I'm just BURSTING will holiday cheer lately! Could I complain any more? Well, actually, since you asked...

(cue readers covering eyes, moaning and making derisive noises)

I've been having a good chuckle with my mom this morning about my ineptitude in all areas of my life. I know, it sounds really dramatic and self-pitying, but it's so true.

Witnessesth:

I am the mother to three children, all of whom have needs. Like full-on, right the heck now kind of needs. None of these needs can be executed, say, in 5 minutes.

Example: I am changing a poopy diaper. Kindergartener wants juice. Four year old wants help with his puzzle. I am clever and suggest that big girl helps brother with puzzle, while mommy finishes diaper and washes hands. Big girl proceeds to take over all puzzle operations, boy disolves into sobbing heap, I forget to snap crotch of onesie and while I'm breaking up puzzlegate, I am slapped in the leg by a freshly removed diaper by a tiny girl who has also managed to remove her hair clip, resulting in her near blindness from hair hanging in her face. Big girl huffs off to kitchen and spills juice, boy is still sobbing about some damn thing or other and the baby is crowing like a rooster and smacking her nekkid bottom.

The hubs, well, he just wants some clean underpants. If I was a better wife/mother/daughter/employee/housekeeper then I would clearly have put it into his dresser instead of in the laundry basket RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DRESSER. But you know, I'm just pathetic that way.

I am daughter/employee to my very busy mother, and although her needs are very reasonable, and she has waited weeks and even months for me to fulfill her reasonable and tiny, baby sized requests, I continue to frustrate her by not just putting her list of needs first, and also now. Because she's waited patiently, but the time has come for me to deliver. And she's been waiting. And if I would just put her work first, then it would be done, and she wouldn't ask, because she wouldn't be waiting. Also, it would be done.

I mean, really, it's not her fault that I got myself into this situation. I just am not an organized person, and I put things off. Like, replacing my floors. If I had done it this summer (like she suggested) then I wouldn't be putting off her work now with such a lame excuse. Which is true.

During our conversation, where all of these shortcomings were listed and greeted with whoops of laughter from both of us, she asked me:

"How did you get yourself into this situation?"

I answered, "By being an insufferable know-it-all." Bah! Bwahahahaha!

My mom asserts (jokingly) that I just need to stop messing around and get back to juggling, because there are other Circus performers who are doing fancier tricks in cuter outfits, too. I'm trying, really. I can do the bite out of the apple and the water balloon and the tennis ball, but I'm having trouble getting the bowling ball into rotation, on account of the problems I had with the chainsaw. I'm just saying.

Truth is, I seem to wear a lot of hats, all piled on top of my tiara. They are all off balance because of the pointy part on the tiara, and the whole stack keeps swaying, which causes me to lurch and stumble around, never quite keeping my balance, but miraculously keeping the stack on my head. Except when the little monkeys keep plucking off the top few on the stack (which belong to my mother: sorry, Mom!)

I tell you what, though. I can totally picture me pulling myself erect, facing the crowd, and then wildly river-dancing while frisbeeing the hats past the footlights, one at a time. Maybe accompanied by some ragtime piano.

For the finale, I would stand in the spotlight with my tiara gleaming, fingers in my ears chanting nanananananana I can't hear you while the needs of my kingdom were efficiently and silently attended to.

But then again, my head would probably get cold. I didn't used to think I was a hat person, but the truth is, despite the effort in wearing them, they are so wild and colorful that they really complete my look.