters on them. Granny panties is what y’all got.

Is this what rock bottom feels like?

Just kidding, of course. Writing is writing, right?

Okay, maybe no more underwear talk this week. I’ll save my bra post for next week.

The boy gave me a good laugh today. We were talking about how things have changed since the pandemic, and he commented on not staying overnight with my dad.

“I miss staying over, but it’s probably for the best,” Little Man said. I nodded in agreement, since the closer we get to the election, the nuttier my dad usually gets.

That wasn’t LM’s reason why, though.

“His bedbugs creep me out.”

I laughed. “What?”

“You know…his bedbugs. He has bedbugs, and it just weirds me out to think about them crawling all over me.”

I laughed. If my stepmom had bedbugs in her home, I’d know about it, and the house would probably be burned down.

“Papa told me. Remember? It was a long time ago, back at his old house, when he told me they had bedbugs.”

Oh yeah!

I remembered then. Little Man was 4 or 5, and my dad had done the whole “Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” bit with LM. LM took it seriously, though, so he told his Sunday school class the next morning that his grandparents had bedbugs. When they brought him home from church, we were eating supper, and LM started talking about the bugs. “I told my teacher about your bedbugs!”

“What?! I don’t have bedbugs!” my stepmom exclaimed.

“Yes, you do!” LM replied. “Papa says so!” The look on my poor stepmom’s face at the thought that the church thinks she has bedbugs.

We all had a good laugh over it, and my stepmom said she’d make sure his teacher knew there weren’t any bed bugs. Well, somehow in our laughter, it appears that no one explained the nursery rhyme and that LM still thought they had bugs.

“There were no bedbugs, LM! It was just a rhyme” I told him.

“Yes there are! I don’t feel them crawling on me at night, but I know they’re there.”

Lawdamercyjesus.

I made it crystal clear this time that the bedbugs thing is just a fun little rhyme and does not indicate an infestation. Hopefully the next time he sleeps over, he’ll be more comfortable.

Hey, Underoos

/ Anxious Mom / 8 Comments

I’m writing this post because it is something y’all really need to know.

Like, really need to know.

The last time I bought new underwear was sometime before Baby Girl was born. I’m not sure exactly when, but she’s 6 now, so it’s been a while. I’m really picky about underwear. You’d think maybe most women are, but the uncovered elastic waistband seems to dominate the underwear market, so y’all can’t be that picky because that uncovered elastic is the devil.

Underoos - Imgflip

(Speaking of devils, LM offered to make BG a PB&J last week, and she declined because “he makes the devil PB&Js with crunchy peanut butter and strawberry jelly.” I had never heard of Devil PB&Js, but okay. If we can have Jesus Chicken aka Chick-Fil-A, then we can definitely have Devil PB&Js.)

So, a decade ago I found the perfect underwear. Hanes ComfortSoft waistband boyshorts for women. 100% cotton, no polyester blend. They didn’t ride up, they were super comfortable, and THE BAND WAS ENCASED IN COTTON. Plus they were tagless, which wasn’t standard in underwear for us peasant folk back then. And then Hanes discontinued them, as people apparently don’t like comfort, but I lucked out and found a few unopened packs on eBay in my size sometime before the girl was born. Ever since that day I’ve prayed to the underwear gods for Hanes to bring back my underwear.

Six years is a long time. I had a lot of undies since I got those packs on eBay, but that shit didn’t last forever. My undies stopped holding things in place and got some holes. (One pair with a hole in the crotch may have made an appearance at my full-body exam with the dermatologist. When they said “full body,” I was thinking “full body like at the GYN, where I wear nothing under a gown.” And then they said keep my underwear on. Fuuuuck. For once in my life, I’d have preferred less coverage.)

I started my underwear search, but the underwear gods hadn’t listened and reintroduced my brand, so I had to look elsewhere. A couple weeks ago, I hit up Amazon, determined to find some underwear that were comparable to my old ones. That was not an easy task. One package looked good, but no, it was a polyester blend. One package was perfect, but wait, not my size. Another package looked promising only to zoom in on the elastic band and see that it wasn’t covered. Devils. I looked and looked and looked and finally found something that checked off every box except for “boyshorts.”

