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.

You Know What They Say...

Proverbs: those old sayings that we’ve all heard a million times. 

You probably use some proverbs on a pretty regular basis.  I know I do.  And that’s why I got to thinking…who the hell came up with some of these? 

Not parents.  That I'm pretty sure of.

Parents, for example, would never say something as idiotic as “Silence is golden.”  Because people with kids know that silence is the single most terrifying sound in the universe.

So I’ve taken the liberty of going through some proverbs, rewriting some, debunking some…I think it’s time us moms and dads put these old sayings in their place.

This is how these familiar words would read if I got my way.  It’s the ‘Things Carter Says’ version of the classics:

-If it ain’t broke…my kids have probably just not gotten to it yet.  Give them a second…

-People who live in glass houses…shouldn’t have kids.

-Actions speak louder than words…unless you accidentally cut a sandwich in fours when someone only wanted twos.  Then words speak PRETTY DAMN LOUDLY!

-Find a penny, pick it up…out of your kid’s diaper…cause apparently he ate a penny.

 

-Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater…unless the baby is being a little shit, then do it to teach him a lesson.  But, I mean, you’ll probably have to go get him afterwards. Which is actually more work for you.  Ok FINE! Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

-Haste makes waste… untrue.  Haste makes sure you get to eat the whole cookie by yourself without getting caught.

-You snooze you lose…no parent in their right mind would ever use this saying.  I would like to permanently erase this saying from existence and replace it with something along the lines of “You snooze and Mommy won’t have to sell you on the black market.”  Something like that...                                                                                                  

-Practice makes perfect…that’s why my kids are AMAZING at being asshole.  They get TONS of practice!

-Rules were made to be broken…WTF!  If this is true why do I waste my breath making up rules like “We don’t lick ketchup off the floor” and “Don’t drink the toothpaste”?  I hope Carter never catches wind of this saying…cause then I’ll find it tattooed on his bicep. 

-Time flies when you’re having fun…which is why the two hours between dinner and bed time are the l o n g e s t parenting hours in the whole universe.

Now, although I found many proverbs that made me question the sanity of the people who first said them I also found a few that I think are spot on:

-Murphy’s Law  - Whatever can go wrong will go wrong…correct.

-Idle hands are the devil’s playthings…and the devil has a shitload of fun in my house!

-Absence makes the heart grow fonder…hell yes it does!  See ya, kiddos!  I will love you way, way more after I get a break from you...

-If you want it done right do it yourself…cause if you let your toddler do it, it will take approximately 9,000 times as long.

-It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission…your mom will not give you permission to smear hand soap all over the bathroom sink, but you’ll probably escape with a time out and an explanation of why that was an absolutely moronic thing to do.

 

-Don’t bite off more than you can chew…this is a good one.  Listen to this because then I won't have to give you the Heimlich in the middle of a restaurant because you jammed 57 pieces of pizza crust into your mouth at once. 

-The squeaky wheel gets the grease…the child screaming the loudest always get the first lollipop I am able to unwrap.  Fact.   

-It takes two to tango…ever have one child sitting around screaming and throwing blocks at himself?

-Misery loves company…this is why you’re all here, isn’t it?  To commiserate with me and share stories bout our life-sucking children?  Welcome, friends, you’re in good company!

The Story of Easter

Easter is coming up this weekend.  I’m not really all that crazy about Easter.

It’s one of those holidays that’s really only fun if you’re a kid or if you’re super-duper into religion.  I am neither of those things.

I prefer holidays like Christmas where at the end of the all crap I have to deal with I at least get some gifts.  Or holidays like St. Patrick’s Day or Cinco de Mayo where the main purpose of the day is drinking.  Easter just doesn’t do it for me.

Regardless of my feelings, however, I am the victim of 30 some-odd years of Catholic guilt so we still go to church for Easter. 

In preparation of this I attempted to explain the real meaning of Easter to the kids.  Come to find out, I’m not really even sure I fully understand what the hell happened there.  Christmas is so much easier to discuss with kids:

Christmas – A baby was born.  Hooray Christmas!

Easter – There’s betrayal, torture, death and Jesus turns into a zombie.  And then we dye eggs.

So, knowing full well that I was setting myself up for failure I started a conversation about Jesus and Easter with the kids…

Me: “Hey guys, so on Sunday we’re going to go to church for Easter.  I want to talk about Easter and how it’s because of Jesus and not because of the Easter Bunny.  You remember who Jesus is?”

Carter: “Yeah, he’s a baby, right?”

Me: “Well Easter happened when Jesus was all grown up.  He wasn’t a baby anymore.  So what happened was Jesus was helping people and this king didn’t like it so he arrested him.”

(Is that even how the story goes?)

Carter: “Did he go to jail?  Did he get to ride in a police car to jail?”

Me: “Yeah he went to jail, but they didn’t have police cars back then.”

Carter: “Why not?”

Me: “Yeah, ok, actually they did have a police car and he rode in it.”

(I have to pick my battles.)

Me: “And so the people didn’t like him doing good things so they made him walk up this hill with this cross…”

(Why do I know the lesson you’re going to take from this is “Don’t do good things”?)

Carter: “What’s a cross?”

Me: “Um, it’s like a letter T."

(Well, I mean, YOU describe what the purpose of a cross is!  No, really, can you?  Cause I don't get it...)

 

Me: "So then the people did mean things to him while he carried the cross..."

(I covered whipping, jamming thorns into your head and shoving nails through your feet and hands under the category "mean things".)

