Is It Just Me? (Or One Woman's Life Through Emails)

By Susan Hungerford

W hats a mom to do when her family drives her
crazy? Write about it, of course. This is one
womans story about her family and the driving
force behind her reasons to e-mail to her friends about
what its like to be part of the insanity that is her life.
Join Sue as she writes about her everyday adventures
being a mother, wife, teacher, chauffer, cook, doctor
and all around go-to gal that comes with having three
over-the-top children. (And just be thankful that it isnt
you living her crazy life!)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462858415

Susan Hungerford

Susan Hungerford lives in Flemington, New Jersey with her husband, Rick. A former court reporter, she is now a full-time mother to Zachary and twins, Nicky and Katie. This is her first book.

Book preview

Is it Just Me?

(or one woman’s life through emails)

Susan Hungerford

Copyright © 2011 by Susan Hungerford.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4628-5840-8

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-5841-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

97674

Contents

CHAPTER 1: The Life Of A Hungerford

CHAPTER 2: Because, Apparently, We Don’t Have Enough People in This House

CHAPTER 3: My Own Personal Hell

CHAPTER 4: Mothers, Hide Your Daughters

CHAPTER 5: Because There Are Enough Animals in This House Already

CHAPTER 6: Death is Preferable

CHAPTER 7: Isn’t This Supposed to Bring Us Closer?

CHAPTER 8: The Not-So-Joy of Shopping

CHAPTER 9: It’s the Irresponsibility That’s Going to Kill Me

CHAPTER 10: Take Me Out to the Ballgame

CHAPTER 11: Happy Mother’s Day, Whoever You Are

CHAPTER 12: Please Don’t Step on the Grass

CHAPTER 13: A Place Where Everybody Knows Your Name

CHAPTER 14: We Interrupt Your Regularly-Scheduled Program

CHAPTER 15: No More Pencils, No More Books, No More Mommy’s Dirty Looks

CHAPTER 16: Sunscreen and Prozac Optional

CHAPTER 17: I’m Not as Stupid as I Look

CHAPTER 18: Down, Set… What?

CHAPTER 19: Call Me Ishmael

CHAPTER 20: How I Spent My Summer Vacation

CHAPTER 21: The Doctor Will See You Now

CHAPTER 22: And the Oscar Goes To…

CHAPTER 23: Stan Lee, Here We Come

CHAPTER 24: In a Perfect World, There Would Be No Disease

CHAPTER 25: So How Will They Find Me When I Die?

CHAPTER 26: Watch out for Falling Houses

CHAPTER 27: Back in the Day It Was Vogue

CHAPTER 28: Rock-a-Bye Baby

CHAPTER 29: So Who Does the Homework Benefit, Really?

CHAPTER 30: Let’s Get Ready to Rumble

CHAPTER 31: Where Does That 0.1 Percent of Germs Go?

CHAPTER 32: All I Ask for Is One Minute

CHAPTER 33: Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There?

CHAPTER 34: Is It the Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

EPILOGUE

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my family: Rick, Zach, Nicky & Katie.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

Also to Mom and Dad. Without your support I’d be committed already.

PROLOGUE

I’m told I have a great life. Nice husband, healthy kids, healthy me. I suppose, deep down inside, I agree with that. So with that being said, why is it I have no tolerance for my kids and the shit they put me through?

Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t trade being a mother for anything, and there’s no amount of money a mother can be paid that’s worth more than a spontaneous hug or I love you.

But I feel like we should be paid just a little (or a lot) for the things that pop up in life that aren’t listed in the job description. There are the nights you’re up with a child, trying to reassure him or her that the surgery the child is going to have is going to be just fine, when the whole time you want to throw up you’re so nervous. (There’s also the added bonus of having to do that while you listen to your husband snore the whole night, after which he tries to convince you in the morning that he was right there with you in the no-sleep department. Who are they kidding? No one’s going to worry more for her kids than a mom.)

There are all the times you have to bandage cuts when the sight of blood makes you queasy. There are all the nights you have to hold their hair from going in the toilet while they’re throwing up and you’re on the verge of joining them.

There are the times that that one rotten kid makes fun of them. And while you want to run to school and kick the shit out of that evil child, you have to teach your kids tolerance and tell them that, years from now, everything will be just fine. And will it? Weren’t we all scarred by that one kid that picked on us? Is it a lie we’re telling them, or will it eventually be the truth?

There are all the times we have to remind our kids we’re not here to be their friends and that we enforce the rules for their benefit because we love them and it’s for their own good. Even WE never believed that when WE were kids. How can you make them believe it?

All these things sometimes make us forget about the spontaneous hugs and I love yous. Sometimes it’s all we can do to not find some sort of outlet for our frustrations. So take these e-mails for what they are: simply an outlet to vent the frustrations of a stay-at-home mom, who, on occasion, is forced to the edge of insanity by her kids.

Susan Hungerford

June 19, 2010

CHAPTER 1

To: All

From: Sue

Sent: 10/30/08

The Life Of A Hungerford

Just because I believe there are still those of you out there that think I make up these stories, I’m writing this one in real time. I’m calling it, My Scary Halloween Story.

I do wake up in a good mood most mornings. By the time I get upstairs and take one look at my children (usually arguing by quarter after seven), my mood quickly dissolves.

