MacGyver Momma

This blog entry is dedicated to all of us moms who try to keep ourselves looking as unhag-like as possible while running after a posse of messy, loud, endlessly needy youngsters AND switching as effortlessly as possible to the adult world of work. This blog post is NOT meant for Moms who manage weekly pedicures, facials and the like.

Life with young children in an urban setting requires a certain amount of invention just to get through the day, let alone look human in the process, but it helps to have a bunch of stuff in your car. If you are anything like me your car looks like it should be condemned. However, all the clutter can have its upside when it comes to scavenging something useful for any given purpose.

If you haven't managed to brush your teeth, put on make-up or comb your hair I highly recommend the Mom's Car Kit that includes: a lipstick (pink enough to double as blush), a matchbook, a corkscrew, a mini-tube of toothpaste, a small vial of purrell, some diaper wipes, a bag of almonds, a sippy cup full of water, a safety razor, a small vial of hand lotion, and an iphone. With these items one can do an amazing array of necessary bodily functions in one's car and emerge from said vehicle looking more human than when you stepped into the driver's seat.

Here are some examples of the multiplicity at your fingertips.
Say you just managed to run out of the house leaving the kids with the babysitter and you have 20 minutes to get to a client meeting. You haven't managed to shower in more than a day, and it's been hours since you looked in the mirror or brushed your teeth. You have creamcheese on your shirt from the baby, mud on your pants from your 5-year-olds sneakers, your hair looks like a dying shrub, and your hands look as if you make your living as a sewer rat; oh and you have to pee.

Have no fear.

First sprinkle some water on your hair to wet it down and tame it, then pour a glob of lotion on your hands, rub it in and put the excess onto your hair to keep it from being a flyaway mess. Then apply a dab of lipstick to your cheek bones and rub it in until it looks like blush. Cross your legs to keep yourself from peeing in your seat and apply the lipstick to your lips. Drink a little water from the sippy cup and pour the rest onto the clean sock next to you and into an old coffee cup in the cup holder. Then pull your skirt up to crouch over the sippy cup. Pee into the sippy cup. It helps if you are a pro at Kegels because it's easier to stop midstream if your cup runneth over. Pour the pee out the window* and continue from the beginning.

Put the wet clean sock into the sippy cup to dilute the pee so it doesn't stink up the car and so it reminds you to take it in with you to wash, after your client meeting. If you happen to splash yourself a drop or two don't worry. That's what the wipes are for!

After you've relieved yourself, get to work on your nails. Clean them with the corkscrew tip, file them with the matchbook flint until they are even enough for government work. Then it's time to clean your mouth. Put a dab of the toothpaste on your finger, "brush" your teeth with your fingerprints, take a swig from the old coffee cup of water that you poured from the sippy cup before you used it as a potty. Swill the toothpaste/ stale-coffee tainted water around your mouth until you are about to upchuck than spit it back into the old coffee cup and pour the contents out the window*.

If your legs need a shave, wipe a little Purrell on your legs or armpits and start shaving fast until the Purell dries. If you cut yourself at least you know it's sterile. Pop a handful of almonds in your mouth to stave off hunger and check your iPhone to make sure that nothing's changed with your clients or kids.

Now you are ready to pull up to your client's building. Check your reflection in the mirror, check your email one more time on your iPhone. Polish your shoes with a diaper wipe and your are good to go.



* Always be sure that you pour said fluids out in ways that won't be stepped in by passersby. I highly recommend the soil around trees especially if there is sufficient mulch, or a seldom used patch of grass behind a building.

Is Our Daughter the Family Dog?

Well, she is the third. And she is a quadraped for at least another week or so until she gets this walking thing down pat. Plus she's in that stage where everything goes in her mouth, so she will try hard to clean the floor with her pincer grasp and open mouth. I suppose I should be grateful that she doesn't lick the floor.

Her brothers, especially Alec, treat her like a pet as well. They fight over her relentlessly, "It's my turn with Dahlia," says Alec as he grabs her arms. She protests, not liking to be treated like a doll/dog. "No it's my turn," says Miles as he woos her with a strawberry that might as well be a doggy bone.

I even treat her a bit like a poodle, in my fetish for dressing her in the perfect outfit. But she draws the line at hair bows. Every time I put one in her scant reddish fuzz she takes it out.

Being compared to a dog would surely not offend her. Doggy is one of her first words and she will bolt towards one given any opportunity. Neighboring the boys' dojo is a dog grooming place, and Dahlia who isn't even 14-months old knows exactly how to get there from inside the dojo. It's hard to stop her. She scoots out the door onto the sidewalk and without hesitation turns left and walk-crawls two doors down to the doggy place, saying Doggy Doggy Doggy the whole way. When we get there she indicates that she wants me to pick her up so she can see the dogs. And when I do she tries to reach over the little wall to grab them.

Maybe one day when we bite the bone and buy a real dog she'll lose her status as the family dog, or probably much sooner when she can tell us in more than baby words that she's a person to be reckoned with. But certainly, one of the first things she will tell us also is that she wants a dog in our house 24/7, preferably in her room. And maybe, since neither she nor her brothers will let me put bows in their hair, we'll get a dog who will.