Mid-Year Resolutions aka: Making Peace with my Inadequacy

Okay, so I guess it’s not technically “mid-year”, but “a-little-more-than-three-quarters-of-a-year resolutions” just doesn’t have the same ring. And maybe it’s against the rules to make resolutions at any time other than January 1st. But since I’m a rule breaker anyway, I figure you can make resolutions in October and call them “mid-year resolutions.” So here are my sorta, but not quite, mid-year resolutions.

I resolve to:

1. stop sending Brooklyn to school looking like a character out of Annie or Oliver Twist. I vow to check her outfits and fix her hair each morning before the school staff organizes a fund-raiser for us to buy her some matching clothes and a comb.

2. stay awake long enough to wash off my makeup before going to bed so I don’t scare myself when I look in the mirror each morning and see mascara-smeared raccoon eyes.

3. never feed my kids frozen chicken nuggets, feed my kids frozen chicken nuggets no more than once a month, feed my kids frozen chicken nuggets no more than three times a week.

4. call my kids by their actual names. No longer will I call out, “AuSavaJacksWhoeverYouAre”!

5. get caught up on laundry.

6. start waking up at 4:00am so I can work out, start waking up at 5:00am so I can work out, start waking up by 6:30 so I can get my kids to school on time.

7. forget about resolution #5.

8. remember to sign all my kids’ homework planners every single day (or at least once a week).

9. stop consuming Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies and coffee as my only sources of nourishment.

10. get my kids to cheer and football practice, and pick my daughter up from swim and water polo on time at least once this year.

11. deal with paperwork before it covers every surface of my desk and becomes a serious fire hazard.

12. figure out a way to be in multiple places at once so I never miss a football practice, a cheer practice, a swim meet, a ceremony, a band concert, or even a pet gerbil funeral.

13.  stop making my kids get their own breakfasts (which sometimes consist of M&Ms, Doritos, and/or the occasional Little Debbie Cosmic Brownie that I haven’t hidden well enough) so that I can “get 5 more minutes” of sleep.

14. read through the nearly 1000 emails in my box.

15. not get mad and yell when I come home and find fruit snacks stuck to the couch, laundry that hasn’t been put away, enough dishes strewn about the house to accommodate a banquet for a gathering of 50 guests, and an empty box of Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies in the pantry.

16. seek a twelve-step program for my brownie addiction.

17. send in signed permission slips to school within two days of their due dates.

18. find the mysterious force field that rips holes in the bottoms of all Jackson’s socks the first time he wears them.

19. cross off more items than I add to my to-do list because at this rate, I won’t finish my tasks until I’m 248 years old.


20. cut myself some slack. So I drop the ball every day. So what. I resolve to take pride in the fact that I pick that ball back up every day and start all over again. I resolve to remember what is important and let all the other stuff slide. I resolve to remind myself that I love my kids and I show them all the time even if they don’t always see it. I resolve to not take it personally when my son thinks I’m evil because I wouldn’t let him ditch school when everyone else was doing it, or when my daughter is in a snit and bites my head off for no reason other than she’s a teenager (which is another word for insane). I resolve to remember that I’m trying to juggle this parenting thing by myself 24/7 and it’s okay if I can’t always do it all. I resolve to convince myself that my kids will be happy, well-adjusted, and successful if I’m a good parent at least 51% of the time. And most importantly, I resolve to stop making resolutions that I can never keep.