Dear Mom: Sorry

It's Mother's Day Weekend!

What a perfect time for my family to show how much they appreciate me for putting up with all the crap they put me through on a daily basis.  Come to think of it, it might not be such a bad idea if they could apologize for a few of those things while they're at it. 

That's what they should get me as a gift. A card that simply says "Dear Mom, Sorry for..."

 Here's a list of things they could start with:

1. Sorry for telling my teachers you don't feed me lunch.

2. Sorry for being bad at finger painting.

3. Sorry I've probably permanently damaged your liver.

4. Sorry I made a list of people I love and you weren't on it...but fire trucks were.

5. Sorry I think you look like this...

 

 

6.  Sorry I ever ACTUALLY made you look like this...

7. Sorry I sometimes don't like wearing shirts...

Or pants...

8. Sorry I told the car salesman that the cup holders in the new car would be perfect for your wine.

9. Sorry I made you go see The Wiggles live in concert.

10. Sorry I totally F'd up your boobs.

So it's just a short list but it's a start.  I'm sure there are lots and lots of other things I could add but if I got a card like this my response would probably be:

"Aw! That's so nice!  Thank you for apologizing, kids.  And in return...I'm sorry I use your plates to salt my margarita glasses."

Purple vs. Yellow (My Abercrombie Rant)

A purple person walks into a store:

“Hi, my friend has these amazing pair of jeans and she said she got them here.  But I don’t see the purple person section.  Could you help me?”

“You don’t see a purple person section because we don’t sell clothes for purple people.”

“Oh, that’s weird.  Ok.  Well…can I ask why not?”

“Isn’t it obvious?  Purple people are not cool.  Only yellow people are cool.”

“Says who?”

“Everyone. Only yellow people can be popular and have friends.”

“Well I’m clearly purple and I’m actually very popular at my school.  I have lots of friends…I have a lot of yellow friends too.”

“That can’t be.  Look around you.  See all the pictures of yellow people having fun and being beautiful?  Clearly they are the cool, popular kids.  You are way too purple to be cool.”

“Well I’m a nice person, a good friend.  I have a great sense of humor and I love to do all the fun, cool things that the yellow kids do.”

“I can’t believe yellow people hang out with you.  Don’t worry, soon all the yellow kids will get the message that they should only be hanging out with other yellow kids.  We’ll make sure of that.  Then the purple kids can go back to hating themselves and feeling badly about the way they look.”

“I don’t think you’re very nice.”

“I don’t care.  Just look how yellow I am…how beautiful I am.  You should try doing something about how purple you are.  There are ways you can try to be more yellow, you know.”

“It would take something really drastic to make me more yellow.  It might be dangerous and unsafe.”

“So?  You’d be yellow at the end of it.  That’s the goal right?”

Ok, do you get the picture yet?  This post is clearly about the gigantic dickhead CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch.  He’s been quoted as saying things such as:

“That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that,”

And:

 “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."

(Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/abercrombie-wants-thin-customers-2013-5)

Ok, so you don’t want to sell above a size 10 in women’s clothes.  Fine.  It’s your business, do what you want.  There are plenty of specialty stores out that that cater to a certain clientele.  And that’s not wrong.  That’s not what I take issue with.

I take issue with the reasoning.  The idea that a young girl cannot possibly be cool, popular and attractive if they wear a larger size. 

Being beautiful has NOTHING TO DO WITH SIZE!

I can’t shop in the tall section of any store.  But that’s because I’m not tall, not because I’m not cool.

This guy’s quotes make me angry.  They make me incensed.  They make me want to throw something…preferably at his face.  Who the hell are you to tell society what is beautiful and cool?  Who the hell are you to look at a teenage girl who is already desperate to fit in and tell her that she can’t, she simply CAN NOT, because she wears a size 12. 

