The Not So Great Lifestyle

“Jack, get in the shower now!” I yell.

“Make your bed, Ellie, after you wash your hands,” I scream as she runs in my room wiping her bright red spaghetti hands all over my walls. Out of all 4 of us kids, Ellie has had the worst temper lately. She must be going through a normal second-grade phase. I hope. 

As I walk out of the kitchen to get the shower started for Jack, I see Jacob’s meatballs all crushed up on the floor. It is all in his high chair and all over him. I lift him up to try to clean him off a little bit in the shower with his older brother. He spits up all down my shirt. Once I take a step back, I feel something gooey through my sock. I turn around to see a fresh poop from our dog Daisy. Looks like I’ll be taking a shower tonight as well!

At this point, Ellie is running around the house in just underwear, and Jack is going to the bathroom singing his ABC’s at the top of his lungs. I take off all of Jacob’s clothes but his diaper and buckle him up in his bouncy seat, while being careful not to completely set down my now-soiled foot. Luckily there are toys hanging from the top of the contraption that will keep Jacob occupied for a while. I hop on one foot into my room and take off my socks and change my clothes. I am in the process of taking deep breaths as I hear Jack asking me to wipe his butt. Ugh, I just wish Dad would have never left us and he would still be here to help us every day. Or, if Mom would just stop dating random guys she meets on Tinder and actually be a mom instead of me having to be the mom every night. I can’t even remember a night in the past month that Mom has been home before 2:00 in the morning.

I check my clock just before walking out of my room. It is 9:45 at night and they haven't even taken a shower yet. I leave my room and go to wipe Jack's butt. Ellie is sitting on the couch, completely naked now, watching the news about a guy who was being arrested for child pornography. I scramble to turn off the TV. I get her some clothes and start the shower for Jack. He gets in the shower and I go to get Jacob to wipe him off in the shower to. 

I get Jacob his pajamas on and get him settled down in his crib. When Jack is done I dry him off and get him pajamas as well. He falls asleep watching transformers in his room with Jack and Ellie is laying down in my parents room watching JoJo Siwa. I walk in there to tell her goodnight and she has a whole package of cookies in there and crumbs all over the bed. 

“ Ellie, seriously? You know you aren't supposed to have food in here!” I scream as I yank the cookies out of her hand. She starts crying and I slam the door shut as I head to put the cookies away. I can hear her crying all the way from the kitchen and I know she feels bad. But I have had enough of her and her brother's behavior tonight. 

After I put the cookies away, I go into my room and check my phone. I see four missed calls from Jonas (my boyfriend) and 129 texts from everyone else. I have 639 more likes on my Instagram post about my cheerleading team and our squad. I now have 1, 938 likes on it and I posted it last night. I mean that’s pretty good if you ask me. I call Jonas back and as I hear that annoying ring in my ear I have this instant thought of regret I feel so bad for screaming at Ellie. She is in first grade and I am in tenth. I am supposed to protect my siblings when Mom isn't here for them, not scare them.

I disconnect mine and Jonases call and head to my parents room to apologize. When I walk in Ellie is sleeping. Looks like I will have to apologize first thing tomorrow. I give her a kiss on her head and go and do the same with my two brothers. I go back to my room and go onto Instagram. Sure enough, when I scroll onto mom's page. There is a new guy there. A different one from last week or any week before, they are at a bar and they look like they are having a good time. But that is the problem Mom has a good time in all the pictures with any guy. She is such a player! I go down to her very first post and it is a picture of our family. Jack and Jacob were not born yet. The next photo was a goodbye post. There are pictures of our family and pictures of dad and his grave. After scrolling up a lot more there are 3 pictures with mom's first boyfriend after dad died. The one that she had Jacob with. They lasted no time together because he just ran away from us one day. That was a relief though, I had a bad feeling about him from the start. When I scroll up more I just see random posts with her and at least 10 other guys from about every other day. 

I make sure my alarm is set for the right time in the morning, and set my phone under my pillow and go to bed. 

I wake up in a surprisingly good mood for a Monday morning right before school. I want to say hi to mom and tell her all about my night. I go to her room first and all I see is Ellie sound asleep. I will wake her up in a minute I think as I walk out of the room. A really big yawn leaves my mouth and I can smell my morning breath. I am still determined to find mom though. I start towards the living room and she is not there. That's when I start freaking out a little bit. I race to my room and grab my phone and call her right away. It rings once, then goes to voicemail, I try two more times and there is no success. I text her and DM her on Instagram. No response. I go and wake up at Ellie and I apologize. She ignores me and just gets up and walks into her room. I do not have time to deal with this again. I go wake up Jack and a thought hits me for the first time. I have Jacob, a new baby and mom has stayed home with him every day since he has been born. But, I have school and he can not come with me. I guess I can ask our neighbors if Jacob can stay with him. When I wake up Jack, the first thing he says is “What happened to your hair?” 

“ I have not brushed it yet so it is super knotty.” I reply.

“ Why are you waking us up and not mommy?”

“ You see Jack, I don't know where mommy is right now, she isn't at home and she wont answer her phone, so we are going to have to improvise.”

“ Impuravize? What does that mean?”

“ Work around it, now go get dressed and get ready for school.”

He got up and went to get ready. I pick up Jacob as he is just starting to wake up and I put him in his bouncy chair and bring it in my room while I get ready. I try on jeans and look in the mirror. That is when I see why Jack was asking what was worn with my hair. 

“ ELLIE!!!!!!” I scream.

