A Mother's Balancing Act

Creepy Guys Suck!

That's right. The title of this post pretty much sums it up in a nutshell. Creepy guys give the rest of the good guys - like my BSM (that's Big Strong Man for those of you just joining us...) - a bad rep.

I was doing some shopping yesterday outside of the pristine suburban (no, not so very plastic, thank you very much!) bubble that we live in. My girls need costumes for a party this weekend, so I thought that perhaps, the thrift stores might be just the ticket for an old prom dress or some such thing. Normally, this type of shopping trip wouldn't phase me at all. In fact, I find them to be a challenge.

I had gone to an client appointment in the morning, even though I had the day off, so I was dressed in a nice skirt, blouse and cardigan sweater. I had on some of my favorite, newer peep-toe shoes with a kitten heel, but I have to say, "peep-toe's" are not an invitation to every weirdo crackpot in the city to come on to me. Um, yeah...but I digress...

So, I had already endured leering eyes from yucky guys in two thrift stores when I came upon a Big Lots. The one in our neighborhood recently went out of business, so I decided to pop in. Long story short, a creepy dude proceeded to tail me, make eyes at me every chance he got and tail me through the store the entire time I was there. To the point that he sufficiently freaked my crud out. After he slinked onto the aisle I was on (after I had zigged and zagged a couple of times to shake loose of him) yet again, I got fed up and headed to the checkout with my shopping cart. The whole time, he never had a cart or any products in his hands.

When I got to checkout, I calmly told the cashier about my experience and asked if there was someone who might escort me to my car. I told her I just thought you needed to trust your instinct in these situations. She nodded appreciatively and immediately called a guy up to her register to help me to my car. I had been thinking of the self-defense class my daughters and I had taken where they said to never have both of your hands full when walking in a parking lot. Within moments of me relaying my story, Creepy Dude slinked up behind me (one of 3 registers available at the time), and I quietly let the cashier know that he was "the one". He was now carrying a large metal spoon and some other small item. The nice gentleman carried my items to my car for me as I told him of my experience in their store and that they might want to watch out for that guy who was coming out behind us.

The store employee told me he'd be watching until I got out of the lot, etc. Creepy Dude came out of the store and stood there and watched us the whole time. Then, he headed to a bicycle that was parked in front of the store.

Perhaps, he was just mentally ill. Or perhaps, he was going to just leave his bike there and force me into my car to violate me or even just steal my car.

I don't know. Any way around it...

Creepy guys suck.

Balanced Babe - (aka Molly Wendland)

Note: For a look at my oh-so-sexy peep-toe's, click here. They're the ones in the middle of the shot of three pairs. And yes, I do kind of have a little bit of a fetish. Sort of like the chick in the book to movie "In Her Shoes". I don't always even wear them. Fun movie, by the way. Even better book!

Extra note after the fact: I've been laughing when I tell this story to my friends. You know, how I attract the best-looking 50 year old guys with comb-over's of anyone I know and stuff like that? So, it's funny now, but this Creeper really did freak me out, and I was afraid to walk to my car alone...in broad daylight. And that does suck. In particular as a mother of two teenage daughters and an advocate for domestic violence awareness, it really pisses me off. Women shouldn't have to be afraid. It just sucks.

A Mother's Angst

Ah, the teen years...shopping, movies, going steady, staying up late chatting with your girlfriends, cruising Main Street, going to the "Big Game" and "The Dance"...

OK, who am I kidding? Yes, there's time for socializing, but my kids' lives are filling me with angst. It's more like this:

• Homework
• Studying for the "Big Test"
• Working on the group project
• Staying up late texting about who's responsible for what on the group project
• Cruising Wal-Mart late at night, panicked, searching for that last minute item for the "Big Project"
• Doing the dance between needing sleep and needing to study more for the "Big Test" in AP Chemistry

Is it just me, or has high school gotten out of hand? One of our daughters is involved in sports, and the other is not, but both are in honors classes. And both are outrageously busy. When does a kid have time to be a kid? A teen have time to be a teen? Yes, we want them to be prepared for college. Yes, we want them to do well on college entrance exams and hopefully get good scholarships to good schools. Yes, we want them to be well-rounded.

I pray for guidance every day. As I sit here mulling it over, sipping my coffee, It just seems to me that there isn't enough time for them to be kids. Is it just me? They're such good kids. They're really not even complaining, but their teen years are flying by so fast without them even realizing it. Perhaps it's just me, and I'm just getting old...perhaps that's it.

Perhaps.

Balanced Babe (AKA Molly Wendland)

Waxing Poetic (sort of ) re: the Holidays...