What about the athletic girl who has muscles and an actual shape to her body? (Holla to all my fellow ex gymnasts who rock the strong quads and broad shoulders!) If you’re anything other than a stick figure you have no place in society?  This is the message we’re sending our children?

And it’s not just girls…guys are affected by the idea that they have to ultra-muscular and fit to be attractive.  I don’t want  boys obsessed with bulking up any more than I want girls obsessed with being thin.

Your natural body shape and size is out of your control.  What IS in your control is how you treat your body.  Be healthy, young people.  There are some natural size 16s who eat well, exercise and take care of their bodies…and will never be any smaller due to genetics.  There are also some natural size zeros who will always be thin.  And that’s great.  Rock your body!

Take the emphasis off looks and put it where it belongs…on being healthy and happy in the skin you’re in.

You, Mr. Asshole Fuck Face CEO, are what’s wrong with this country.  You are gross.  You are a predator…you are preying on the weaknesses and insecurities of an already unbelievably emotionally fragile population. 

We as a society cannot stand for this.  We as parents can tell our children how gorgeous they are, how beautiful of a person they are, till we are blue in the face.  But it only takes one store, one ad in a magazine, one TV program, to show them otherwise.  Are we stronger than people like Mike Jeffries?  Can we stand up to him and say enough is enough?  I hope so.  I truly hope so.

A Message to My Fellow Moms

I have a favor to ask. 

Can we as mothers please all agree to stop being douchebags to each other?

It’s just getting out of control.  And the thing is I don’t even think most of us mean to do it.  It’s just something that happens to you once you have kids. 

You go fucking crazy. 

And you forget that as hard as your job is, it is made even harder by the criticism and doucebaggery of other moms.  You feel constantly under attack and a lot of times that makes you want to attack others.  You want to scream “See?  See what she’s doing over there?  That’s wrong.  I’m right.  I have to be doing an ok job because at least I’m not doing THAT THING that the mother over there is doing!”

 

Moms are constantly trying to one up each other.

And then before you know it you’re at the park and you’re rolling your eyes to your friend because another little boy cut your son on the slide or threw sand.  And you would NEVER allow YOUR child to act like that.  I bet that mom actually TOLD her son to go to the park and act like ass and embarrass her. God! Some parents these days!

 

Oh I’m sorry eye rolling jerk-face…tell me, what’s it like to have the perfect child?  Keep your damn eye roll to yourself. (Can you tell who the mother of the slide cutting, sand thrower is in this scenario?)

But I know for a fact I’ve also been on the other side of this…I’ve been the one making the faces.

Maybe that mom is already having a rough day.  Maybe she’s already questioning her own parenting skills because don’t we all do that from time to time?  Maybe the last thing in the world she needs right now is judgment. 

It seems like everyone is so quick to point out when other kids are being bad.  And judge the mom in the process.  Know why we often notice the less than stellar behavior of other people’s kids?  Because it makes us feel better about our own misbehaving offspring!

At least that’s why I do it. 

I so enjoy when I see other kids being bastards.  It’s validation that they are just all like that sometimes.  Next time I see a child having a tantrum out in public I’m gonna go give that mom a big high five and ask her if she wants to go out for margaritas. 

Here’s another thing I’m going to stop doing: Telling other mothers what they’re in for.

I’ve had a few friends of mine post lately about the terrible twos.  And guess what my first instinct is?  I want to write “Oh don’t worry…3 is worse.”

In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve actually written that a time or two.

What a douche huh?

People write that all the time on “terrible two” status updates.  People used to say that to me constantly when I would complain about my then two year olds.

And for what purpose?  To suck the poor mother dry of any hope that there will come a day when the word no or the wrong color spoon won’t send her child into meltdown mode?  Thanks for brightening my day with the knowledge that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. 

We should just write: Well, I hope you didn’t want to ever enjoy your child because once THIS phase is over the NEXT phase is even worse.  Wait till three, at three they are smarter and even MORE strong willed and your life will be harder …until four that is.  Then your life is basically over because FOUR extra super SUCKS!

