Bedroom Decor Redefined

Perfume, a jewelry box, a mirror, and candles – these items could be found on a typical woman’s dresser. But most typical women do not have four kids who beat the hell out of each other with toys of cranial destruction.

On any given day, you will find a few knight swords, a light saber, a lacrosse stick, tinker toys, a wood wand, and a noise popper on my dresser, known as the impound for preschooler contraband. It never fails that within five to seven minutes of me returning confiscated toys to my children that I retrieved them once more after I hear “Mom, _____ hit me in the face with the ______.” With every incident, the offending child lands in time-out and their weapon of choice returns to the confines of my dresser.

As I seize more and more toys, they are becoming more creative in their weapon choices – shoes, belts, matchbox cars, puzzle pieces and Lincoln logs all have been used to inflict pain. Yesterday, a soft Webkin’ was smashed in the face of the six-year-old boy by the eight-year-old girl, so these warriors are becoming more adept at adapting and utilizing the weapons that surround them. If I wasn’t so mortified by their brutality, I would be in awe of their innovativeness.

So toy by toy, their bedrooms become sparser and my dresser becomes more cluttered. Sure, someday I aspire to have a finely decorated dresser like kind you see in Elle Décor, but for now I am resigned to the decorating style of a Toys R Us catalog gone bad.

Home Economics Is a Relevant Class: Who Knew?

Cream cheese lasagna, tasty but runny. Tortellini with mushrooms and cream sauce, my husband’s favorite but the Worcestershire possibly sours the milk during the baking process giving it a bizarre consistency; green chicken chili enchiladas, bombed with my in-laws; red enchiladas, stick to the pan; spaghetti pie, no idea that pasta could transform into something so foreign. I have not one meal that looks perfect and tastes great every time. I do not have classic meal that I can give to new moms, take to potlucks and serve to company. My cooking is for personal use only.

Why didn't the Ghost of Future Domestic Dilemmas come visit me in 1990 when I was seventeen and screwing around in home economics class, improperly handling a sewing machine and sloppily making microwavable desserts? If I could have had a glimpse of my domestic future, I would have saw myself practicing a cherry cheesecake six times before taking it to a Super Bowl Party; bringing a chocolate pie to a party where it melted immediately upon making contact with plates; burning Easter dinner leaving us with Spaghetti-Os as an alternative meal; and, checking out books in September to work on Christmas cookies months before the annual holiday cookie exchange. A glance into my hapless culinary fate would have resulted in less babbling about my future as a career woman with no kids, no husband and more time learning how to make a roux and homemade pie crust. A little less time on Feminism, Queer Theory and Post-Colonialism in the 1990s might have meant that I could bake brownies with cooked centers and chocolate chip cookie that do not have black smoke emanating from the bottom.

So if you need to know how to bake ziti, poach an egg, or seer chicken, don’t ask me. But if you need to know about Deleuze and Guattari’s Theory of Minor Literature, Judith Butler’s view of performativity or Helene Cixous’ assertion for a feminine language, I am your woman.