Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes

Twin Life

January 9th, 2018
“Are you giving me a ticket?” I ask the parking ticket lady, I can see it’s too late for her to not give me a ticket, she’s already punching in all the info.

“You can wait in the car” she says.

I get in my car, engine running, hazards on, Fiona in her car seat, Billy in the back, windows fogged up. Its raining.

“I messed up, I’m a bad mom” I say as the parking lady hands me my $65.00 ticket.

“I knew I shouldn’t have done it, it is raining so hard I just wanted to run my son to school without getting Fiona out of the car. ” I say.

“I’m sorry, but this spot is dangerous, a parent got hit doing this same thing while taking her child out of the car seat. Since she was parked in red insurance didn’t cover her injuries, they said it was gross negligence since she parked in the red” she tells me.

I was scared getting Jack out if his car seat, the way the cars come around this intersection. I imagined a car whacking me as I was leaning into the car, I wondered what that would feel like on my legs, would they break? Would I recover?

As I drive Fiona to school I decide I will never do that again, hurry, cut corners, Park in red.

The whole reason we were hurrying was because we all overslept, Fiona missed the bus, Jack wouldn’t get dressed or get in the car, it was raining cats and dogs, just one of those mornings.

They are still sleeping right now but will be up soon. I need to make the breakfast and Fiona’s lunch. Jack doesn’t have school on Tuesdays or Thursdays so I need to figure out what to do with him. I want him to take Billy for a walk with me. I wish we could do that without any crying or complaining. He’s hard to bargain with.

I feel like crap. I have a headache and was up all night with hot flash after hot flash. Ugh. I wish I had a babysitter today. I wish I could paint today.

I just heard foot steps. It’s almost 8:00. I need to hurry now. My head is killing me.

Twelve hours to go.
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Messy wake up call

January 7th, 2018
Lights on, don’t know what time it is. “I peed my bed” says Jack. For a minute I suggest he sleeps in our bed for the rest of the night. We both think thats a bad idea. I get up, take off the peed sheets, blankets, and pillow, remake his bed and go back to sleep. Sore throat keeps me in bed longer than usual. I hear laughing and screaming, it sounds like it’s coming from outside. Pry myself from under the covers. What are they doing? Go upstairs, cold air rushing in, patio covered in white. Jack and Fiona naked, freezing. Alan yells, how bad what they’ve done is. The whole carton of new milk empty, splattered all over, whip cream container, six yogurt drinks all empty. Take Fiona and Jack in, put them in a warm bath. “I put milk on my body, mommy, we poured it on our whole bodies, our butts, my penis” Jack says. “On my butt and on my vagina” Fiona says. “Will Daddy still be mad?” Fiona asks. “What you did was very bad” I say. I dress them and we go upstairs and have breakfast. We might need to put a lock on the fridge. Alan says we don’t need to have candy in the house, they don’t need it to survive and they do this sorta shit when they’re spoiled. It all started with a game, Pie Face they got for Christmas. I may have put the idea in their head yesterday about a food fight. We were talking about pie face and I said I was going to get them each a can of whip cream and they could have a whip cream fight. They loved the idea. I think its my fault they got into the fridge this morning and had a food fight.
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Quiet Observations

January 6th, 2018
A tea stain from a splatter on thick watercolor paper. One dark line encloses light pink, a red drip and green at the bottom is all I can see of a painting above my head on a shelf. One time I told my friend I was wanted to propose an installation piece to an arts foundation. I said it was going to be a display of heads on a shelf. She said I sounded crazy and they might think I’m talking about real heads. I saw a centipede yesterday while I was walking up the hill with Billy. The bug was crawling through a trickle of rain water. It was yellowish with tons of little legs and white antennas. It was a beautiful creature. Trampolines, video games, loud music, it was too loud at the amusement center we took Jack and Fiona this morning. I’m not good in situations like that. I had to wait in the car. I took a lavender soak when I got home to make me feel better. I concluded that I will never like loud places with flashing neon lights and I shouldn’t feel bad. I also realized I will never be O.K. with being in a car with my whole family if they continue to all ask me questions at the same time. I never will, and I am going to tell the kids this, I’ll just tell them it makes me grouchy so when I say “quiet time” it must be quiet time. The alternative is to listen to my head phones? But then I feel rude. But it may be the solution. “Mama’s freaking out guys, Mama needs a break, I’m gonna listen to music for fifteen minutes”. Is that weird? Should I do it? I don’t like feeling bitchy and annoyed.
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Twin Life

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Messy wake up call

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Quiet Observations

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