"I'm all toasty inside". (The Grinch)

I love being a Mother. It's the best. I love it even more this time of year.

I'll admit to being a sappy, 'I love you' kind of chick year round. I'm totally OK with that. My kids, Mr. Man, my parents, my family and most of my friends...they all hear me say 'I love you' countless times throughout the year.... phone conversations, email, sky-writing...I'm a big fan of the 'I love you'.

And I always mean it. I am blessed to have some completely worth-loving people in my life and I want them to know I know. Nothing worse, in my humble opinion, than words you wanted to say and never did. I may have to answer to God for many mistakes, but among them will not be that I left love unspoken.

But my kids. Wow. That's a kind of love that just takes my breath away sometimes. It's a love with magic and power behind it.

Today, as I am baking the different desserts they each want in preparation for the Holiday, I am filled with love. Almost to the point of floating, really. My babies, one 22 and the other 12, make me feel things I'm certain can only be described as spiritual.

A week or so ago my son came home and said, "Mom, can I give some money to Toys for Tots?"

Of course, I told him. As I had already given to the cause, I told him he could give what he wanted out of the money stash in his room.

He came home the next afternoon and said the teacher had sort of embarrassed him. "He told the class to give me a hand for my donation, Mom."

"What did you give, son?" He hadn't told me what amount he'd decided on.

"Fifty bucks," he said. "I listen to what you tell me, Mom."

"To whom much is given, much is required."

My daughter is no different. She had her hair cut and donated the pony tail to Locks of Love. She has a heart as big as the world and a generous spirit to match. I am proud of her daily.

So today, as Christmas is only a number of hours away, I'm going to float around my house and bake for my babies and for my beautiful husband and with every cup full of flour will also be added a cup full of love. If I owned the biggest house, the nicest car and had more money than anyone in town, I could not be more blessed than I am at this moment. God really is good.

Merry Christmas to each of you. May your holiday be filled with a love so big you float, too.


Copyright © 2004-2006, Sherri Bailey
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Stuff I know my husband doesn't.

1. Our dryer has a lint filter.

2. As we are a working class people, we do not own a self-cleaning toilet.

3. Similarly, if there is a magic toilet paper dispenser that refills itself without any assistance from human hands, our family has yet to purchase such a wonder.

4. "Hey Baby, I just took a shower" is not foreplay.

5. Neither are the words, "I can't sleep," or "There is nothing on TV".

6. In many civilized societies, when one person in a relationship has worked all day, shuffled one child or several here, there & yonder and yet has still found the time to prepare a meal, the other person offers to do the dishes. The absence of a properly typed and notarized request is not license to say, "I didn't know you wanted me to do them".

7. What happens in the bathroom stays in the bathroom.

8. Mastercard is not French for, "Unlimited money forever".

9. Unless Paris Hilton is spotted at a trendy New York nightclub wearing them, laundry detergent, shampoo and paper towels are not luxury items on which women enjoy spending money every chance they get.

10. Barring some recent and grossly under publicized breakthrough in the world of human anatomy, men do not use tampons. The check out girl at Wal-Mart knows they are not for you. Just do it already.

Lithium.
Gots to love it. Gots to.


Copyright © 2004-2006, Sherri Bailey
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The Doctor Is Real In.

"I know there is no Santa Claus," said my son the Big Dog, who is like 9 feet tall now and has feet so huge I am forced to buy his shoes from www.ClownFeet.com.

"Shhhh! Are you crazy?! Do you want him to hear you?" If he wants to doubt the existence of the fat man out loud, that's one thing... but to bring me down with him? That's another thing all together.

Every freaking year we go through this and every freaking year I tell this kid the same thing.

"When I am ninety and you are not and I am knocking on death's door and you ask me one final time to tell you whether or not there is a Santa Claus, I will hold your face in my hands, kiss you on the forehead and with every ounce of life left in me, I will thump you between the eyes and scream 'WHAT PART OF THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND??!!'"

Last year he took a different approach.

"Mom," he said in his squeaky trying to become a man voice, "this year you really have to tell me the truth."

Just before I hit him squarely with my yule log, he demanded, "No! Listen to me! This is really important!"

I holstered my log and did as he asked.

"Let's say I grow up and get married and have three kids. I have a good job and a nice house and Christmas rolls around."

"Yeah. I'm with you. You still live near your Mom, right?"

He rolled his eyes and continued, "Me and my wife tuck the kids in bed and go to bed ourselves."

"Now when you say you and the wife go to bed, you mean twin beds, right son?"

"We wake up early when the kids come in and jump on the bed, excited to see what Santa left for them, OK?"

"OK."

"And guess what, Mom? There are no presents! There is nothing under the tree at all! And do you know why?"

"Because you married someone your Mother told you not to and her side of the family contaminated our gene pool therefore causing my grandbabies to be hateful little monsters?"

