3. Take several deep breaths like you learned while pregnant with this child in Lamaze class, because geometry may not be your bully but your eighth-grade daughter definitely is.
4. Calmly approach the kitchen table and sit with your child. Smile. Do not spook the middle schooler. Do not make any sudden movements. Say breezily, “So what are you working on?” (Knowing full well you are about thirty-five minutes from doing the worksheet yourself, because, God love her, this girl just can’t do math.)
5. Spend the next thirty-four minutes trying to explain the worksheets while mentally compiling a list of future jobs that don’t require math skills.
6. At minute thirty-five, let your frazzled, despondent child get some ice cream while you rewrite some of her answers so she will at least get a C-.
7. Math homework done!
Programming Note: If you are equally confused about the geometry homework, outsource to Dad, big brother or sister (bribe with cash), smart neighbor, Grandma or Grandpa, before-school tutoring, YouTube, or Google. You are good at other things. Continue to feel good about self.
HOW TO GO SWIMSUIT SHOPPING THREE MONTHS POSTPARTUM
1. Gather as many “figure-flattering” swimsuits as possible.
2. Hastily try them on. Look in the mirror, but only through squinted eyes to soften the blow. Wear sunglasses if this helps.
3. Realize the form-fitting material reveals every lump and bump you received as parting gifts from your pregnancy. Have confused feelings about the underside of your butt. What exactly has happened back there? Something has gone wrong. Some stuff is out of place.
4. Put all the swimsuits back.
5. Weep a little.
6. Eat some Cadbury mini eggs.
7. Wear an old suit to the pool, because you deserve that water even though your nipples are still the size of silver dollar pancakes and your belly skin is like Laffy Taffy. Whatever, haters (“haters” being the swimsuits). Your body gave birth to a human being, and if it wants to go to the pool, it will go in all its glory.
Programming Note: If sanity is important to you, simply execute steps 6 and 7 and be done with it.
Home is the nicest word there is.1
— LAURA INGALLS WILDER
CHAPTER 7
IT’S JUST PAINT
Maybe the most absurd day of my life was getting an e-mail from an executive at HGTV asking if I would consider developing a show around our family. Y’all, I howled. What in the actual? Mind you, the catalyst for this proposition was a blog I wrote about being a very, very, incredibly terrible end-of-school mom, which landed me on The Today Show for a scant four-minute segment in which, trying to appear breezy, I miscalculated the height of the chair and air-leaned on the arm with my elbow. Delightfully, I also wasn’t wearing panties, because I usually manage eight out of every ten given details and packing underwear missed the cut. It is very hard to do everything expected of adulthood, and I appreciate your understanding. But back to HGTV.
My mediocrity was finally paying off!
After sending in a very professional video, which my then fifteen-year-old captured on his iPhone, we found ourselves filming a “sizzle” a mere two weeks later (I will set fancy TV words in quotes so we can build our insider vernacular). After being dubbed “the sound bite queen” because of my fluency in sarcasm, the sizzle passed muster, a whole production crew moved to Austin, and we bought a 1908 farmhouse and set out to renovate it during eight episodes of an original show called My Big Family Renovation.
Obviously, this was the moment I hired a trainer and stopped eating. Do not come at me with “girl power” or “be confident in the body you have” or some such nonsense. If you would like to star in eight hours of high-definition national television content in the body you have, be my guest, gentle reader. But I was unprepared to display my muffin top and FUA (Flabby Upper Arms) on the network of homes and gardens next to their other teeny little hosts and “talent.” No thank you, sirs. I didn’t want to be “that chubby one who has a million kids and thinks she’s funny.” Motivating factors in finally dropping ten pounds: health, life longevity, energy level, strength? Meh. A simple case of extreme vanity on television? Get me my dumbbells.
Our living arrangements during the renovation were dismal enough to bring even Laura Bush to paint the universe with expletives. Brandon and I lived in a room off the garage, our three boys lived in a filthy camper in the backyard, and the two girls stayed in whatever room in the house wasn’t under construction. Of course, the house had no electricity, no heat, and no power, and we started filming in October during what turned out to be the coldest winter in memory. A subscriber to homemade organic food, I fed my children Pop-Tarts every solitary morning for four straight months, which obviously contributed to my general feeling of well-being and competency. We had nowhere to cook, nowhere to be, nowhere to sit down, and one shower. We were dirty, cold, malnourished people who smelled like sawdust and hunger.
I am frequently asked how Brandon and I managed to renovate an entire house in these conditions for six months without forfeiting our marriage, and my answer is simple: If you are interested in tackling a major construction project with your spouse, I suggest you do it on HGTV. Do you know what forces you to behave? Cameras. GoPros. Producers. Microphones. It’s like magic! You decide not to act like a lunatic and instead appear patient and lovely and not at all over it at 11:22 p.m. when you are still filming that day’s “reveal.” You smile sweetly at your spouse instead of, for example, barking your actual feelings like, “Do I look like I want to strip another room of popcorn ceilings? Does my face communicate that this is a thing I want to include in my life plan?”