Three weeks ago, on an unseasonably warm spring morning, I successfully completed my first half marathon in 2:22. The course was very hilly and with the 80 degree temperatures, the race was way harder than I expected it to be. Despite my months of preparation, things didn’t go exactly as I’d planned and with having to run alongside over 30,000 other runners I found myself doubting my ability to finish around mile 11. I’m so glad I persevered, though and finished! 

School is almost out for summer. Not sure whether to jump for joy or cry!

As I type this, I have approximately 8,640 minutes left of freedom, when my children officially walk out of school for the last time this school year. Not that I’m counting or anything. I simply can’t wait to spend every waking minute of every day with them, listening to them argue about what to watch on TV, and hearing “I’m bored” over and over and over and over and over. Summer is going to be super!!

I’m a glass-half-full kind of gal, though, so I know that summer break won’t be all bad. Already I’m looking forward to a few homework free months, a break from the car pick up line, and NOT having to deal with grumpy children at 6:30 a.m. as I hurry around making breakfasts and lunches, signing permission slips, while reminding the children to “JUST GET DRESSED ALREADY.”

COOL WHIP to the rescue!

Almost every day, right after we get home from school, and just before the children dissolve in a puddle of after-school starvation, I check Carson’s backpack for homework and notes and reminders from school.

It’s the end of the school year and there’s a new celebration each day. The Good Behavior Party was last week and we were supposed to send in stickers and individually wrapped candies. Also last week, there was a reception for the room moms and we were supposed to send in $5 gift cards and chocolate. I’ve gotten reminders about the treats I’m supposed to send in for field day, summer birthdays, and Kindergarten graduation.

I’m just a little overwhelmed with all that comes with the end of the school year-which is probably why I promptly forgot that I’d signed up to bring a dessert for Teacher Appreciation Week.

See that picture of Ed Rooney, the principal character from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off over there, all angry and yelling?

Well, I met that guy at my son’s baseball game this week. Hand on the Bible, the coach on the other team looked exactly like him, with a little tantrum throwing Bobby Knight and Jim Mora thrown in for good measure. At first I thought that maybe he was just joking around with his players, because surely his red-faced screeching at Kindergarteners over their lack of understanding of the technical aspects of baseball couldn’t be real.

I soon discovered that, no, he wasn’t a jokester. He was one of those coaches. He’s the guy that makes the local news for getting kicked out of a kid’s baseball league for kicking dirt onto homeplate and puffing out his chest while getting in the umpire’s face. He’s the guy that yells, screams, and berates small children because they didn’t run to third base when an outfielder missed a catch.

I haven’t always liked running, and by “haven’t always liked,” I mean I sometimes Hated running — hated with a capital “H.”  It hurt: my lungs burned and my legs felt rubbery.  I felt like I just couldn’t take one more step. For years I tried to get into running, but I never could stick with it for longer than a week or two. It was always easier to talk myself out of going, even though I always felt so much better even if I just ran up the street and back. That negative inner voice would whisper, “Why bother? It’s too much work. It hurts too much,” while the couch and episodes of LOST on Netflix beckoned.

With a lot of support and motivation, I’ve been consistently running for over a year. Hundreds of miles logged, I can now even call myself a runner. On Saturday, I will run my first half-marathon, finishing 13.1 well earned miles. This is a HUGE accomplishment for me considering that when I started I could barely run one minute, let alone one mile.

This is SO not me.

I’ve always thought of myself as the type of person who has it together. My calendar and to do list are rarely far from my side, I use them religiously to organize my life.

Up until about a year ago, I had been a full-time stay-at-home mom since my son was born. Being home most of the time, my husband and I divided responsibilities. It made sense for me to be the primary house cleaner-upper-er, while he was the primary grass mower and weed whacker. I did most of the cooking, errand running, and made the majority of phone calls. My husband did all of the home maintenance and brought home ALL of the bacon.

