Reality TV

There are days when I think that my life could be summed up by a 1/2 hour television sitcom (think more like Everybody Loves Raymond than the Brady Bunch).  But then there are other days when I think that my life could make a pretty interesting drama series; although I'm not sure I have the on-the-spot quirkiness to make it work like the mother-daughter relationships present in the Gilmore Girls, and my show would be lacking too much serious medical knowledge to make a show like ER work ("Pass me that Hello Kitty band-aide STAT!").  So, I have decided that what the world needs is a reality show based on my life.  I mean, c'mon, we have a reality show that follows the lives of Mob Wives, one that follows around spoiled rich women, and ones that document the lives and trials of teenagers who get pregnant.  My life is seriously funnier, more dramatic, and more REAL than any of the shows out there right now!  (I'd like to see the percentage of marriages that have lasted at least 10 years since the Bachelor/Bachelorette has been finding "love" for people!)

Here's what I envision my show would look like if cameras had been following me around during a typical summer week, and looped it all together into a one hour show:

• The show opens with one or the other of my children coming into my room at O-dark-thirty, standing by my bed until either a)I gasp in fright upon realizing that someone is breathing mere inches from my face, or 2) said child smacks me in the face and says, "Mom, are you awake."  At which point I look at the clock, groan, lay back down and say, "No....go watch tv."
• The camera would then follow my children around as they watch tv,get themselves breakfast, make their mom coffee, and do an art project that involves lots of glue and many different bottles of glitter that they found on the top of the fridge, hidden clear in the back, behind the Easter candy.
• I finally emerge from my room looking like something out of a horror movie, and finding the mess the children have left for me in the kitchen, I groan, poor myself a cup of coffee (thanking God that my 6 year old knows how to make it), grab the newspaper off the porch, and sit down to fully wake up.
• By now it is about 7:30.

The rest of the hour would be spent following me and the kids around as we clean, play,clean, play, clean, have lunch, clean some more, run errands, play and clean.  My show would offer practical parenting tips for dealing with breakdowns in the grocery store  (using effective time-outs in the frozen foods section - effective meaning that the child was only asked once if he was lost because his mother was hiding in the next aisle pretending not to know him), siblings smacking each other in the car (I have perfected the Doug Vallis Reach Around Smack that still makes my knee caps hurt to this day!), as well as what to do when your child makes embarrassing exclamations in church ("Mom, did you know that you have BOOBS!?).

My show would also deal with the drama that happens in the lives of "real" people.  Like explaining to your young child what happens when you die, or what heaven is like, or why a 1st grader in their school died even though he's not old like her great grandpa was when he died.  Or that their 30 year old uncle has cancer and what that means for him and for the rest of our family.

The hour-long episode would always end on a happy note with my husband, their father, walking in the door after his long day at work and our kids running to be the first one to hug him.  Then the camera would catch a glimpse of our children's disgusted faces as their mom and dad kiss and hold onto each other.  But deep down in our kids' hearts we know that they are happy knowing that despite all the daily pressures and family heartaches, that we are a family who loves each other and who will stick by each other day in, and day out.  Despite the fact that just minutes earlier one of them was mad at me for not letting them have a snack before supper and told me that they were going to trade me in for a new mom. :)