The bumblebee had a bun. The ladybug, her identical twin, had a clumsy mess of French braids, studded with plastic barrettes.

I panicked. My neon green T-shirt said “ASK ME!” The bumblebee, the ladybug and I were going to hear about this.

One of the dance recital police ladies approached, pointing at the bumblebee.

“Uh-oh,” said my daughter, the zebra.

“She’s going to need to go to the French-braiding station,” the dance recital police lady ordered.

“Um, I thought French braids or buns were acceptable, no?”

Dance recital police lady frowned. “Not for the actual performance. You’d better get her over to the French-braiding station. Like, now. There’s already a line.”

She summoned the ladybug to stand before her. The ladybug held her ground impressively.

“My mommy did French braids on me,” the ladybug told the dance recital police lady. “But she gave up when it was my sister’s turn because the French braids were too hard.”

The harried dance recital police officer considered this. I chewed my lip. All around us, little feathered yellow chickens and Sleeping Beauties and Cinderellas and jazzy tappers and Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo girls and parasol carriers and monkeys and kissy dolls and hip-hop Baby Beyonces were wreaking havoc, twirling and spinning and tearing their tights and spilling contraband items like Pepperidge Farms Goldfish.

Dance recital police lady decided to let ladybug’s subpar French braids go. She had bigger goldfish to fry. She scowled at me. “Tell her mother no plastic barrettes next time. They catch the light.”

“Will do,” I said.
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“Stay in your room,” they warn me. “We’ve got everything under control.”

“I’ll only come out if I smell smoke,” I say.

Five minutes later, Daughter #1 pops her head through my bedroom door. “Um, when you preheat the oven?”

“Yes?”

“Do you, like…leave it on? Once it gets to the right temperature?”

“Yes,” I say.

She nods and skips back down the stairs.

A moment later, Daughter #2 sticks her head into my room.

“You can’t hear what we’re talking about, right?” she says sternly.

“I really can’t,” I say.

“Would you even tell us if you could?”

“Well,” I say, pondering this. “I suppose if I thought you might be really disappointed, I might just not tell you.”

“But you didn’t hear.”

“Nope. I really didn’t.”

“Okay.” She hops downstairs to help her sister. Their dad dropped them off this morning with a bunch of mystery groceries, a nice gesture on his part, so they could make me breakfast for Mother’s Day.

I realize I am not actually worried that they will burn down the house. This is progress, I think. The kids are all right.
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I ask you: What did you not know that you needed to do this year, so far?

Funny story. Turns out I needed to drive four hours, meet my best friend from childhood at a god-forsaken hotel in the Twilight Zone of Pennsylvania, don purple workout gear, and dive belly-first into mud.

There was more, of course. I also needed to run 3.1 miles through hay bales and rocks and swampy bits and tires and over an 8-foot-high wall and a 35-foot-high cargo net. That was part of it.

Physics lesson: What goes up does not necessarily come down, at least, not right away. It’s scary at the top, when your legs and arms have turned to jelly.

I did eventually get down. And we crossed the finish line, in respectable time. And that’s when I realized, Oh, I needed to do that. I didn’t know it, but that’s exactly what I needed to do this year.
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Just like I can’t seem to explain what anyone does for a living (”um, he…well…it’s kind of like…computers, sort of, but not, you know, the kind of person who knows, like, how to pronounce ‘Linux’” or, you know”), I am clueless about house stuff.

This is me being clueless about house stuff:

The state of Massachusetts sent a team of, um, you know, guys who check the things that burn, like, oil, or gas, or whatever, to my house. They were there to check the…the thingy. For, like, EFFICIENCY.

Always—but especially since the divorce—I am certain that any men who show up at my door (often including the ones I’ve dated) mean me no good, NO GOOD WHATSOEVER. Every time a serviceman shows up, I have the urge to ask him for five minutes so I can finish my will on LegalZoom.com and to then tell him I prefer a nice sharp quick stabbing with my own cleanish chef knives, as opposed to bludgeoning by unsanitary windowless-van serial-killer tools.

These guys, the heating efficiency guys, they had name tags sewn onto their shirts. My first thought was, “OH, THEIR MOTHERS ARE IN ON IT, TOO.”
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So 2011 was a bit of a ride in the relationship department, in case you hadn’t heard. Facebook doesn’t yet have a diagram that would accurately convey my relationship status changes for 2011, or I’d copy it here. I’m thinking it would look something like a squiggly fat black line scrawled by a hyperactive toddler, a dark surly maze of crayon scribble. I went from attached to single to dating to attached to engaged to confused to more confused to oh crap to single again to single forever to time to revisit dating women to dating that’s not really dating to single again.

Whew.

I’d like to think that everything happens for a reason. It sounds good and it’s reassuring, and if you say it with enough certainty at a dinner party or in the checkout line at the supermarket, whoever you’re talking to might just leave you alone about the miserable, sordid, mortifying details of what went down.