Granny panties, y’all. I got granny panties.

And they are comfortable as hell. They don’t ride up, they have a comfortable waistband, they have a bit of tummy control. They’re some random ass brand, too, but they had great ratings on Amazon, so for $25 I gave them a try, and it was worth it.

Once they arrived, I threw out the underwear that had potential to embarrass me if I either a) wore them to another doctor appointment or b) got in a wreck and had to have my underwear cut off. Seriously, my grandma was always talking about how important it is to wear clean underwear that are in good repair when leaving the house. Because if you have a wreck, they might see your underwear, and…well, she didn’t really follow up with anything, but one can only assume that they’d open the back of the ambulance and kick out the gurney holding the person with the poor underwear.

I had another thought about my grandmother when I was tossing the undies. You see, she never tossed my holey underwear. Oh, no. She kept them.

Now you’re probably thinking, “WTF, Grandma?!”

She grew up during the Great Depression and was the type who didn’t like to throw away anything, and that meant keeping my old cotton underwear to use as rags for dusting. (Hers were silky undies, so they weren’t dust cloth material.) As it turns out, teenage girls aren’t fans of their grandmas keeping their old holey underwear lying around to use for cleaning. Seriously, when she dusted, sometimes she’d do a bit and stop. And the next thing you know, one of my friends was dropping by and there sat my raggedy underwear on one of the decorative tables.

Fuck Me Masterchef GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

That was very good motivation to make sure I beat her to dusting.

She still had some of my old underwear in her cleaning cabinet when she died. So, with a dozen family members in the house going through my grandmother’s things, my dad managed to find my old underwear, hold them up for all to see, and ask if I wanted to keep them.

I Will Kill You GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY

Do you feel like you know enough about me and my undies by now? Too much, perhaps?

School Is Coming

/ Anxious Mom / 11 Comments

Yes, that title is a Game of Thrones reference, because I’m obsessed.

This is it — the week before school starts back.

Little Man’s reaction to this realization:

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I’m not even exaggerating. He is not happy about this back-to-school nonsense and will not stop going on about it. I pointed out that he won’t have almost a two-hour round-trip commute time this year. (Last year it was a 20ish minute drive to the bus, where he’d usually wait another 10-15 minutes, and then 25 minutes to school. Slightly shorter return trip though.) So that means sleeping in until 8:30 instead of getting up at 6:00. He will have two virtual days online (and that day will end earlier than a normal day) and the other days he’ll work on assignments that have been uploaded. Plus no uniforms! Plus he’s been able to fuck off for the better part of the past 5.5 months.

“Whyyyyyyyyyy? I can’t believe this! I’m not ready for school! This is the worst!”

After much bitching, I threatened to call his school and have him go in-person for two days. They wouldn’t have let me change it if I called, but the grumbling stopped for a little while at least. Mean old mom.

The plan for the girl is to do the two in-person days at this point. We’ve talked to the principal, reviewed their safety procedures, discussed class size, selected her teacher (I’m glad they let us pick, because as sweet as the older teacher is, I’m not sure she would’ve been the best fit for the girl), and we’ve gotten her therapies in order. She’ll leave before lunch on one of the days, so 1.5 days in person and two virtual. And if cases go up or they aren’t as gung-ho on the measures they’ve said they’re taking, then we’ll pull out.

She’s not really looking forward to school. BG doesn’t really care about the masks or the changes I told her about, but she said she doesn’t want to be away from me. I hope it will help that she is already familiar with her teacher, and hopefully someone she likes will be in her class. I know her best friend is doing all virtual, though.

I’ve been ordering the back-to-school stuff online, and I got her shoes in the mail today — a pair of pink Nikes. Pink because it was the only color had in her favorite style of shoes (BG would rather wear rainboots or Crocs every day, but they used to have PE days where they needed sneakers.) That style has been discontinued but I lucked out and found them on eBay. Her response to the shoes:

“Maybe it’s good that they’re pink so the other girls will like me.”