About this time of the season, most of us are just about ready to hang up our holiday cheer for another year...

• Some of us would (secretly?) like to drop the kids off a little early back at school - like today...even though it doesn't start again until Monday.
• The cranberries in your "tasteful decor" have dried up and taken on a decidedly different look than when the season began, and they might have even begun to assume a certain pungent and not so pleasant aroma.
• Fido's once darling Hannukah "do" is now a mange of tangled fur and wrapping paper, and you wish you'd never let that cloying groomer talk you into all those fussy bows and bells. What were you thinking?
• Your homemade Christmas toffee tradition has caused the family to gain a collective 50 pounds, and there's still another tubful in the garage - who do you think you are - Giada?
• The house looks like it's been ridden hard and put up wet, thank you. And if your eldest asks you one more time what she can have for lunch, you just might have to remind her (one more time...) that there are kids (in Zimbabwe, China, Pakistan...) who don't even have refrigerators to stand in front of for half an hour to contemplate that deceision...
• Could we go just one day without the dog eating something she's not supposed to and vomiting - on my leg - and favorite shoes?
• Is there ever going to be a day when there isn't laundry to be done?
• And could my extended family go one round of holidays without having the plague whip through? Seriously, you'd think my sister's family all drank caster oil or something!
• And this last, do you think I could have a party without Mother Nature "blessing us" with snow or ice on the day of the party? How about next week for book club, please? Please?

In spite of it all, however, I find myself waxing poetic. Yep. Call me crazy. In fact, I'm trying to decide whether I should be taking all of my decorations down this weekend or waiting one more, so we can enjoy them one last time next Thursday at book club. What do you think?

So, here's what crazy me is going to miss:

• The sweet scent of my Frasier Fir tree
• Eggnog
• Time spent with family (well, most of it anyway!)
• Eating out
• Eating period!
• Going out for coffee with friends
• Baking (yes, I really do enjoy that unlike my White Trash counterpart over at White Trash Mom!...)
• Sitting in the living room with all the lights out except those on my Christmas tree...transcendental experience, I'm telling you!

• Time off work!

Ah, well, that's the holidays for you. They must come to an end. I kinda' go through the post holiday blues every year. Well, my Big Strong Man calls it my winter blues. In any case, Happy New Year to all of you. We actually had a pretty rough couple of months, healthwise, with one of our kids to round out 2008. With that said, I wish you peace and health in the new year, and May 2009 bring all that you are hoping for.

Balanced Babe - Molly Wendland

Back from the Depths...

Hello to all in cyberspace. Yes, I'm back from the depths, and yes I apologize for the long hiatus. We've been going thru some serious medical issues with one of our girls, and it's been a rough time. I should have gotten guest posts started up, but it honestly didn't even occur to me at the time. Anyway, hopefully, some of you have kept checking back and will find me again.

With promises to be back with:

• interesting
• funny
• informative
• stupid
• random
• useless

stuff in the immediate future,

Balanced Babe (aka Molly Wendland)

Teens and Halloween - What's a Good Curfew???

  OK, so my 17 year old has multiple Halloween activities tonight. A volunteer food collecting activity (in lieu of trick-or-treating...) and two parties to attend. She is a really good kid, super serious and studious (to the point of me occasionally worrying about this (go figure...). Yes, I know that's a good problem to have. And no, I promise that I'm not one of those parents with blinders on about their perfect kid. She's just not into a lot of the partying that many teenagers are into.

However, tonight, she does happen to have two parties to go to. One is a party at a friend's from elementary school days. This particular friend has been having this party since they were really little. It's always been a great time - scavenger hunt, etc. Good old fashioned fun. The other one is at a newer friend from high school but also a nice girl.

Here is my dilemma. Her usual curfew is 11 pm. We have been tossing around the idea of extending it to 11:30 this year, just in general. We've also talked about extending it for special nights like this, at the least. Tonight, I'm thinking midnight might be in order, especially since the two parties are about 6 miles apart, and the second one will be about that far from our house.

Those of you with teens, what are their curfews, and do you extend them for special occasions?

Balanced Babe (Molly Wendland)

Denis Leary Deserves to Rot...

Forget Modern Science, parenting experts, educators, doctors and anyone of their esteemed ilk...

Apparently, actors are the new unequivocal authority on the following:

• Autism
• Childrearing
• Education
• Nutrition
• Psychology
• Medicine

At least, that's what Denis Leary would have us believe (check out this link on the Huffington Post). That is, if we were the complete boobs he thinks we are. Um, yeah. Here's an excerpt from his new book, which I hesitate to even give any "free press" here on my blog, but I'm so outraged by it that I can't even see straight...and I quote:

"There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks . . . to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't give a [bleep] what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you - yer kid is NOT autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both."