I have no knowledge of five so I’m assuming it’s just a walk in the park…and I’m going to bitch slap anyone who tells me otherwise…

Another annoying thing we do as mothers is give unsolicited advice. 

If someone asks you: “Gee, what did you use for a sleep training method?  I need some help!” then by all means go to town!

But if someone simply says: “MY GOD! If I don’t get a good night’s sleep soon I’m going to kill someone!” then that person just wants to vent.

We need to start recognizing the difference between a mom looking for feedback and a mom simply bitching.  The correct response in the second scenario is: “I know, right? This parenting shit is hard!”

We need to stop assuming that whatever worked for our child will work for all the children in all the land.  We need to stop assuming that everyone wants to hear our methods.  Some people do.  Most don’t.  Cause it’s just annoying to have to listen to someone tell you what you’re doing wrong and how to fix it if all you really want them to do is listen to you and maybe refill your wine glass every once in a while. 

So what do you say?  Can we all band together as a united mom front and start supporting each other more? Stop the judging, stop the preaching.

 Because in the end we’re all on the same team fighting against a common enemy…our children.

I'm Thinking of a...

Whenever I need to distract my kids from something (whining, crying, killing each other) I have a little trick up my sleeve.  It’s a guessing game called “I’m thinking of a…”

You can put any word in that space.  Person.  Animal. Truck. Place.  The possibilities are literally endless. 

I like to whip out this game when my head is about to explode because no one is listening to me and everyone is calling everyone else a “Goldfish Baby” (don’t even ask) and screaming. 

Then I’ll just yell “Let’s play I’m thinking of a truck!” and it’s like magic.  They stop fighting about whatever they were fighting about before and start fighting about who is going to go first instead.  But when THAT fight is over then we have a really good time with the game.

I usually go first and apparently I always start out with dump truck.  I know this because Carter has told me “Mama, you ALWAYS start with dump truck!”

This is how my turn goes:

“I’m thinking of a truck.  It has…”

“Dump Truck!”

“Yeah ok, your turn.”

I could probably switch it up and try to stump them.  But as soon as my turn is over they just go back and forth with each other naming every truck they can think of and I get to zone out for a little while.  So I’ll be sticking with dump truck, thank you very much!

Sometime Carter is really clever and his are kind of hard to guess.  But sometimes his clues go like this:

“Ok, I’m thinking of a truck.  It has “Shaws” written on it.  It delivers food from Shaws and it’s a truck.”

Hold on.  This one might take me a minute.  God! I know I know this one! Maybe I need one more clue…

“Um…is it a Shaws truck?”

Guess what?  That was the right answer. I knew it would get it eventually.

The other day we were playing in the car on the way to the store.  I heard Carter’s voice but I wasn’t really listening to his clue.  Mostly because I was listening to the voice in my head say: “I need an iced coffee.  Should I stop now or later?  Does that woman walking know what her ass looks like in those pants? I want it now, but then I’ll have to pee while I’m shopping…and if I’m holding a coffee I won’t have any hands to grab the kids when they do something obnoxious.  Jesus dude! Did you really need to get over to this lane that badly?  You’re a douche. Oooh! I like the landscaping at that house. I’m stopping for the coffee first…”

Then all of a sudden I was being called on to name a truck.

Crap I just got busted ignoring my kids.  But there are only so many trucks in the world so I just started naming some:

“Backhoe loader?”

“No.”

“Skid steer?”

“We already did that one.”

“Dump truck?”

“YOU did that one!”

“Big rig.”

“Mom, these are ridiculous answers…were you even listening to me?”

I’d like to use a life line. Is there phone-a-friend in this game? 

Turns out the clue I missed was it’s a truck and it has FedEx written on it.  Had I heard that I clearly would have said UPS truck right away!

While this game is great, it can get old really fast. 