So I woke up in a good mood, came upstairs to find both boys in Halloween shirts and very festive for the day. My daughter (in her infinite coordinating wisdom) had chosen to wear a purple shirt underneath her cheetah-print brown shirt and jeans. (Have I painted the picture so far?)

I told her that when she puts on her witch costume (we dressed according to our personality traits), she should wear black sweatpants so they go with her outfit. I then put her in her black trick-or-treating shirt (white shirt underneath), so now she matched and was dressed for the holiday.

Fifteen minutes later, the boys informed me that Katie had been crying because she hated her outfit. When I checked on her, she had indeed been standing in front of the mirror crying for fifteen minutes. She informed me that her outfit was dumb and that she looked stupid. I quietly left the room. She then spent another ten minutes staring at herself, lamenting the fact that she has me for a mother, and she was still crying.

At that point, my better half (who I refer to as the phantom that occasionally haunts my house) kissed everyone and merrily skipped off to work (because he had to finish up some important work for the end-of-the-month report). At this point you might ask, But Sue, doesn’t he have off on Fridays? Yes, he normally does, but I think he senses when a storm is a-brewing in this house and makes plans ahead of time—almost like a PMS barometer.

I was willing to overlook her little tirade when I was cleaning her room (dubbed the pig sty) just now and found a note on her desk. It stated, and I quote: my afit is dum in the hl wid wrld.

So my question to all of you is this: is it possible to take what is left remaining on my home equity loan and spend it on a sex-change operation for a six-year-old? I figure, this way, if she was a boy, we could go nine rounds, slap each other on the ass when we’re done, and go grab a beer—or is that too much to hope for?

Happy Halloween.

Pill-poppingly yours,

Sue

P.S. I also found, when I was cleaning out my kitchen cabinets last week, my old bottle of antidepressants. I am on my third one—Happy Halloween to me!

CHAPTER 2

To: All

From: Sue

Sent: 12/10/08

Title: Because, Apparently, We Don’t Have Enough People in This House

Well, it was bound to happen. Since every single person in my children’s life is friggin’ pregnant, the baby questions have started. First, Katie’s teacher and ballet teacher are pregnant and her teacher’s aide is pregnant with twins (and when she said to Katie, Ask your mommy if she has any advice, I told Katie to tell her to get her meds filled now). Zach’s teacher is pregnant also. So now, because apparently no one can say no to her husband as well as I can, the baby questions have started.

Zach asked me the other day, How do the babies come out of the mommy’s belly? What the hell was I supposed to say? This is why we pay thousands in taxes so they can eventually learn this in sex ed. I told him, Through the mommy’s legs. (Of course this means nothing to him, since he thinks he as a vagina, anyway.) Yeah, he said, but how? How the hell should I know? I went to the hospital, got lots of nice medication, and paid lots of money for my doctor to do all the dirty work. I just lay there and hoped to hell that when he tied my tubes, he did a REALLY good job.

So I then asked Zach if Nicky was in his room touching his stuff (because he gets distracted really easily—thank God for the Auditory Processing Disorder), so he ran off to check and left me alone.

Then last week, I got the dreaded, When are you having another baby? (I suppose I should be flattered that I’m not so fat that my children think I AM pregnant, but still…) Since this is the stuff of nightmares, I shuttered and responded very loudly, NEVER! Why not? they asked. I said, Because we have enough people crammed in this house already.

Katie then informed me that she would help with diapers, that she would just hold her nose with one hand and change with the other. Zach said he’d have no part in that but would put the baby down for naps. I said that if I had another baby and it was a girl, Katie would have to share her room with it, and if it was a boy, Nicky would have to share his room with it. I also said that we can’t afford another baby (that, and if I had another one, I would climb on the roof and jump—no small feat, since I’m afraid of heights), so if I had another, I told Nicky he would have to go to work to pay for it. He looked at me like I grew another head and said, Me? Why do I have to? I told him, Because you drive me nuts, and it will get you out of the house. (He was highly offended.)

By this point, the newness of the idea of a baby in the house had worn off, and they said they no longer wanted a baby.

My plan worked!

Pill-poppingly yours,

Sue

P.S. Nicky’s version of the eight reindeer is as follows: Dancer, Donner, Dixon, Flixon, Rudolph, Blitzer—then he asked if he named them all. I was laughing so hard, I lost count.

Merry Christmas.

CHAPTER 3

To: All

From: Sue

Sent: 1/11/09

Title: My Own Personal Hell

Okay. Apparently it’s not enough that I have turned forty, but, obviously, I’m also not allowed more than two weeks of peace before the world gets me. (And I’m blaming it on all of you who keep asking me, Where’s my e-mail? I haven’t gotten one in a while. I was peaceful enough. (I have no friends.)

I have not left this house (except for two hours on Friday morning) since Wednesday. Zach got a WICKED stomach bug. You know the kind, when at some point, you expect it to turn green and his head to start spinning? That was him. Now, let me clue you in on what happens when Zach gets sick. He expects to be sick all the time. Every time he eats, he heads for the bathroom and waits for it to come up. (Of course, he helps this along by coughing a lot. Karen Carpenter had nothing on this kid.) So he’s been throwing up since Wednesday, including this morning.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Queen started running a fever yesterday. When she’s sick, she’s more of a nightmare than usual. When she gets sick, I can feel myself reaching for whatever bottle of pills will put me out my misery the fastest. You need to picture what Godzilla would have been like if it had been a woman, pre-PMS, sick,