I can't think of anything more inflammatory or insensitive than this moronic comment. What letters does Denis sport behind his name? Denis Leary, PhD? Denis Leary, MD? No, I think it's more like Denis Leary, MIR (Moron in Residence). Don't even get me started on all of the true facts about autism...

What a freaking idiot...

Enough said.

Balanced Babe (Molly Wendland)

They Drive Me Batty!

Life is stranger than fiction, at least in my home!  It is 11:30 at night, I am FINALLY calling it a day and crawling into bed when my children, 16 & 19, request my presence.  The mere fact that they want anything to do with me is alarming, but at this hour I am shocked.

Of course the request comes in the form of a text - they are just in the hallway outside my bedroom though. I MUST come to the hallway, NOW.

After some bantering, all I want is to sleep.  I walk to the hallway to find a bat hanging from the ceiling in the hallway.  Being the brave single mother that I am, I calmly go back into my bedroom and call the non-emergency police number.  Yes, with the strange neighbors I have it is programmed into my cell phone.  I ask if they can dispatch animal control.  "No, mam; they don't work at this hour.  Can I help you?"  I explain that there is a bat hanging from my hallway ceiling and that I would like it to disappear.  Thirty minutes or so later, the friendly police squad show up to rid my house of the bat.

Cop one asks if I have a ladder, but decides on taking the kitchen chair instead - low ceilings I guess.  Cop two stops the proceedings to pull out her cell phone and take pictures of the bat.  All the while, I just want this thing gone so I can go back to bed.  Cop one carefully climbs upon the chair and pulls out his tin can with a lid in which he  begins to scoop the bat.  Well darn that popcorn ceiling, his little feet are pretty tightly implanted onto my ceiling and he is not wanting to release his hold, so the bat begins to screech.  My two yappy miniture dachshunds chime in with this screeching too.  I knew exactly how the Grinch felt, "Oh the noise, noise, NOISE!"  Alas, my faithful and friendly policemen successfully scrape the bat off the ceiling and into their tin can.

They walk out my front door and before the door is even fully closed - let it go.  By the grace of G-d, the damn creature did not re-enter my house.  12:30 am, I am definitely ready for some sleep!  Had this bat been a rich and gorgeous Bruce Wayne, I would have welcomed him to stay much later, ah but not the luck of this fair maiden.

Yours in the Blogosphere,

Coffee Queen

Introducing...A New Author on Mother's Balancing Act

Drumroll, please...

Allow me to introduce the newest addition to my Mother's Balancing Act team, Coffee Queen!

She's balancing a career in sales while raising two teens as a happily divorced (did I mention available?) mom who has been a dear friend of mine for many years. When not working or attending one of her many kids' activities, you might find her drinking one of the skads of cups of coffee she consumes on a daily basis (usually decaf...go figure), working on her latest quilting project, playing with one of her crazy miniature dachsunds, volunteering for SAFEHOME, helping fight Juvenile Diabetes (which her daughter was diagnosed with last year), hanging out with her adorable mother (yes, she's a member of the "sandwich generation"), or at the gym (did I mention she's one hot mama?).

Coffee Queen goes a mile a minute and manages to pull it all off with grace and style. However, having said that, her feet are firmly planted in the White Trash Mom movement (thank God, or I might not be able to call her my BFF!), and her very first post will carry a "weird" tag, so you know she'll fit right in here. I'm guessing future posts will fit into such categories as:

• Coffee (that great elixir of life...)
• Tales from the Dweeb Side
• Parenting/Teens
• Working Moms
• Single Moms/Motherhood
• Divorced and Dating???
• Muffia
• Pets, namely the aforementioned crazy min dachsunds

OK, so...the next post on this site will be from...you guessed it. Our very own...Coffee Queen!

Cheers!

Balanced Babe (Molly Wendland)

Please Help This Darling Girl - Vote Here!

One of the great things about having your own blog platform is the ability to promote your own causes. Well, this is a great one, so please, please, please take a moment to read this brief post, and follow the link below to the site to watch my friend Ginny's video. Then, if you are so inclined (and I am sending brainwashing signals your way right this very moment, so...), please vote for her video.

My fabulous friend Ann is a grandma (and a young one, at that!) to the sweetest little darling you could ever meet. When Holly was born, she was roughly 2 months premature, and her arrival was fraught with complications. What had seemed like the perfect pregnancy quickly turned into an emergency once she arrived.