For the most part I felt fulfilled by staying home with the kids and I took my role in our home seriously. Having those responsibilities made me feel like I contributed to our household, even though none of it was a monetary contribution. I mean, sure, there were times that I felt bitter while I wiped pee off of toilets knowing my husband was enjoying a fancy dinner at a swanky restaurant. And of course, there were occasional arguments with my husband about my need for validation at having managed a tantruming child while simultaneously washing dishes, calling the pediatrician for an appointment, and making a grocery list.  CAN I JUST GET A PAT ON THE BACK FOR GOODNESS SAKES?!?!

I’m a big fan of procedures and rules, which I realize makes me a total dork, but rules keep us safe and they give us a guide to follow so we know what and how we are supposed to do things. I’d rather be a rule-following dork than many of the rule-breaking people who misuse my son’s elementary school car line for drop-off and pick-up.

At the beginning of the school year, besides trying to figure out exactly how Kindergarten actually worked, I also was anxious to learn how the car line would work. I didn’t want to be that parent who messed up the whole, carefully planned system, thus creating gridlock and general car line mayhem. WELL. There are apparently quite a lot of people that don’t mind being that parent in the car line. These offenders, YOU GUYS.  They quite possibly are going to cause me to have a heart attack right there in line, which of course I wouldn’t, because THAT WOULD REALLY CAUSE HAVOC in the car line drop-off process.

There are four types of car line offenders that aside from being arrested and charged with Endangering a Minor or Being a Jerk, should at least get a fine of one million dollars, payable to me, Jennifer Doyle.

If I’m being completely honest, and I am, one of my least favorite aspects of parenting is the whole birthday party thing.

My daughter turns five in May and has been planning her 5th birthday party since moments after 4th birthday party ended last May. For the past year she has planned elaborate and randomly themed soirees-a butterfly party! An Amy from Sonic the Hedgehog party! A pink SpongeBob party! A horse party! A pink horse with butterfly and SpongeBob tattoos party!

I’m in the initial planning stages of Ella’s birthday party and feeling incredibly overwhelmed. Birthday parties, with all the etiquette rules, time consuming preparations, and the prospect of having too many children in my home, hopped up on sugar, stresses me out.

What you add makes it. #coolwhipmoms

All of the hulabaloo around holidays tends to stress me out. Buying gifts and planning meals, on top of all the other regular daily things on my miles-long to-do list can easily take the fun out holidays. So of course, Easter is right around the corner, that pesky holiday that is always going and changing the date on you. This year it totally sneaked up on me, despite having made plans with friends to spend Easter together.

My friend called me while I happened to be at the grocery store yesterday, “Let’s plan our Easter menu for Sunday!” she said.

“SUNDAY?! This Sunday!?!” I didn’t actually say that out loud, but that’s what I was thinking when I turned my cart back around toward the meat department and said, “I was thinking ham for our main course, how does that sound?”

A mommyblogger struggles with what she can write about her children.

I’ve been writing about my children online since they were babies, poop stories and embarrassing moments the perfect fodder for this mommyblogger. The early days when I first began blogging were like the rogue, wild west for me.  I knew no boundaries, there were very few topics that were off limits, and I regularly wrote about the private and personal lives of my children and husband with reckless abandon.

It took a few years and many heated arguments with my husband, Tate, but I finally reconsidered my position that I could write anything I felt like writing about other people, especially my loved ones. I realized that discussing certain topics about my children or airing the dirty laundry of our marriage was a violation of trust between myself and the people I love the most.

In an article on The Huffington Post, columnist Lisa Belkin asks, “When do your child’s stories stop being yours?,” bringing again to light the ultimate mommyblogger existential crisis. Belkin mentions a recent article on Salon by writer, Jennifer Coburn, who laments the breakup between her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend via text message and her personal struggle with the end of their relationship. Both the fact that she’s airing her daughter’s private affairs online as well as her own inappropriate, childish response to their breakup are disconcerting. Granted my children are six- and four-years-old, I haven’t had to deal with boyfriends and girlfriends, but I know that my children’s personal lives-especially when they are teenagers-will be off limits as blog fodder.