This has been my first summer working a real, honest-to-goodness jobby-job since bringing home a baby in December 2003.  See photo above for a representation of how I’ve been handling it.

Last summer I began freelancing for Nickelodeon’s ParentsConnect, and this January I accepted an editor position with this premier, entertaining and REAL parenting site. I get to work for a major media company and write for a website that meshes with my “skills” from home (while still maintaining my blog)…a dream come true. 

Sidenote: I’m hosting a prize-filled online party over on Nickelodeon’s ParentsConnect TODAY, Tuesday August 24 from 11:59am-11:59pm ET. We’re giving away toys and back-to-school prizes! It will be fun. Join me, please, this is the link with details on how to party with me and win!

So the last three months have been all about balancing the taking care of the kids when they’re out of school with an almost full-time job. But stupidly, I thought I could handle this summer just like I have the others.

I signed the kids up for swimming lessons, planned weekly outings and playdates, organized my church’s vacation Bible school. I planned for family to visit us and to host them with fun meals and outings during their stays. I attended the BlogHer Conference as a speaker, attendee and ambassador for the Huggies Every Little Bottom program (I’ll be posting a run-down of that experience with lots of giveaways of cool products soon!). I accepted an assignment from The Washington Post on August activities for kids and families while camps are out and school’s not in.

I DID sign the kids up for some camps.

Another sidenote: Summer day camps I personally, highly recommend to you all for next year:

• Silver Stars in Silver Spring gymnastic camp with half- or full-day options and before- and after-care.
• St. Andrews Lutheran Preschool‘s three weeks of five-day preschool camp in June.

I also hired a teenage babysitter to watch the kids and take them to the pool and keep them entertained/away from the TV for 10-20 hours per week. She was great, drove and the kids adored her. (NO, you CAN’T have her number. Sorry. She’s MINE.) But the sitter had her own family vacations and summer activity commitments and was not full-time, so I still had a great deal of child care/career juggling.

And after all that juggling, now I’m jiggling. Because with a summer like this we ate a lot of take-out burritos and grabbed breakfast at Starbucks and evil donut establishments that end in an apostrophe. And although my rail-thin, leanly-muscled (thanks Daddy for the awesome gene pool) and hyperactive (um, that genetic trait was from Mom) kids look ripped after a summer of swimming and running around, I barely worked out. OK, I’ll just say it: I never worked out.  But did that keep me from wearing a swimsuit AND drinking beer AND eating popsicles like it was my job? Nope.

Yup, this is the post where I sound like one of those people trying to one-up everyone else on how busy I am, cut with a small amount of self-deprecating humor about the droopiness of my ass. And where I reveal myself as a pampered stay-at-home mom who now is whining that she gets paid to BLOG and write fun stuff FROM HOME who should just shush. But let’s just get this out of the way now: I am a total jerk. There, I said it for you. We are agreed.

But it’s mainly my annual post where I’m utterly worn out by the amount of work that falls to parents in the summer who are used to the child care routine of school.

And it’s my annual ode to all the working moms out there who have been multi-tasking like this FOR YEARS, and when I ask them

HOW HAVE YOU WORKING MOTHERS BEEN LIVING LIKE THIS????

How have you been taking care of your families, yourselves, your careers, your homes, your marriages/romantic relationships, your friendships, your familial relationships? Because I have SUCKED at all of mine. I was supposed to host the get-together of my book club. IN MAY. I call my mom back…after she leaves THREE messages. Barely hanging on as it is, I’m utterly FLOORED by natural disasters and any change in the routine. I have four inches of mousey-brown/gray showing at my roots. We haven’t even had a proper housewarming party for our friends since moving into our new home…one year ago. I’m being stalked by every health care professional in the county for our family to obtain their annual check-ups. The fridge is a wasteland and the cupboard only houses one stale box of cereal that no one likes and a sweet potato sporting a seven-inch growth.

This, from a chick who used to bake her own biscotti.  Plan a fancy-schmancy dinner every night.  Organize outings for my mom’s club. Wait on the front steps for Daddy to come home from work looking all pretty while the kids ran around catching fireflies in Mason jars like it’s freaking Mayberry.

So working parents, I worship you. I’m not even a full-fledged, 40-hour week member of your ranks, and I still suck at this.

