In an effort to increase my readership and get to my book contract and Manhattan apartment that much faster, starting today I will be introducing “guest blogs” to my Rocky Mountain Ruminations page. Don’t be surprised if I reach out to you and ask you to write something about something. Really anything you could file under the heading “the human condition” works for me. My goal is to have 1-2 guest bloggers per month from different age groups, ethnic groups, backgrounds and genders. Definitely from different genders – I can’t  exclusively put the woes of wifedom and motherhood out there and expect to grow my reader base, now can I? But since the person I first approached with this idea also happens to lead a parallel life to my own, I’m afraid you’re going to get a little more of all that for the moment. Sharing this story also proves that I’m not alone in my insanity. Thank you to this kindred spirit for being my guinea pig. And thank you to all of my readers for, well, reading, but also for the encouragement you’ve shared both through your comments, emails and phone calls. If you are one of my loyal readers, please consider posting more comments so I know you’re reading; it would be great if you could also post said comments within my blog versus through Facebook posts. While I may not ever get that book contract, this will at the very least be a legacy for my children to read one day and I think they would enjoy reading your thoughts as well. It will also acknowledge my guest bloggers (and who doesn’t like to be acknowledged?) and allow them to see the commentary whether they are on Facebook or not. And so, my first guest blog…written just after the recent 4th of July holiday.

title: fml

author: anonymous

age: 36

sex: female (or, yes please, but only if you promise i won’t get pregnant)

So Marissa has asked me to guest blog for her and to keep it PG-13. I questioned her sanity at this request given what she knows of me, but okay…

Let’s recap today…
Holidays with kids are always an adventure. Mostly because during the summer ones, you’re forced outside to do “fun” activities that you might not otherwise do. Like hold a picnic in a park. A real picnic…eating on a blanket and stuff.

a) Hubby and I hate other people, so we tend to avoid parks
b) We also hate eating outside…he’s worse than a woman when it comes to bugs
c) Our kids are maniacs that run in different directions

So hey! Let’s have a picnic!
Hubby and I run through McDonald’s to feed everyone because we all know that I don’t have a picnic basket, nor the desire to put anything cute together that might involve real food-shaped products. So off we go to the park to meet a group of friends.

Now the group that we’re meeting is just starting to have kids. Every kiddo with them is 1yr old or under, so you can be sure that the majority of conversation is focused around feeding schedules, naps, and developmental milestones.
I’m. So. Over. It.

My kids are 5 and 3. We’re well past all of that crap. We’re done with diapers. We’re mostly done with naps. We don’t tote bags of junk with us everywhere anymore. We really don’t even take strollers. So now we’re combining a picnic (which we hate) with a group of parents that find sheer joy in their kids sitting up. Mind you, none of them found joy when MY kids were sitting up for the first time. None of them HAD kids at that point.

And so I do what any other totally anti-social asshole would do. I wander off and ignore them until we can leave.

Once back at the ranch, hubby decides that he’s going to have a few beers for the afternoon. Which leaves me and the kids.

More than anything, I want quiet. For like 10 minutes. And so I force the 3 yr old into a nap. Which is great, because she hasn’t yet figured out that she totally doesn’t have to listen to me at all if she doesn’t want to. I’m extremely lazy and weak-willed. But hey, hooray for her gullibility!

I then tell the 5 yr old that it’s time for “quiet time”. That used to be a thing we did. When he gave up napping, we’d hang on the couch and just be quiet to get him to rest a bit. Over the years, that has evolved to “whatever he wants to do, so long as he leaves me alone.” I’ll take my mother of the year award now.

So as I type this, he’s playing old school Nintendo games on the Wii. And he has been for 45 minutes. And he will be until I can’t convince him that it’s fun anymore. You know why? Because he’s QUIET!

Which is all any mother of 2 little kids wants.
And anyone that tells you something else is lying.

…and oh look. The little one is crying. Because I gave her a cup of milk.
Why not? My 10 minutes of daily joy have now expired. Back to the regularly scheduled programming.