According to my post Tuesday, there was supposed to be a post yesterday about dogs and children. As I formulated the post in my head over the last two weeks, it seemed funny. When I got to putting it down on paper, it was about as funny as a Jim Carrey movie. I couldn’t fathom putting a post up here, just for the sake of post-a-day, that wasn’t worthy of your eyes. So I scrapped the idea. The post is sitting in my draft folder, waiting for inspiration, organization, profundity and/or humor. Maybe one day it will mature and be allowed out of it’s box. I spent altogether too much time trying to come up with a good replacement post, and finally it hit me! Yesterday was Wednesday, which means yesterday was landscaping day.
For those of you who have been around, you are familiar with the predicament. For those of you who aren’t familiar, familiarize yourself here, here, and here. (She wants her $60 from November, which will only be $25 after I charge her the fee I got when she cashed that check, when she manages to nail me down to collect. That’ll happen over my dead, festering, bloated body). I digress….
As soon as I heard the roar of the lawnmower outside, I gathered my darling baby girl into my arms and rushed upstairs. (You can call this avoidance and insinuate that I am a chicken s#it for not facing up, but I prefer to call it ‘nonviolent resistance’.) We hunkered down in the playroom until the coast was clear. The playroom has taken on a new practicality for me: it is my own personal panic room (without the firearms, safe full of money, steel doors, bulletproof windows, body armor, Epi-pens, dedicated phone line, food and water rations, or comfortable seating).
What the playroom has become is my version of a ‘man cave’ behold: the Mom Cave. Now I just need to outfit it for this purpose. My Mom Cave will include the following:
1) A place to sit. Unfortunately, I have to be altruistic enough to share my space, so this will have to to double-duty as a sleeping place. I’ve had enough experience with futons to refuse to afflict my home with one, so I am thinking a fancy-pants Pottery Barn sleeper-sofa… Meh, I could get the same thing from Ikea for 1/10th the price. Maybe something like this?
Photo courtesy of http://www.ikea.com
2) Mini-fridge. This would be for the bottles of Moscato (white and red), Raspberry Wheat Shock-Top, and to keep my gourmet “touch-them-and-die” chocolates from melting in the heat. The idea to stock my Mom Cave with goodies was given to me by several of my motherhood colleagues.
Photo courtesy of marriott.com.
3) A 40″ HDTV so I can watch whatever I want to (with a password-protected remote control so that my kids can’t record their shows, or change the channel).
4) Toy boxes (with toys). Well, it is a playroom, right? Besides, how often do you see a SAHM without a child close by? I would need to keep the kids close enough to watch (when my husband isn’t around and I can lock them out of my Mom Cave), and occupied enough so that I can relax in style.
Photo courtesy of kiddicare.com.
5) A door that locks. This may sound dangerous because it is, after all, primarily a playroom. However, this is functional because it may double as a guest room, and it will definitely be my Mom Cave. So, my solution to this problem is that I am the only one with a key. There you go.
6) Fuzzy blanket and pillow. This is so I can curl up and read. Duh.
Photo courtesy of savvysassymom.com. (I hate that someone did this before I did.)
7) A bookshelf. Full, of course…. preferably with a variety of reads such as Maddie Cochere’s boxed collection (yes, Maddie, get them printed and boxed!), classics (except Moby Dick because I can’t dedicate another six months of my life to struggling through a book just to say I read it), a little secret book collection, cleverly hidden within another book (think Wendy Reid‘s books), John Grisham, and Steven King.
Photo courtesy of reviews.homebase.co.uk
8) A soothing wall color.
Photo courtesy of thebudgetdecorator.com.
9) A small water feature.
Photo courtesy of http://www.backyard-design-ideas.com
10) Black-out curtains.
Photo courtesy of marburn.com.
Okay. I think that’s about it. Did I forget anything?
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January 17, 2013 at 9:38 PM
I love the idea of a Mom Cave/panic room. I remember rushing our son upstairs, and the two of us sitting quietly while waiting for the offending door knocker to leave. Isn’t that the pits – hiding out in your own house? It would be so much easier to do with a Mom Cave. “Oh, sorry. We were in the soundproof room, and I didn’t hear you banging repeatedly on the door, darling.”
LOL on the boxed set. I can only dream at this stage of the game.
January 18, 2013 at 8:26 AM
My biggest problem is that my daughter is so darned loud! If I could get her to just be quiet and not rush the door, there wouldn’t be an issue. I think next week I will tell her that it’s a zombie at the door. I am certain that’ll solve the problem. Does that make me a horrible mom?
January 18, 2013 at 9:37 AM
I told my kid that if men in vans (vehicles, not the shoes), saw him crying in the car, they would take him away from me; it was the law. … We had a 30-minute drive home from my work, and I was tired of a hungry, crying kid in the car. He was probably about three years old. It worked, and he wasn’t scarred for life.
January 18, 2013 at 9:56 AM
If that is the worst you’ve done, you’re a better mom than me. Once my son told me he hated me, so I drove him to a strip mall, made him get out of the car and told him to find a new mother. Then I started the car and pulled around the corner (I could still see him, so he was safe). That is questionable. (He may or may not be scarred. I don’t know yet.)
January 17, 2013 at 2:08 PM
there should be more mom caves… just sayin’… sm
January 17, 2013 at 3:21 PM
Maybe we ought to call them MAM Caves (as in mammary)? Then guys would totally stay away!
January 17, 2013 at 3:22 PM
And bras would be totally optional because the girls get a break in the Mam Cave, too.
January 17, 2013 at 1:49 PM
A masseuse?
January 17, 2013 at 3:21 PM
Where would I put her when she’s not in use? In the closet? Wouldn’t *that* surprise my guests and children! LMAO
January 17, 2013 at 1:44 PM
You need a coffee/hot tea station outfitted with exotic blends.
January 17, 2013 at 3:20 PM
Of course I do! I thought about an electric kettle, too, but then I realized that I would need to put a sink in there to clean it all up after I was done (because women clean up after themselves, unlike everyone else), and I realized that it would become a work station. Totally antithetical. But a Keurig brewer is another story, entirely. I can keep creamer in my mini-fridge.