Happy Anniversary

One year ago today, thanks to a particularly crapalicious day, The Mean Mom blog was created.

Throughout the last year, I've complained about my kids, bitched about my neighbors, griped about science projects, shared embarrassing stories about my family and revealed some equally embarrassing facts about myself.

I've posted pictures of strangers and ripped on annoying people, including the clueless guy that walks diagonally through crosswalks, assholes that text while driving, women that think they're the first person to ever carry a baby, skinny bitches that fish for compliments by talking about how "fat" they are, pretentious vegetarians, people that use the term "play date" multiple times in one conversation, lazy parents that expect everyone else to watch their kids, plus about 87 other people that obviously lack a common sense gene.

Also within the last 365 days, I've lost a pet, acquired a new puppy, shared a story about the loss of a child, taken a couple much-needed vacations, welcomed a new niece and survived an entire school year.

So, 250+ blog posts, a few hundred Facebook updates and 800+ tweets later, a lot of people (including the 1700+ fans on Facebook) know that all three of my kids play tennis, I live in the suburbs, I spend a lot of time in my minivan, my cooking skills are nothing compared to my cleaning skills and I have an incredibly thoughtful, very nice, super funny husband.

Because I don't want to known as The Boring, Redundant Mean Mom -- writing about the same school year woes and the same holiday disasters -- the upcoming year may not include quite as many posts. But as long as my kids manage to occasionally screw up, people insist on annoying me and I maintain my goal which is to always avoid those pesky AA meetings, I'll continue to write stuff.

And who knows, I may just find the time to write that book that so many of you have suggested I do. In fact, if anyone knows a publisher that's interested in cranking out a book written by a booze-loving, obscenity-using mom that's annoyed by pretty much everybody and who's current favorite show is about a chemistry teacher dad that cooks meth, send 'em my way!

So, I want (and need) to say thanks for reading the blog, being fans on Facebook, taking the time to leave thoughtful comments, following me on Twitter and sharing me with your friends. Tonight I will definitely be shaking up a few cocktails, putting my feet up, opening a bag of crack-seasoned potato chips and locking my kids in their rooms so that I can say "Cheers!" to another year of The Mean Mom.

Happily Together

Tomorrow is the 17th anniversary of the day that Doug and I got married. I can't believe that at one point in my life, a few of my closest friends (and one future sister-in-law) voluntarily agreed to wear a giant butt bow, sacrificed several days of their busy lives and allowed layers of hairspray to be applied to their heads. And even though all of our lives have went in different directions and taken us to different locations around the globe, only one of these girls has ditched me as a friend. Believe it or not, I'm kind of proud of this statistic.

If you asked me now, after almost two decades of marriage, if I were able to do the wedding over again would I do things differently, I would say absolutely, without a doubt and with zero hesitation -- absofuckenlutely. Seriously. What the hell was my clueless, immature, selfish, borderline psycho-self thinking? I mean, it was beautiful and memorable and people got their drunk on, but like most brides, I feel like I talked to about 2% of my guests, spent thousands of unnecessary (parental) dollars on hundreds of plates of wedding chicken, put my parents through a tulip and tuxedo draped version of hell and micro-managed details to the extent that I'm surprised no one followed through with their strongest desire -- which was to murder me.

One thing that I wouldn't do differently, however, is change the person that, after the whole vow-filled ordeal, I ended up being married to. We've known each other for over twenty years and I can honestly say that I still really like the guy. Sure there are times when he makes me want to jump off the roof, or at least nail him in the back of the head with a full bag of garbage, but I can guarantee that those times are nothing compared to how often he envisions lovingly placing a pillow over my face while I'm noisily breathing through my mouth, and pushing down ever so gently until the ghastly wheezing stops. I'm sure that as I angrily stomp around the house looking for scraps of paper to throw away or empty pop cans to pick up, he secretly wishes I would trip on something and snap a femur, which would leave me unable to perform any stomping for a couple months.

But since I rarely trip, am not a mouth breather, and hitting him with a bag of garbage would never really happen because it would make a huge mess that I would end up cleaning, we continue to have fun together, laugh at each other's jokes (or, in my case, he isn't afraid to let me know how dumb mine was), drink beer together, laugh at other people, raise our kids, drink more beer, take vacations and give each other just enough shit so that the other person knows how much they're loved.

