Sahm I Am

I agree.

Jocelyn

I’m quoting from the SAHM I AM welcome message:

Please do not send one-liner messages such as “I agree” or “Me, too” to the entire loop. Send it to the individual to whom it is directed.

Thanks!

Rosalyn

“She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.”

Proverbs 31:27 (NASB)

Sorry.

Z

Me, too! :)

Jocelyn

I mean it!

Connie

Come on, Connie, we were just giving Rosalyn a hard time. It’s late, the kids are in bed, and Ducie never showed up for our Monday online chat. What do you expect us to do for entertainment?

Z

…the worst day of my entire life! I may sound like a melodramatic teenager, but I’m not exaggerating. I came home from a church meeting last night and curled up on my bed in a fetal position. FETAL, mind you—not in the position of actually carrying a fetus, as some older women have asserted upon seeing my jogging-pants and T-shirt swathed body. No, fetal—as in lying on one’s side and tucking head and knees in toward body so as to create the sensation of prenatal security and comfort. A form commonly assumed when one begins one’s day cleaning up smelly diaper artwork off bedroom walls and ends it by being publicly humiliated in front of one’s church peers, with a trip to the gynecologist in between.

Oh, and so far today isn’t much better. Went to the grocery store and the cashier tried to talk to me in SPANISH! I get so tired of that. Just because one is adopted from Guatemala as a 3-year-old does not mean one is fluent in Spanish. Will people never stop judging me by my appearance? ARGH!

Adios, amigas,

Dulcie Huckleberry

Dulcie,

We missed you last night! What happened? Is everyone okay? Are YOU okay?

Jocelyn

Dear GE and Ham,

I’d never tell the whole SAHM I AM loop this, but since we have our own little sub-group, I know I can trust you. So if you want the whole, pathetic tale, fine. Grab a box of Kleenexes and settle in. I already alluded to the episode with Haley and her dirty diaper—all over the walls and crib. Having twins is hard enough without one of them trying to become the 1-year-old equivalent of those modern artists who hang a toilet on the wall and get paid millions for it.

In the afternoon, I had my annual gynecology checkup. First, I discover I am still ten pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight from the twins. (You don’t even want to know how far over I am from before McKenzie.) And since I am now older than 25, they thought it would be good to check my cholesterol. Is there anything more middle-aged than having to get one’s cholesterol tested? I think not.

It turns out that I have low GOOD cholesterol, and so am at HIGH RISK FOR HEART DISEASE! Can you believe it? I am 26 years old, for crying out loud! How can I possibly be at high risk?

I asked the good doc, and he said it was probably because I haven’t been exercising much. I’m like, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN? Not exercising, my foot! I chase after a 3-year-old and twin toddlers all day long, and I live in a two-story house where I have to run up and down the steps every time McKenzie tattles on her sisters. I most certainly do get exercise!”

But he just shrugged. Evidently, low good cholesterol is as bad as high bad cholesterol and cannot be changed much by diet. So the only chance I have to rescue myself from premature heart attacks is to increase my aerobic activity.

I personally think it’s a bunch of nonsense. It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. The doctors are all in league with the fitness clubs and exercise equipment manufacturers—they’ve signed a secret pact to scare their patients into spending thousands of dollars on gym memberships and elliptical machines. Not to mention the Ab Blaster. They’ve been so successful on our parents that now they’ve turned their malevolence against us innocent gen-Xers.

I’m so mad, I’m going to have a 1,200-calorie burger for lunch, in protest. No, wait…nobody could possibly be THAT mad.

Waiting to die,

Dulcie

Dulcie, are you sure you count as a gen-Xer? I’m 33 so I KNOW I do. But 26? I mean, we can’t let just anybody don that title of distinction anytime they want to…. What do you think, Ham? Can we count her? She’s SOOOOO young!

Of course, anyone at high risk of heart disease by age 26 may not live to reach her 30s, so maybe we’d better bestow an honorary designation on her, just in case. Sort of a “make a wish” concession.

Sorry to hear about the weigh-in. I understand—each of my four babies has done something strange and unique to my body. By the way, there are worse things than being told to exercise more. Some of us actually like to do it.

Love,

Jocelyn

I don’t know about the gen-X question, she might want to hang her hat with the millennials. They’re the ones everyone is pinning hopes of the future on—as if the future is going to be that bright with global terrorism, disease, poverty and political corruption, but that’s just my gen-X cynicism.:) After all, I turned the big 3-0 last month, so I have a right to be cynical, don’t I?

Enough talk about generations. It’s all nonsense anyway. I want to hear about the rest of Dulcie’s day. So far, it doesn’t sound bad enough to explain us getting stood up. I mean it—I wait all week for the chance to chat with you. I’m still suffering from emotional trauma.

I’ll bill you for therapy, okay?

Z (aka Ham)

Am too a gen-Xer. I have baby-boomer parents, both my brothers are gen-Xers, and so is my husband. So, if nothing else, I’m guilty by association.

And I don’t want to hear any complaining about emotional trauma. I went to a meeting at church last night, wearing jogging pants and a baggy T-shirt. It occurred to me that I might want to change clothes, but then I’d have more laundry to do, so I didn’t. The pastor’s wife saw me from across the room and waved at me over about thirty people’s heads. Then she looked me up and down and got a huge grin on her face.

“Dulcie!” she exclaimed. “When, when, WHEN?”

Of course, all thirty heads swiveled my direction, sixty eyes suddenly riveted to my midsection. I got all flustered and my face felt sunburned. All I could manage was, “Not, not, NOT!”

Her response? “Are you sure?”

I’m not kidding! She actually frowned and stared harder at me. What? Does she think I’m lying to her? Or does she expect me to shout out across all those people, “No, I assure you, my husband has been gone on business trips almost constantly the past several months, and when he is home, I’m too irritated by his absence to want sex, so I am quite certain I’M NOT PREGNANT!”

Anyway, she wasn’t done consuming her own leg yet. She shook her head and smiled brightly at me, as if she’d just solved the problem for herself. “Oh, well, I guess you’re just wearing your all-you-can-eat clothes.”

MY ALL-I-CAN-EAT CLOTHES? Why, why, tell me, would a slim, 40-something pastor’s wife say such a humiliating thing to a defenseless SAHM? Was it really necessary to remind me, in front of all those people, that my figure has yet to recover from the distortion of carrying twins? Have I not already been ground into the dust of the earth?