"No, Mom. They won't get anything because no one ever told me there was no Santa Claus so I didn't buy them anything! I'd have to look at my kids and say sorry kids. My bad. I thought Santa was gonna take care of it."

He sat there for a moment waiting for the reality of this horrible thing I'd done to my future grandchildren to set in.

"So, Mom. Do you have anything to tell me?" He stared at me wide-eyed, secure in the knowledge that he had outsmarted me. He was finally going to have the satisfaction of hearing his Mother admit what he thinks he wants to know.

"Yes I do, Big Dog. I want to explain to you in detail how babies are made, most particularly how your Dad and I made you, and why Mom has cramps once a month."

End of Christmas question and answer session.

Nothing says Merry Christmas like some festive 80's Kajagoogoo. Click it merrily.

Send me a Merry Christmas email . Don't forget to include warm cookies.



Copyright © 2004-2006, Sherri Bailey
This blog may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.



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For the Obsessive-Compulsive Woman Who Has Everything.

This Christmas, I want...

1. To magically have twelve years and three times that many pounds removed from my body without having to exfoliate anything, eat anything that tastes like something a duck might leave behind after ingesting some green pond water, or bend at the waste more than once a day.

2. A telescope for my boobs so they can take up astronomy. All they do now is stare at the floor.

3. Mr. Man to put on a tux and swoop me off my feet in a crazy romantical gesture like in a movie.

4. A gift certificate for a couple writing classes so I will stop thinking it's funny to use words like romantical and swoop.

5. Anything I might wear upon my body that is shiny, sparkly and considered to be tacky and in poor taste by anyone with any sort of upbringing whatsoever.

6. Music. Lots and lots and lots of music.

7. All the children of the world to hold hands and sing a song of holiday cheer... so all the moms of the world can use that few minutes to pee without someone knocking on the door.

8. The Oprah to invite me to be on her show where she will introduce me to a fabulous, high-heel wearing literary agent so that I will become a fabulous, high-heel wearing published author who will be way too good to write for free here.

9. A monkey.

And my biggest, most desired Christmas request this year for the man in red?

10. Peace on Earth.


Copyright © 2004-2006, Sherri Bailey
This blog may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.



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Daddy Dearest

"So, how do you get to that place on the computer where you write stories anyway?"

It was these words spoken by the man who fathered me that caused me to throw up a little in my mouth and wonder whether I could live in Mexico with any degree of success even though I only know how to say "Hola"... and frankly even that sounds Southern when I say it.

My Pop aka "The Dirtinator", recently retired. I was so happy that finally he had the resolve to walk away from a job where he tortured his body on a daily basis. In fact, I was probably his biggest cheerleader. "Retire, Pop," I would say every time we talked. "You deserve it".

That was until he called a couple days ago and informed me that the Senior Center in his town was offering computer classes and he thought he might take one just so he could read some of the things his daughter had written.

In the words of the immortal Charlie Brown, "Ugh".

I have not lived under my Father's roof since I was 18 years old. As soon as it was anywhere near possible, I left North Carolina so fast I'm sure there are still skidmarks at the state line. Once I left, he and my Step-Mother would visit me from time to time no matter how far away I roamed... even though sometimes I roamed so far away they needed a passport to find me.

Although Pop has mellowed over the years, he's not gone soft by any means. He's very firm on three things in his life.

1) God.
2) Martha (my Step-Mother).
3) The fact that his daughter is a screw up.

I swear to you, I could take a mail order class to learn brain surgery, find a cure for both cancer and athlete's foot, build a shelter for ugly orphans and knit socks for the hungry in my spare time... and my Father would still acknowledge only something stupid I did when I was sixteen.

Or thirty.

"We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for this special announcement from the President of the United States."

"On behalf of a grateful nation, I hereby pin this big honking medal on Sher and thank her for her years of tireless research which led to the discovery that moon-pies cure infidelity among men. Thanks to her, marriages across the country were saved, millions of children were spared the pain of a broken home and the moon-pie industry is booming.

And now, we'll hear from her Father, who I personally flew in on Air Force One to share in this momentous occasion."

Pop would clear his throat, get super close to the microphone and say, "I'd like everyone to know that her name is Sherri Lynn, not Sher. She dyes her hair, she's been married so many times I can't even tell you what their names were, and when she was fifteen, she got drunk on moonshine at school. Thank you very much."

No matter how old I am or how far away I get from bad decisions and ugly ex-husbands, I can always count on Daddy to keep the score card handy and up to date, bless his heart. He's got a longer list of my trangressions that even the devil himself. Can you imagine what he's gonna do, say and think when he begins to read some of the things I've written here???

Does anyone know how to say, "Yes.. I will marry you" in Spanish?

target="_blank">I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow (Radio Version) You can take the girl out of the South, but you can't take the South outta the girl.


Copyright © 2004-2006, Sherri Bailey
This blog may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.



Tell me you love me at: HumorWriter@gmail.com

Tell me you hate me at: Yeah. I'm so sure I'm going to make that easy for you.



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