After they’ve gone through every truck they know and every person they came across that day they start doing the same ones over.

 At that point I want to scream “If I have to guess flatbed pick-up truck one more time I’m going to lay down in the road until I’m run over by one!”

But, I mean, it’s fun up until that point.

Dress Up Fun

Sorry I have been a little MIA on the blog lately. 

Don’t know if you happened to hear but we’ve been a little busy up here in Boston this week…

So related to that I’ve been pretty much glued to the TV for 7 full days.  Which has left a lot of time for Carter to be…um…creative.

He’s been really into dress up lately.  He wears an apron around and pretends to be a chef.  Then he’ll throw on a cowboy hat…you get the picture.  But this week due to lack of parental supervision he’s come up with a new idea for a costume. 

He greeted me the other day dressed as…a scuba diver.

Ok so maybe your child has thrown on some goggles and pretended to be a scuba diver before and you’re over there thinking “So what?  That’s not that weird.”

But when Carter dresses up he has to be authentic.  He needs to be the real deal.  So he obviously started out with the scuba diver mask:

 

We don’t have one that covers your whole face.  So he used a random pair of Spiderman goggles that he got in a birthday party goody bag and then he added the fish mask that came with his nebulizer. 

Half breathing machine.  Half scuba mask. Perfect.

Actually, know what?  The damn insurance company charged us so much money to have that machine in our house that I’m glad they are getting as much use out of it as possible. 

Go ahead kids; mess with the hundreds of dollars’ worth of vital medical equipment.  But if you lose it don’t come bitching to me the next time you need to breathe properly.

After his mask was complete he stole the vacuum attachments to turn into a breathing tank for his back.  He called them his "pipes":

 

Honest to god, the last thing those things have ever been used for is cleaning.  They are drumsticks, hockey sticks, pointers, cannons, swords…and now pipes.

 

He’s also using one of my elastic workout headbands to hold them onto his back.  I mean, I gotta give the kid points for being resourceful.  He came up with this all on his own because his mother ignored him and watched footage of bombings and gunfights and manhunts all week.  That sounds normal, right?

Oh and while we’re on the topic of unsupervised kids…if you drove by my house today and saw a child dancing around the front yard dressed in a tiny skeleton costume you weren’t imagining things.  Cause that happened as well:

Just casually skipping around out here!

 

 

Do, do, do, la, la, la!

 

He's really getting into it now...

I make sure to document all of these moments so that if he ever becomes a rich and famous celebrity I can sell the photos to the tabloids and make a shit load of money.  I have all my bases covered.

Things I Hate About Spring

We waited.  We suffered.  We bitched a lot…a real lot.  But now I think it’s safe to say that it’s finally here…SPRING!

If you’re a parent who has been stuck in the house with your kids all winter long spring seems like the second coming. 

“OH MY GOD…SUN!  Kids, get the hell outside right now!”

But while there are many things to celebrate about spring there are some not so fun aspects that put a little bit of a damper on my enjoyment of the season. 

I’m sorry to bring them up…I know I should just be thankful that warmer weather is on the horizon.  But I’ve always looked at the glass as half empty…especially if it was a wine glass…and also I’d like a refill.

Anyway, here are a few of the things I find annoying about springtime:

The Weather

Yes, I know.  The weather is the whole reason why spring is awesome.  It’s warmer, right?  Except if you live somewhere like the Northeast. 

It was sunny but windy and 30 degrees on Saturday…75 and gorgeous on Tuesday…46 and pouring rain on Thursday and on today sleet is in the forecast.  That’s right, sleet.  In April.

 I get that the weather changes and all that crap but guess who doesn’t get that?  My kids.

“Can we play outside with the water and buckets today?”

“No, it’s too cold out.”

“But we did that yesterday!”

“I know.  But Mother Nature is a sadistic little bitch who can’t make up her damn mind and likes to torture everyone around her just for kicks.”