And you know who else I worship? TEACHERS.

I cannot wait for school to start.

A Parent in Silver Spring will resume regular postings Monday – Friday after Labor Day. Until then, please expect the sporadic two-three times a week drivel you’ve been receiving all summer long.

As some of you know, I’m a regular contributor to the DC Metro Moms Blog.  This group of area writing mamas provides daily fresh content on the joys, jokes and jeezlouise parts of parenting.

Today I’m on there with an updated account of my one of my old school greatest hit posts over here on APISS about how my kids eat their way through the grocery store.  You’d think in these crazy modern times we’d have bigger to fish to fry, but funnily enough, I’ve received a fair amount of comments and emails about this controversial family practice.  I think it’s simply smart mom multitasking – shopping and feeding my family simultaneously.  Others think it’s just tacky or worse.

They clearly have too much time on their hands.

But hey, I had enough time on my hands to write this so pot, meet kettle…

Have a look, and happy Sunday.

A few weeks ago I posted some Momfinitions as part of the Nickelodeon Parents Connect & TwitterMoms contest to find funny phrases that reflect the reality of parenting.

And holy cow, I was chosen as the winner of the funniest Momfinitions.

I think it’s all the hilarious comments and emails that I receive daily from you guys, my fellow parents that read APISS. You all have me in stitches every day, and your funny is rubbing off.

Here were my Momfinitions – each entrant was asked to submit five:

Dine-and-diss: 1)When a parent lovingly makes a meal for her child, only to have said child completely reject the meal; 2) Although you have taught your child mealtime manners, child still loudly says ‘It’s yucky!’ when presented with food as a guest in another home or family function. I was so embarrassed, at my mother-in-law’s this weekend Charlie did a total dine-and-diss.

Disaster relief: FEMA-worthy work provided by that rare soul who stays and assists with toy cleanup at the end of a playdate hosted at another parent’s home. I love Leticia, she always provides disaster relief at the end of playgroup.

Peenial: A child’s blatant denial of her need to urinate. “Do you have to go to the bathroom, we’ll be on the road awhile?” “No Mom, I just went.” Honey, Eve is in total peenial, we’ll be stopping at an Exxon before we’re out of town.

Screamapillar: A very hungry baby swaddled in a receiving blanket, crying for mama and milk. Sorry Sarah, got to go and get the screamapillar out of the crib. [Full disclosure: This is a Simpsons character and the use in reference to a baby must be credited to my brother-in-law George, who is funnier than Seinfeld and needs his own show STAT, top federal security clearance or no.]

Momup: As opposed to makeup or a pretty getup, momup is a smattering of fast grooming passes and clothing grabs performed in a meager attempt to look presentable before heading to school drop off or other function. Usually momup is donned when in need of a shower and is a look you would never have tried to pull off before procreating. I can’t believe I ran into my old boss in momup, thank goodness we didn’t chat for long.

But I’m not the only winner here. As promised, I have a free Scholastic book for FIVE of you guys that left comments on my Momfinitions post. I said that I’d pick the funniest, but all submissions were so dead-on on the trials of mommyhood that I simply used Random.org to randomly choose the five. [Fun fact: Leticia of Tech Savvy Mama is featured in my own Momfinitions, inspired by our history as playgroup buddies, and she's an APISS winner as well.]

The five APISS winners are:

Steph: The Fred Flinstone – This is what we use to discribe the tantrum that Joey throws when he doesn’t get to watch another show, has to go to bed, didn’t get the color spoon he wanted, etc.

Joanna: Nanxiety and/or Waitlistophobia – The irrational and unrealistic fear and obsession induced by the frantic and neverending nanny/daycare and/or preschool search the weeks prior to working mother’s return to work. Frequently accompanied by physiological symptoms such as headache, sweating, palpitations, hypertension, loss of sleep and spousal tension which in some cases lead to fatigue or even exhaustion. May or may not lead to proliferation and multiple telephone conversations with other moms about safety, boundaries, honesty, trust, seperation anxiety, stranger anxiety, etc. etc. “I have to go home, nobody is answering the phone and I think I’m having a nanxiety attack.” “I know there are $50 checks written to every daycare in the county this month, honey, it’s just my waitlistophobia.”