Enter Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, one of the best children's hospitals in the country. Recently, the hospital sponsored a contest, asking past patients' families to write in and related their stories about their experiences of care received at the hospital. Well, Ginny Evans, Holly's mom, did just that, and now, she and Holly and among ten finalists, to be voted on at the end of this month.

What follows here is a link to a video about two wonderfully strong females. It is at once uplifting and inspiring. When Holly was born, her chances of survival were at risk. Now, you would never even know that she was at all different from any other 8 year old kid. She is smart, athletic and funny. She is a joy to be around and a blessing to all who know her.

http://www.childrensmercy.org/mystory_vote.aspx?vID=5&#videoPlayer

Won't you vote for this single mom and her daughter and affirm their victory over what was once a debilitating handicap for a very young child? It's so great to hear a message of hope in these troubling times! We can all vote once per day until October 31st, and then the contest is over.

Please help me celebrate Holly's success and continuing battle to overcome difference in a world that embraces homogeny.

Download HollysStory.pdf

Balanced Babe (aka Molly Wendland)

Cooking Disasters!

I am fortunate to work with a great group of ladies. We all get along really well, and that makes work less like work, which is awesome. I realize that makes my situation relatively rare, especially where women are concerned, since we all know "we" can sometimes tend to be one catty group of tigresses.

One of the gals who I work with happens to be challenged in the ways of cooking. And when I say challenged, I mean seriously challenged. Like when she went to do some baking a while back and got stumped, she called another friend from work and had the following converstation:

KC: So, I'm doing some baking, and the recipe has me stumped.

DO: (who was on a girls' weekend with other friends...) OK, what's your problem? And by the way, you do realize that I'm with a carful of other women...

KC: (showing no signs of apparent embarrassment...) Yeah, well, so this recipe says to separate the egg, and then it says to take the white and do something with it...So, I know the yolk is the yellow part, but what's the white?

At this point, I should point out that DO has put KC on speaker phone. And yes, they are BFF's. :-)

KC can now hear hooting and howling from the background.

DO: Are you kidding me?

KC: No, I mean, there's the yolk, and then there's that clear looking stuff, so I'm assuming that has to be the white, but it's not white, so why would they call it that?

DO: OMG, you are so literal. What am I going to do with you?

KC: Well, seriously, I don't bake! How am I ever going to learn if there's stuff like this? Why would they call that the white? Is that what it is?

DO: Yes, KC. That's the white.

KC: Oh. OK.

And on she went but not without some more complaining about how that wasn't fair, etc. :-)

So, recently, KC was at a family gathering where a favorite aunt served up a chicken casserole that everyone was raving about. KC decided to ask for the recipe and try her hand at Aunt Virginia's dish at home. She shared the rest of the story while we were all at lunch a couple of weeks ago and had the whole table in stitches. I asked her to "guest blog" it. I give you my dear (and good-natured) friend KC's account of her kitchen encounter (names changed to protect the cooking challenged...)!

At a family reunion this past summer my Aunt made a chicken recipe she called Velveeta Chicken. It tasted good and I am always in the market for new chicken recipes as my husband loves chicken. So one day I am making up the grocery list and I look at the receipe my Aunt had written out for me and it says to put in 3/4 can milk. At the grocery store my husband comes up an aisle and asks me about the canned milk (we split up when we grocery shop; it speeds up the time and our kids like "racing" against Daddy to see who can get more items).

Anyway, back to the milk. He says there are 2 kinds of canned milk, evaporated and condensed sweetened, which one do you want. I don't know, I say. The recipe calls for canned milk. It doesn't say which kind. I tell him I think it is probably the condensed one. I prepare the Velveeta chicken that night for dinner. We sit down to eat and I take a bite. Hmmm this doesn't quite taste like my Aunt's. I take another bite. I say to my husband, I think we chose the wrong can of milk.

My husband gets up and gets the salsa out of the fridge (Salsa is the answer to every food mishap!). I continue to take some bites until I just can't anymore. I tell him that is it...I can't eat it. I look at my children who have chosen to eat their corn first and my oldest, who is 5, asks me, Mommy, do I have to take 2 bites of it? (I make them take 2 bites of all new foods.) I look at him and say no, honey, and pick up his plate and scrape off the food and then I do the same for my other son.

I then tell my husband to throw the rest out.

I then make a mental note that when my mother needs a good laugh I will have to share this story with her!!!

KC, thanks for sharing this great story with us!! Later, KC found out that the recipe called for not "canned milk" at all but 3/4 can of milk. You were supposed to fill the empty cream of chicken soup can with milk. Go figure! Her aunt had dictated the recipe over the phone. Lost in translation!

What cooking mishaps have you had in your kitchen???

Balanced Babe