1. habitual disinclination to exertion; indolence; laziness.
2. any of several slow moving arboreal tropical American dentates of the family Bradypodidae, having a long, course, grayish-brown coat often of a greenish cast caused by algae, and long, hookline claws used in gripping tree branches while hanging or moving in a down position.
synonyms: shiftlessness, idleness, slackness.
I am a sloth. I know this about myself, I embrace it, I accept it. Most of the time I work my way around it. Some of the time it just sucks. Like at Christmas. It sucks so badly to be a sloth at the holidays. But I digress. That is a blog post for another day.
Today is write a blog post about sloth day! Evidence of me being a sloth is that with my son tucked away for his blessed and no longer can be counted on nap (these minutes are &%$#@! GOLDEN, sayeth our former Illinois Governor), what I really want to be doing is watching the season finale of Boardwalk Empire. Where I really want to be is tucked under the throw, reclined in my bed, iPad on my lap and soda at my side. Doesn’t that sound just divine?
Seven Deadly Sins: The Series
Teppi Jacobsen: Gluttony
Jenna Myers Karvunidis: Greed
Lyletta Robinson: Anger
Patrick O’Hara: Envy
Evan Moore: Pride
Sheila Quirke: Sloth
Crystal Alperin: Lust
Andy Frye: The Eighth Sin: Rebellion
But I can’t. Because I have to write this post. And another one I promised my editor at the Huffington Post. Oh, yeah, and there is that other one about inspirational quotes I gotta get to, she typed, slowly, s l o w l y .
I think people have this very mistaken sense of me being the gal that has it all together. That Mary Tyler Mom — she’s really got it going on! She cooks (Have you seen her stuffed peppers on Facebook?), she writes (That gal is on fire, lately!), she advocates on behalf of pediatric cancer (Don’t forget to donate some or all of your 2012 Illinois income tax refund for the new Illinois Childhood Cancer Research Fund!), she keeps a tidy home (Please for the love of all that is sacred, do not open my closets when you come for a visit).
Oy. I am a sloth, folks, true story. Ask Mary Tyler Dad and he will tell you.
The other night I promised Mary Tyler Son pudding in a cloud for dessert. I thought he would love the idea. Nah. All he wanted was another piece of Halloween candy. Later that night tucked under previously mentioned throw with iPad firmly ensconced in my lap, I pined for that pudding in a cloud. I did. I could almost taste the rich, creamy spoons of deliciousness on my tongue. But everything I needed was in the kitchen. I was in the bedroom. There’s probably, like, nineteen steps between the refrigerator and my bed. (I may be a sloth, but I am also obsessive, so I know these things.) That was nineteen steps too many. I called it a night and fell asleep.
I don’t want to be a sloth, I don’t. I wish I were more like my Type A mom friends that somehow seem to manage and organize and shine and produce all the time. All the damn time. How do they do it? Seriously, I want to know, cause that energy mystifies me.
I have one friend I will call the Martha Stewart of Iowa. She amazes me. She is a great mom. She is a gifted artist. She is a domestic goddess. She keeps a calendar. A calendar!
But I fear that I am giving you the wrong impression here. You know what I hate? I hate writers that wax poetic about things they don’t have or qualities that they aspire to in a different life. In my book, you are who you are. I am a sloth. It’s just sort of in my DNA. I’m Irish, nearsighted, and a sloth. It is what it is. Be the change you want to be, you know, and all that mumbo jumbo kind of stuff, but don’t whine about it. If you want to change, change.
If I wanted to be anything other than a sloth, I could be. I could. I could work really, really hard at it and I could be more like the moms I admire — the ones that I imagine have it all together. I could exercise every morning after dropping Mary Tyler Son off at school. I could have dinner ready *ping* at precisely 6:30 every evening. I could go to the grocery store once a week, not four times. I could actually mail the birthday party invites for Mary Tyler Son rather than distribute them over the Christmas dinner table, as I have done the past three years. I could move that laundry right along, rather than letting it linger a few hours longer than it should, the faintest waft of mildew greeting me as I open the washer door.
I could do all those things and 476 more that I won’t bore you with. But the truth is, the deadly sin that I embrace as my own is that I am a sloth. It’s true. And that is okay with me, as it is a part of me. I don’t envy the other moms that do it with more efficiency, I marvel at them, I salute them. There is a difference.
Embrace those things that are you, even if they are flaws. Know your limitations well enough that they won’t trip you up, but instead, guide your decisions, e.g., I will never be able to volunteer as room parent for my kid as it would be utter disaster. Papers would get lost and sign-up sheets would go unsigned. Catastrophe. Best to know my strengths and stick to them. Yep, I am a sloth. And look how cute a sloth can be . . .
Mary Tyler Mom 