She had cut off half of my beautiful dirty blonde hair and not even in a line. My hair had been laying out and she only cut half of it into a bob cut and the other half was still its long self. How had I not noticed this morning? I start crying and Jack runs in. I tell him to go and get Ellie right this minute and he does. Ellie comes in smiling. 

“How could you do this Ellie?”

“ You yelled at me last night and I wanted to hurt your feelings just like you hurt mine and I think I did that. Also where's mom?”

I avoid her second question. “ This is not funny Ellie I tried apologizing but you were asleep so I did it first thing this morning.”

“You were a little late apologizing.”

“Just get out of my room!”

She walked out laughing and the whole time Jack had this look of worry on his face. What has happened to our family? I thought. Jacob was crying, so I had to go comfort him. We were crying together. Jack and Ellie went and finished getting ready while I scheduled a hair appointment for at 10 this morning and emailed school. I would have to take my mom's car because she took my car last night. I got my license a week ago, so I am super nervous to drive my baby brother into town, but it is the only thing left to do. I still can't believe I am going to have to cut all my hair off. There is no way Jonas will still like me. There is no way I will still be head of the cheerleading team, not to mention the most popular girl in the school like I used to. Everyone loved my hair, including me. 

I loaded all of them up in the car and threw a hat on. I dropped Jack and Ellie off at their schools. Then, me and Jacob headed for the salon. I had to carry Jacob in. Man was he heavy for a baby! I walked up to the front counter and gave them my name. We got to go in right away. Luckily we went to the very back one. She evened out my hair and it was like my world. I think I had the prettiest hair in the district, now I probably have the worst. I look like a freaking boy, I kept thinking over and over. 

“Done.” She said fifteen minutes later. I threw the hat back on and walked out. We drove back home and it was 11:07. We got home and my car was there. Mom was home! I unbuckled Jacob and ran inside. No mom. There was however a note sitting on the counter. It read:

Dear Kids, 

I hope you had a good night and morning! I asked the neighbors if they came to them at all and they said no, so good job handling yourselves the right way. I don't know where Jacob is but I hope he is safe. I hope all of you are okay and have treated your sister the same way you would treat me. I am so sorry I didn't reply to your text, I was asleep. I spent the night over at Matthew’s house which is the guy I was with last night. We partied a little too hard and got too drunk to drive so his brother came and picked us up and brought us to his house. When we woke up Matthew’s brother drove us both back to the bar to get our cars. He followed me here and asked me if I wanted to go to the casino for the day and he would drop me off later tonight or tomorrow morning. Depending on when we decide. Listen to your sister, she is in charge! If you have any questions feel free to text or call me! Love you guys!

Love, Mom

Have any questions? Of course I have questions. Since when did I become the mom? Since when do you even care about if your newborn freaking baby is safe? Can you for once act like a real mom? But of course I can not ask her these things. So, I leave her a text that says. 

Hey mom, I Kind of just wish you would have at least waited for us to get home before you went to the Casino. I didn't go to school today. Ellie cut my hair while I was sleeping so it was super uneven. I had to make an appointment to go get it evened out today and we just got home. Also, I had nothing to do with Jacob. So he came with me. I just wish you would parent more and take more charge of our house instead of me, a 15 year old, parenting my siblings and taking care of the house. I have barely hung out with my friends and boyfriend this year at all because I am stuck hanging out with my little siblings and making all the meals. And now I am going to go to school and get made fun of and laughed at and it is your fault. If you were here then she would not have cut my hair and she wouldn't have laid in your room and she wouldn't have gotten cookie crumbs all over the house and I wouldn't have stepped in dog poop and I wouldn't have gotten spit up on me and I wouldn't have had to miss school today. 

I made some lunch for me and made Jacob a bottle. About 30 minutes after I texted mom, she walked in the door. It was very unexpected. She came in and hugged us. She hugged us and I hugged her back. She told me I could go do whatever I wanted in my room and she took care of Jacob. She did not go back any more that night. 

The next day mom woke me up because I overslept. She woke up Ellie and Jack and got them all ready. She made us waffles and bacon and set the whole table. After breakfast I was going to clean up from breakfast but she told me she could do it. She dropped us three off at school and took Jacob back home.

Through all of this chaos, I had forgotten to tell Jonas about this, not to mention even call him back. As I am walking into school, I pull out my phone and text him. As soon as I open the door, it is quiet. Everyone turns and looks. I hear whispers and mumbles and when I go over to the rest of my cheerleading squad, they scream and run away. I keep walking till I get to Jonas's locker and he is standing there with his eyes wide open looking at me. 

“ Umm… what happened to your hair?” he asks me. 

“I will catch you up later after school.”

“No you won't he replies, because we are done.”

“What , Why?” then he is gone. I go to the bathroom crying and get even more looks. I went from the most popular girl at school to the total dweeb. I calm down a bit and walk out of the bathroom. More looks and stares. Now I know how Jake Bradshaw feels. I go to all my classes and even the teachers mention my new haircut and say they like it when I know they dont. 

At lunch I sat all alone and everyone pointed at me. The seniors even started figuring out what had happened and started making fun of me too. When I got home, Mom was in a great mood and her and Jacob were playing the airplane game to get him to eat his mashed peas. When she sees me walk in she stops and asks me how my day went. I ignore her, check my phone, and see that I lost over 1,500 of my 9,000 followers I had. She asks me again so I answer. Truthfully. 

I did not know that just something as simple as your hair can base your popularity status. Maybe it is karma for all the times I have talked about or made fun of someone at my school. I am always ready for changes. Just maybe not something this big.