And of course the kids simply take no for an answer and go about their merry way and don’t do things like whine and scream and threaten to call the police on me.

My Dogs

Aren’t animals so cute?  Mine are…from like November to March.

Then the warm weather comes and do you know what people like to do in the warm weather?  Go for walks.  Know what my dogs go friggin’ ballistic over?  People walking by my house.

And I don’t have the type of dogs who stop barking when you tell them to.  I have the type of dogs who will bark themselves into a coma before they’ll allow someone to be within a 75 foot radius of my house.

Barking at people does not get old to them.  And it doesn’t matter how far away the person is.  If someone a few blocks over starts thinking about maybe heading in this direction my dogs will know about it. 

Sometimes they’ll be barking and I can’t see anyone even CLOSE to my house but 5 minutes later…there they are.  Did you dogs get out your little doggy binoculars to see that person?  Doing some quick neighborhood recon?

Dog 1: “Hey, hey!  Get over here…there’s a person a half mile away from the house. Heading northeast at approximately 1.9 miles per hour.”

Dog 2: “Should we wait till she gets closer ooooor…”

Dog 1: “No, man, we gotta start now.  We’re the only line of defense between that grandma and this yard.  You want grandma taking over your house?  Do you?  DO YOU!?! Start barking on three.  One…two…”

And you…you walking the other dog?  You are the worst.  MUST you walk extra slowly by my front yard?  Do you HEAR the commotion you are causing?  Move it along, your dog can stop and smell every blade of grass at someone else’s house. 

Holy hell.

Shaving

I don’t think this con of nice weather needs to be explained any further.  Shaving sucks.  I get a 10 minute window to shower where my kids aren’t killing each other or breaking something and I get really angry at having to spend one single second of that precious time shaving. 

Why do guys get to be hairy all the time?  Unfair.  Let’s just all stop shaving and get society used to it.  Wanna?  (And don’t just say yes to my face and then not do it…I don’t want to show up and be all “Hey! Isn’t it great that we all stopped shaving!” and then be the only hairy one.  That’s SO middle school you guys!)

The Park

OMG do I hate the park!

The anxiety it causes makes it barely worth the effort:

Don’t throw the wood chips.

You need to take turns on the slide.

Are you playing nicely?

Don’t open the gate!

THAT’S TOO HIGH!

Don’t throw the wood chips.

Where the hell is your brother?

 

Shit!  I lost my kid!

 

Oh, never mind there he is...the one  repeatedly pouring sand over his head...

Is that kid being mean to my kid?

Is that mom being a douche to me?

DON’T THROW THE MOTHER F*#@!NG WOOD CHIPS…(and don’t eat them either.)

Open Windows

Fresh air is awesome! And after a long winter I love to air out my house, just feels cleaner than keeping all those germs trapped inside.

So I’m all for open windows.  My neighbors, however, may have different feelings about it…

“AAAAHHH!!!  HE SAT ON MY HEAD!”

“YOU BIT MY HAIR!”

“STOP FIGHTING RIGHT NOW OR I’M LOCKING YOU IN YOUR ROOMS FOR THE REST OF THE DAY!”

See, I know my house is a loud, crazy, obnoxious insane asylum-ish place…but not everyone appreciates that type of lifestyle.  And when the windows are closed I don’t have to share that fact with the public. 

No joke, I’ve literally had people walking by the house stop to turn and look around for who was being attacked when they hear the screams coming out of my open windows. 

I want to yell out “Keep going!  Nothing to see here…no one is being attacked!” 

Really though, that’s not true.  Usually someone IS being attacked.  But that’s normal…unfortunately.  Potentially we need central AC so we can keep the windows shut more often…

In all seriousness, I would just like to assure my neighbors that we don’t ALWAYS sound like that… cause sometimes we’re sleeping.