 

Me: "And they thought he was dead but he wasn’t…well he was…but then he rose from the dead.  And so that’s Easter.”

(If anyone, after reading that stellar explanation of the holiday, wants me to explain Easter to YOUR kids as well just give me a shout…)

Carter: “So are we gonna see Jesus at church?”

Me: “No he won’t be there…except everyone will tell you that he’s there…he lives in Heaven.”

Carter: “I want to go to Heaven.”

(I can tell you right now that the odds aren’t in your favor there, pal.)

Me: “Well you can’t go to Heaven.  You’re gonna go to church instead.  So basically I want you to know that Jesus was a nice man who died for us.”

Carter: “Did he dye all the bad guys who were mean to him?”

Me: “Not DYE.  DIE.  Um…like dead.  Not like eggs.”

Carter: “Are we still going to dye eggs?”

Me: “Yes.”

Carter: “And is the Easter Bunny still going to come to our house even though the king didn’t like Jesus and gave him the T and sent him to Heaven?”

Me: “Yes.”

Carter: “Can I go play now?”

Me: “Yes.”

Good talk son!  Glad I cleared all of that right up for you. 

A Blogger and a Robot Walk Into a Bar...

Oh my Lord!

Spammy must have known it was Friday and we all needed some outstanding comments to make it through our day because he was ON FIRE this week!

For anyone who is new to my regular Friday post topic the story behind them is I’ve been being ridiculously spammed for the past few weeks.  A normal person would probably heighten their blog’s security and delete all the comments.  But then how would any of us know where to find a great Abigail Adams head shot or figure out how to get our hands on a top notch vaporizer? 

I’m not even going to do a big write up for an intro because this guy stole the show this week.  So let’s get going, shall we?

Comment:  “How much fleshlight is too much for you?”

You know, I’ve never really thought about this before.  But I agree it’s a question that every girl must ask herself at some point in her life.  You have to know your limits.  Me personally, I have a pretty low fleshlight tolerance but I do know some people who like to get their fleshlight on ALL the freaking time!  It’s a crazy world.

Comment:  “Vem, da ti fantje so ljubili gledala, in sedaj lahko prekleta ljubezen mi jih bo moja izdelavo Brooke Skye fleshlight.”

So, I admitted to Mr. Spamtastic that I didn’t really know what a fleshlight was so he explained it to me.  I didn’t understand any of it but I’m assuming this information will be very useful so I’m going to find a translator right away.  Anyone speak Robot?

Comment: “I'm reallyhyped about the Aletta Ocean Primal fleshlight. In the military, it must be all that unfamiliar.”

Wait…you mean to tell me our military does not have access to the Aletta Ocean Primal fleshlight?  That’s the best kind! This is a travesty that MUST be remedied ASAP.  Those brave men and women are protecting our country for God’s sake!  They deserve to be familiar with every type of fleshlight.  I’m going to write a strongly worded letter to our government about this.    

I can tell that this is an issue near and dear to Spammy’s heart because he’s “reallyhyped” about it.  He got so excited he couldn’t even find the space bar.  Now that’s passion, folks.

Comment: “The inside will be soft and the vegetable's fake vagina green. A Fake Vagina never fishes for compliments.”

I need to get a fake vagina.  I’m so sick of my real one being like “I’m so fat today” and I have be all “No, you’re SO not fat!  You’re so skinny!”  It gets old real fast.  A fake vagina would NEVER do that!

If vegetables have access to soft, green fake vaginas I don’t see why I can’t have one.  I’m gonna go talk to that cucumber in my fridge and see where she got hers. 

Comment: “The most important thing to know when you are selling an account is where you are going to sell. WIFI:Als Verbindungsmoglichkeiten ins Internet stehen Ihnen WIFI wireless lan zu Verfugung. The reason for this rather strange feature is that, as described above, apps in the Android Market are listed as they are submitted, without any testing.”

As described above?  Oh, you mean “Als Verbindungsmoglichkeiten ins Internet stehen Ihnen WIFI wireless lan zu Verfugung”?  Got it.  Thank you for clearing that up for me.  Now I know exactly where to sell my account.

Comment: “This is normal and for some other couples it might be the haiku about the frog jumping in the water and re-insert the sleeve into the Pocket Pussy.”

The haiku about the Frog and the Pocket Pussy is my favorite.  I was just telling my boys that story the other day.  They loved it! It’s fantastic bed time reading.

Hold on…we’re talking about the frog and the very small cat that fits in your pocket, right?  I love how the moral of the story is a good friend will jump into the water if your sleeve falls off and then re-insert it for you.

Comment: “Now, the guys were still comparing their pocket pussy's and one of its top lawyers, according to police.”

What do pocket pussy’s and top lawyers have in common?  Sounds like the beginning of an interesting joke. But why are the police involved here?  Comparing your sex toys to your attorney isn’t a crime, is it?

Although I heard pocket pussy’s are banned in 16 states.  Maybe these guys live in one of them.  And their lawyer is constantly saying : “C’mon man! Put down the pocket pussy before I have to involve the authorities.” Some guys just never learn.

Comment: “Sadly, most" thrones" are boring porcelain white and lack the oomph that can only be offered by a lid that features the skull of the Pope.”

 

 

I got this off eBay to spice up my boring old porcelain throne.  The seller assured me that it’s the Pope’s actual skull.  And since it’s from the internet it must be true.  I can’t wait to install it!