Gahhhhh. 😦

We got her kid’s messenger on my phone recently, so she’s been chatting with her best friend a little. They do video chat and some texting, and their messages are so stinking cute and formal.

BG: Good afternoon, [friend].

Friend: Good afternoon, [BG].

That sort of thing.

So, today the boy asked about 69. The naughty number.

It came up innocently. He was trying to create a Roblox account and stuck 69 on the end of his username, but Roblox wouldn’t let him because it was inappropriate.

“Why is this inappropriate? It’s a number! Thor used it as part of his username on Endgame!”

My husband’s response was “It just is,” (sigh) which led to LM googling what 69 meant.

“Oh my god! I know what 69 means now. What is wrong with the freaking world?!”

Lord help.

Also, everything.

Making Money and Having Fun

/ Anxious Mom / 7 Comments

This title sounds like I’m gonna try to peddle some makeup and essential oils, doesn’t it?

Oops.

No pyramid schemes here. I promise.

Pin by Amanda on The Office | The office show, Office jokes ...

I was browsing Pinterest for blog topic ideas when I saw this:

Those are not the droids topics I was looking for. But let’s take a look anyway, shall we?

#2 – Video games

I could definitely write a post or two about playing video games. I could write about how I used to love playing on my Playstation and how excited I was to get my PS4, only for a child to basically take it over. That child hasn’t been disowned yet, but he is saving money to buy a PS5, and I plan to get revenge when he does.

#4 – Workout

Lmao. That is all.

#32 – Music

I have eyes, well ears, for one band mostly. Y’all know who it is by now, and I don’t think writing a bunch of posts on that band would go over too well, let alone make me any money. Here’s a very different song that you may enjoy if you give it a listen.

#34 – Blogging

Raise your hand if you want to take blogging advice from someone who posts inconsistently and hasn’t made enough to pay for so much as her domain. No? I guess I don’t have much advice to offer about blogging and making money, then, unless you want to know how to use WordPress in general. I’ll toot my own horn on that one — I’ve used the platform for writing jobs and to create websites, so I’m good with it. But there still isn’t enough to write about and make it rain because shame.

#42 – Weight loss

Again, lol.

Really, though, keto works fantastically well. If you can stick with it.

#43 – Weight gain

If you don’t stick with keto, then it’s easy to do this. I’m sure I could blog a food diary that demonstrates how to gain weight, but that’s not how I want to make a buck.

#81 – Bikes

Oh boy. I can definitely write about bikes, but not in a “this is my hobby, here are some awesome bikes to choose from, trails and water bottles” way. Here’s what I have to say about bikes — first, please wear a reflective vest when you’re riding on the road so I don’t run over you. (These curvy country roads are the worst, y’all.) Second, one of the great injuries of my adulthood came at the hands of a bike. I bought a bike for exercise, my husband said it was a bad idea, and then I had drinks with friends and rode the bike around and boom, injury. I could also write a lot about the curse words I said during that injury.

#100 – Movies

Let’s see. I love to rewatch all of the MCU, Star Wars, X-Men, and Lord of the Rings movies at any time. I could probably write endlessly about those movies, and it would bore people to death and drive them away from my blog, so I probably won’t do that.

#104 – Religion 

There is a lot I can say about religion. There are thoughts in general, fun and not-so-fun stories from growing up, making fun of certain things. It probably has the most potential out of the topics on that graphic. But, no, I don’t think I will.

No, I Don't Think I Will | Know Your Meme

My idea for a blog — conspiracy blog. People eat that shit up, and it’d be a lot of fun to make up stuff to screw with people. Plus creative writing. Maybe I could slip in some stuff that would be helpful, like “the deep state really doesn’t want you to wear masks,” so then they would. Oooh. Throw ads on there to monetize and double oooh.

What would you add to the list?