Margy: Table whine – This is what we call that whininess that we get as we sit down to dinner. It definitely includes the dine-and-diss, but also generally covers any crankiness, such as the drama that accompanies a parental request for a child to get something from the kitchen. The effects of “table whine” agre greatly diminished by table wine.

Leticia/Tech Savvy Mama: Crankenstein- The terrifyingly cranky monsters that children turn into when they are super starved or overly tired. Most commonly spotted between the hours of 3-6 pm. “I hope Daddy comes home soon to relieve me of the two Crankensteins inhabiting our house!”

Eileen McNelis: Crankasaurus Rex – Oh, you thought dinosaurs were extinct? Nooooo way! This species is alive and kicking (and whining and yelling)-especially at the end of the day or right before nap time. My 3 1/2 year old son could make any t-rex hide in fear with his Crankasaurus Rex impersonation.

Congrats to you guys – as promised, please choose the Scholastic book of your choice for your child (valued up to $7) and I’ll send it to you as my thanks for your inspiration and humor.

And thanks to Nickelodeon Parents Connect’s Momfinitions and TwitterMoms for the laughs!

Parents Connect is interested in your Momfinitions, the parenting phrases you have coined that reflect the real underbelly of raising small humans.

Here are a few used around the APISS homestead:

Dine-and-diss: 1)When a parent lovingly makes a meal for her child, only to have said child completely reject the meal; 2) Although you have taught your child mealtime manners, child still loudly says ‘It’s yucky!’ when presented with food as a guest in another home or family function. I was so embarrassed, at my mother-in-law’s this weekend Charlie did a total dine-and-diss.

Disaster relief: FEMA-worthy work provided by that rare soul who stays and assists with toy cleanup at the end of a playdate hosted at another parent’s home. I love Leticia, she always provides disaster relief at the end of playgroup.

Peenial: A child’s blatant denial of her need to urinate. “Do you have to go to the bathroom, we’ll be on the road awhile?” “No Mom, I just went.” Honey, Eve is in total peenial, we’ll be stopping at an Exxon before we’re out of town.

Screamapillar: A very hungry baby swaddled in a receiving blanket, crying for mama and milk. Sorry Sarah, got to go and get the screamapillar out of the crib. [Full disclosure: This is a Simpsons character and the use in reference to a baby must be credited to my brother-in-law George, who is funnier than Seinfeld and needs his own show STAT, top federal security clearance or no.]

Momup: As opposed to makeup or a pretty getup, momup is a smattering of fast grooming passes and clothing grabs performed in a meager attempt to look presentable before heading to school drop off or other function. Usually momup is donned when in need of a shower and is a look you would never have tried to pull off before procreating. I can’t believe I ran into my old boss in momup, thank goodness we didn’t chat for long.

And through a partnership with Twitter Moms, if you write some good Momfinitions, you could win some cash. Exploiting parenting for money…you know I like it! If you have a blog or a Twitter account, go here to learn how you can win too.

But it’s not fair that I get all the cash and glory. You readers need some lovin’ too – so here’s what I have for you:

Leave a comment below, here on APISS, with your own funny Momfinition and for the FIVE commenters that make me laugh the hardest I’ll buy a brand new book from Scholastic. The book will be of your choosing, up to a $7 value!

(AND don’t forget to come over to APISS Reviews for your third and final chance to win a pack of FOUR new books from Scholastic, tailored to your child’s reading level!)

Can’t wait to read your Momfinitions!

Today at the post office my children were acting up – messing with the automatic doors, fighting, climbing on things, running around. After a few mild-mannered efforts to get them to calm down were of no avail, I pulled Charlie and Eve into line with me and spoke to them sternly about how I expected them to behave.

To this, a woman nearby told them, “Don’t worry kids, you are acting good.” And then she turned to me and said, “You know, they are really good kids, give them a break.”

Oh. no. she. didn’t.

So I took a deep breath, channeled the Queen of Soul and replied, “I know that you are trying to be nice. However, I recommend that you do not disrespect and undermine the authority of a mother while she is trying to instruct her children. Thank you.”

As the kids and I walked up to the counter, Eve whispered to Charlie, “What did Mama say to that lady?”

Charlie replied, “I think Mama gave the lady a time out.”

Sock it to me.