When the engagement became unengaged in late 2011 (like a car out of gear, drifting backwards down a hill, slipping into a dark lake, never to be seen again), my first reaction was OH THAT’S JUST SWELL, THAT’S AWESOMESAUCE. Because, really, there’s only so much character a 40something single mama can take. At a certain point, character-building becomes overkill, and you wind up wishing to God and the Universe to back the hell off so you can attempt life as a happy, shallow bee-yotch. BUT NO. For nearly five years, I’ve felt like an unlucky foie gras goose, being force-fed Character and Very Unwanted Wisdom. I’m sick of the stuff. JUST EAT MY F@CKING LIVER, ALREADY. Like most single mothers, I am now so full of character, I can practically puke it up onto crackers on demand.
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I need a new mouthguard, she says. We have a lacrosse game tomorrow.

This is perhaps the oddest thing about single parenting: when your kids return from your co-parent’s house two inches taller and needing equipment for a sport you have never before heard them mention.

Lacrosse? I ask. I gulp. I am still adjusting to her playing field hockey with howling banshees twice her size.

She shrugs. I decided to give it a try.

Alrighty then, I say. I admire her willingness to run with sticks.

At the sporting goods store, she hunts for mouthguards while I browse running shoes for my upcoming muddy, wet 5K. I always feel like an imposter in the running shoes section. I hate running. I mean, I really, really, really hate running. And I get the feeling the sport hates me for pretending to be a runner. We are leery of each other, me and running.
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I’m in San Diego, helping him move.

Like any move, it’s a spectacular pain in the ass. He’s downsizing, from a 1200 sq. ft. Craftsman bungalow to a teeny-tiny beach cottage two blocks from the ocean. He’s had to sell or give away at least 3/4 of everything he owns so far to make this move happen, and he’s not done yet.

I’ve never seen him happier.

His son, who’s 7, has been amazing about letting go of all of the toys he no longer plays with. He’s excited that he and his dad will be so close to the Pacific. Now they can walk to the grocery store or to the ice cream shop. There won’t be much room for toys—for either of them—but the quieter life in Ocean Beach is a new start that they’re both looking forward to.

I have never been so motivated.
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9:02. I am sitting at Gate 20 in Terminal A of Bradley International Airport, not because it is my gate (it isn’t), but because Gate 20 is home to the only electric socket that I have found in the entire airport. I consider peeing on it, to mark my territory. I plan to Get My Internet On for a few hours until my flight departs at 12:10. Three hours early: I like it like that. I love to be excessively early. It makes me feel accomplished, adult, less like the harried single mother I am most of my days, and more like the Career Woman Lite that I once was.

I am not traveling for business, but I try to pretend I am, with my laptop and smart glasses—the extent of my writer costume. All around me, people are reviewing notes in binders and presentations on computer screens. They discuss in grim tones whether or not they’re “on target” for their clients and how their “plates are full.” The men wear clever ties and sharp suits and shiny sensible shoes. The women sport classic bobs, perfect highlights, crisp blouses, pencil skirts, black pantyhose (without fail), and gleaming pumps.

I have never owned a suit, and there doesn’t seem to be a reason to procure one now. My stint as an official copywriter and career-chaser in New York City was relatively brief before I got knocked up and all bets were off. I never had The Look that these folks pull off with such ease. One purple velveteen blazer from The Limited, a few pairs of pants, a few dresses, one pair of stacked-heel black oxfords: that did the trick, in my case. Nobody expects much from writer-types in the way of Business Chic. As a literary agent once told me, “You’re the talent. It makes them nervous if the talent doesn’t look like the talent. Wear jeans and big glasses and a coffee stain.”
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“Is this chore for allowance?”

That’s the question of the day, lately. (Sometimes, several times a day.)

“What would Caroline Ingalls say to that?” is my usual reply. I figure chores are part of being a family, part of contributing to a household. In a single-parent household with four pets, the kids need to step it up even more.

There are exceptions. Here at Chez Mom, the answer is usually no to cash for chores unless it’s a BIG chore that goes the extra mile, i.e., cleaning up the winter’s fossilized dog poo during the muck of the spring thaw, or a massive purge of old clothes and toys to give away. I tend to cave when the big jobs are done willingly and with a smile.
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Hi. I’m Jenn Mattern, and I need a Pintervention.

No, never mind. Keep your stinking Pintervention to yourself. I’m hooked and I like being hooked.

Pinterest, oh, Pinterest, how they mock you! How misunderstood you are! I have heard Pinterest referred to as Fantasy Football for women. If I understood Fantasy Football, I might be able to refute or confirm that statement. I have also heard Pinterest derided as a place where women go to decorate homes they will never afford and plan weddings they will never have.

WHATEVER. LIKE ANY OF YOU BOYS ARE EVER GOING TO PUT TOGETHER A REAL NFL TEAM. HMMPH.
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