This Shit is Hard

I’ve come across a lot of “expert” parenting books in my years as a mom.  When your baby isn’t sleeping or your toddler won’t stop biting people you look to these sources of information as a way to solve your problems.  You put out a cry for help and you want all those pediatricians and psychiatrists to tell you what to do…tell you how to make it better.

Every parenting book I’ve ever read tells you the steps you need to take to solve your problem.  They give you a process to follow…just like that…all simple and stuff. 

“Hey you, parent! Do these things and your child will respond…and then you can share my book with your friends and help their kids as well.  Easy peasy!”

These experts, however, leave out one vital piece of information…NONE OF THIS IS EASY!

I don’t want to read another paragraph detailing the joys of parenting.  We all know there are joys; the first smile, the first step, the first day of preschool, the first big hit in a T-Ball game. Joy, joy, joy!

We come into parenthood EXPECTING those moments.  That’s why we do it in the first place.  We envision cute pictures of parents walking into the sunset holding onto a tiny little pudgy hand.  We dream about the first time our child will say “I love you!”

We hug our pregnant bellies and put our heads to our partner's stomachs and sigh; dreaming of meeting the perfect little miracle inside.

Then the kid comes out.

And we’re like WOAH! WTF!

In all of the pictures I looked at while I was pregnant I never saw the angelic newborn projectile vomit on the person holding it.  I never saw a picture of the exhausted parents at a complete loss for what to do while attempting to comfort a squirming, screaming newborn with a gas pain.

I’m not saying we should terrify new parents here.  But, I mean, would a little heads up be too much to ask for?

If I wrote a book about the parenting experience it would be called “Parenting: This Shit is Hard.”

Cause it is.

When people sign up for medical school does anyone tell them “Oh! Med school is such a joy!  Savor every minute of it cause those boards will come up before you know it!”

No.  They say “Dude, be prepared to work your ass off…but it’s worth it!”

So that’s all I’m saying.  You will love being a parent!  You will have moments of absolute bliss…but you will also have plenty of ‘Mary Mother of God Help Me’ moments. 

I wish someone had told me that.  I wish someone had said “Hey Danielle, this shit is hard!”  That might have saved me so many hours of thinking I was doing it wrong.  I still have moments when I’m close to tears thinking “IT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE THIS HARD!”

Then I remember…yes, yes it is.  It is hard.  It is work.  It is sacrifice and heartache and blood, sweat and tears…and occasionally vomit. Don’t forget the vomit. 

And forget looking at people’s status updates on Facebook.  Everyone’s child is perfect on the internet.  No one is going to post:

“My kid just hit me in the middle of the store so I went home and opened a beer with lunch…which he spilled while trying to climb the counter so I stood in the middle of my kitchen and screamed at the top of my lungs for a minute just to clear my head.”

Except me, of course.  Cause I did actually post that…

Know what else doesn’t help at all?  Media. 

Books, TV, radio etc. etc. etc. All you hear day in and day out is how every miniscule thing you do as a parent has the potential to screw up your child for the rest of his or her life.  One bad decision on your part can result in years of torment and anguish for your beloved offspring.

Oh, well in that case I don’t feel any guilt or pressure at all!  Thanks for the information, assholes.

Let me tell you, so called “experts”, we parents have gotten the message.  We hear the message loud and clear.  We have the message tattooed on our forearms.  We have bumper stickers that read “Honk if you are potentially ruining your kid at this very moment!”

TV will melt your kid’s face off.  Only breastfed babies get into college.  Thumb sucking leads to cannibalism.  If you don’t teach your baby how to sign then YOUR BABY WON’T KNOW HOW TO SIGN!

Enough.  There is no “right way”.  There is no “easy”.

If your kid is fed, watered, put in direct sunlight to grow…oh wait…never mind those are the instructions for my basil plant.  Let me start again…

If your kid is happy, loved and ALIVE at the end of the day then you did it right.  And I would like to give you a big old internet high five for your accomplishments.

Because this shit is hard.