Battle Hymns of a Hot Mess Mom

J and I got to chatting earlier this morning about how we grew up, thinking about our childhoods. I saw this meme on IG that made me chuckle. It was about house rules growing up – getting all the chores done without any back talk. The reward was not getting your as* beat LMAO. Parenting back in the day was so different. I remember back then it was stay inside, get beat or grounded for something…or go outside and play, don’t get hurt and come home by the time the street lights came on. Peace. I remember being a kid eating cereal and just staring at the milk cartons “Have you seen me?” And thinking to myself, “Nope, head on a swivel.” Talk about trauma at breakfast. Every carton had a different kid and times two kids. J remembers being outside playing and thirsty. He says we did not have water bottles back then, we had the garden hose and you had to remember to let that water run a little otherwise it would be like 3rd degree burns on your face lol. I remember doing that and sometimes it wasn’t even your own house or your friends house…just not the grouchy old man’s house. You’d be out there “watering the bushes” until the water was cool enough to drink. It was a different time to grow up. Now my kiddos are LoJacked lol.

We definitely did some stupid things growing up and dangerous things too. I remember we used to play tag and home bases was those green high voltage boxes. We’d sit on them and definitely were not taking our hands off when we got there. And while I can’t recall if there were stickers that said don’t touch, I’m confident it said the word “Danger” on it. Kids of the 80’s how exactly did we survive? Do you want candy? Hell no. Do you want to look at puppy? Nope. Milk carton man, we are not going to see puppies! Milk carton vans were what we used to call “those vans.” There was this neighborhood kid that was “neighborhood watch” before that was a thing and would shout “Milk Carton” when he’d see one of those van. I still don’t know if he was messing with the neighborhood kids or actually watching out but we would scamper like cockroaches when we heard him yell. Different times indeed.

L was playing in the park with his buddy a couple years ago and a transient showed up and grabbed their arm to talk to them. L called me and said “Mama 911” on his LoJack machine. J and I flew out the house to the park and flanked the guy like we were CIA operatives. When he ran, J chased him down in the car – we were not going to get our “safe driving” discount that month.

Discharge doctor prescribed me a generous 10 pills worth of pain killers with a side of Narcan. So unless its a 10 pain, I don’t take any. But I’m close today, I’ve been riding 9 since about 11:00am and I’m about empty on “woosah” and just like that pain killer down the hatch.