Even though it sounds like an ideal relationship, I started to wonder if maybe there isn't some room for improvement. The old saying -- no marriage is perfect -- well, that little tidbit doesn't sit well with someone that is kind of a perfectionist. So I found a list of marriage tips that seemed pretty reasonable:

Compromise on what constitutes a clean room: There is no way this will ever happen because I fully admit that my expectations are completely unrealistic for a family that wants to function in an environment that's actually fun. None of them are slobs, they all know where the coasters are, they gladly pick up their garbage (after I gently remind them) and the laundry always ends up in a basket. As far as the cleaning goes, though -- like the actual scrubbing/vacuuming/dusting/de-germing/anti-grossificationing/OCD-like categorization of things and getting all the water spots off of the bathroom mirrors -- well, that part is all mine. And really, it's okay. It's our compromise.

Let your spouse in on 90% of your day-to-day routine: Does this mean that Doug really wants to know about the great deal I found on toilet bowl cleaner at Target and that the piano tuner is coming on Tuesday morning, and whoo boy how about the new crew socks that I just picked up for Zach! Those sure are sharp looking! Let's see, I think I'll make chicken for dinner and of course maybe some rice because those things go together really well with the glass of vodka I'm going to pour myself, and I think that... NO! He doesn't want to hear about this! On the other hand, while I would be happy to listen to him vent about a client meeting that went craptastically or the shitty rush hour traffic he had to deal with in order to get home to eat my delicious chicken, most of the time he doesn't want to think about the meeting or the traffic and is content just saying "Fine. Everything is fine." in response to my how was your day dear. And what, exactly, is the 10% of my day that I'm not bothering to share? Oh wait, that's probably the peeing part.

No fisticuffs in public: We know people that never hesitate to bicker and gripe and nitpick and harass each other, in front of us, acting as if their conversation is either A) not actually heard by others; B) impressing us, or; C) more important to the evening than the original point, which was for all of us to have fun. It's annoying. Like, really annoying. Sometimes it's not all bad, though, because since they're so busy being pissed at each other and giving each other shitty looks across the table, they never notice that Doug and I are drinking the whole pitcher of beer, laughing at them and thinking wow, I really like the person that I'm married to.

If you're irritated by your spouse, imagine them as a small child: Seriously. Is this a real tip or did someone write this just so that I would get my ass kicked!? When I am irritated by Doug, he gets to hang out with either A) Silent Jody; B) Stomping, Door Slamming Jody, or; C) a very exasperated Jody that mutters "What the fuck" while stomping and slamming. And I always know when Doug is irritated because he'll look at me with a "you are acting like an insane person and you need to stop so that I can stop wanting to kill you." Now, if I were to imagine Doug as a small child and then treat him accordingly, I would only end up laughing my ass off before offering him a lollipop before he went to time-out. And then he wouldn't just want to kill me, he might actually follow through with it. And I wouldn't blame him.

Procrastinate: Does this mean put things off? Like, don't do them? As in, let the laundry go an extra day, let the grass get a little too long, let the dust accumulate on the shelves, let the clean dishes sit in the dishwasher and let the beds go unmade? Because as far as I'm concerned, not doing these things would make me really cranky and give me anxiety, which would make Doug give me that look of irritation, which would make me say "What the fuck!" before stomping away in search of a dust rag. So what the hell? I thought these stupid tips were supposed to help relationships and make marriages stronger!

In fact, now that I think about it, things are pretty good around here and I don't think we need any marriage tips. Except maybe this one:

Have sex: Umm...okay.

It's A Big Day

It's hard for me to imagine, but 43 years ago yesterday, my parents got married. Since that day, they've raised three kids (some of us turned out better than others), moved a few times, displayed endless generosity, helped out numerous neighbors, made hundreds of friends, taken great vacations, become grandparents, and have never slowed down. They've supported each other, worked through disagreements, traveled independently and have always looked forward to seeing each other at the end of the day. They don't expect perfection from each other, but they do expect honesty, compassion and most of all, a sense of humor.

In addition to it being their anniversary, yesterday also marks the anniversary of the day that they drove to Chicago to welcome me into the family. I've heard stories about the long drive from central Minnesota to O'Hare, my dad's broken pants zipper that he fixed with a diaper pin, the night they had to spend in the airport after my flight from Korea was delayed and most of all, the condition I was in when they first saw me.

I smelled like I had a chronic case of diarrhea (because I did), my scalp was covered with a thick layer of cradle cap, my hair stuck straight up and according to my brothers, I looked like a toad. The Korean woman that escorted me from the orphanage must have sensed that my appearance might encourage my adoptive parents to run the other away after taking one look at me, so she mastered one English phrase: "Very nice baby." Yeah, right.

To this day, I am forever grateful to my parents for voluntarily choosing me, coming to pick me up, looking past my cradle cap and always making sure that I knew who my family really was. And they did all of this on their anniversary.

I love you, and happy anniversary mom and dad. Now let's go celebrate with bratwurst and beer at the baseball game!