Weird is Good

Posted in Family, Humor, Mommy Blog, Parenting by

I was reading to my daughter like we do every night before bed. She interrupted me like she does every night, but this time she said something that caught me off guard.

She said a kid called her weird. She sounded so sad, and for a minute, I was too.

My first reaction was to tell her to ignore this kid, but I paused and tried to think of something better, something that would help her for the next time it happens.

Then it came to me.

I told her that being weird is a good thing. It means you’re not like anyone else. So the next time someone calls you weird, you should say thank you. She laughed a delighted little giggle and I felt good, like I’d said the right thing at the right time.

As I was reveling in my parental sense of accomplishment, my daughter turned over, laughed again, and deliberately farted on me.

I couldn’t sum up parenthood more perfectly if I tried.

My 15 Seconds

Posted in Family, Humor, Mommy Blog, Parenting by

While some people get 15 minutes of fame, I’m thrilled I got 15 seconds!

Last week I was surprised to learn that one of my tweets made it onto Good Morning America!

Yes, that Good Morning America, the one on national TV.

Someone messaged me on Twitter saying that George on GMA read one of my tweets about back to school. Surely that can’t be right, I thought. This person must have me confused with someone else.

I tuned in for a few minutes before getting the kids ready for school, but nothing. Then I rushed back home after drop off, knowing that I might have a chance to catch it, if it was true. So I got my phone ready (we don’t have a DVR anymore) and waited with my finger over the record button. And this is what happened…

It really was my tweet! I was shocked and elated! To say it made my day would be a massive understatement.

Immediately I sent the clip to my husband and my mom and awaited their reactions while doing a happy dance around the living room. They were so excited. Of course my husband asked what I got out of it and of course my mom said she watched it repeatedly and sent it to everyone in her phone.

While it’s true I didn’t “get” anything out of it (except for bragging rights) it taught me an important lesson that you shouldn’t hold back or edit yourself because you never know what might happen.

Twitter used to be a place where I could get my thoughts out without second-guessing myself, but the more my account grows, the more I doubt and question everything I write. I didn’t think this tweet was anything special, it was just a true account of something in my life. It made me laugh, but I knew it wouldn’t be overly popular, certainly not morning news program popular.IMG_1759

But that’s where I was wrong. Apparently it was morning news program popular and the crowd’s reaction, whether it was genuine or played up for the cameras, was very much appreciated. It gave me a boost of confidence and taught me not to doubt myself.

I soaked up every last second of psuedo-fame, knowing that the next morning I wouldn’t be featured on TV and it’d be back to doing dishes, packing lunches, and folding laundry…you know, all the things that inspire great tweets.

 

 

 

And the Winner is…Me!

Posted in Humor, Mommy Blog, Parenting, Writing by

totwAnother week has gone by and let me tell you, it was a doozy! And by doozy, I mean it sucked, which in turn made my tweets suck. But that’s how it goes in the parenting tweet writing world, my friends. Some weeks it’s a piece of cake and others it’s a shit sandwich. Here’s hoping we get back to cake. Everyone loves cake.

This week was tough because I’ve been sick. Which got me thinking, most of being a parent is feeling like you’re always coming down with something. I’m at the point where I’ll be surprised once I feel good, not the other way around. But I shouldn’t complain, for the most part we were all healthy for the entire month of February which seems like a miracle. All the hand-sanitizing and vitamin-popping we were doing paid off. Sadly, it all caught up with us and three out of four of us are down. Anyway, maybe a little laughter will bring us back up. Enjoy my top 3 tweets from this past week.

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I’m just like any other parent. Happiness and sarcasm are two of life’s most wonderful things. Of course I want my children to grow up to be happy adults who are smart enough to know how to use sarcasm and also so they know how to interpret most of what I say.

tweets list3

See, there’s some of that sarcasm I’m talking about. I don’t really think it’s great that the days are so long that I can’t even remember the beginning of them. Maybe the word I should’ve used was insane because it’s absolutely crazy how much happens in just one day of parenthood.

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Thank you, Parenthood for teaching me my limits when it comes to children and to booze. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that kids are their own kind of hangover even when you haven’t been drinking, and parenting with a hangover is the absolute worst thing in the world.

Cheers to another week of tweets!

Tweets of the Week

Posted in Humor, Mommy Blog, Parenting, Writing by

Some popular sites on Twitter put out these “best of the best” weekly lists so if one of your tweets is chosen and included it’s kind of a big deal (but also not really). Being on these lists and then not being on these lists can take a toll on your tweet-writing confidence (at least it has for me). So I’ve decided to make my own list, damnit! Here are my top 3 tweets from this past week.

tweet#2

Ok, maybe I have my percentages backwards or maybe it’s more like a 50/50 split. One thing I know for sure is that in parenthood there’s always a lot of crap on the floor.

tweet#1

My kids have amazing selective hearing and incredibly poor timing.

tweet#3

Starting immediately! I never knew going to the bathroom alone was a luxury until I became a parent.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s tweets. I’m sure my kids will frustrate inspire me to write even better ones next week.

 

 

Top 10 Movie Titles That Describe Parenthood

Posted in Comedy, Family, Humor, Mommy Blog, Parenting, Writing by

Movies! You remember–those things you used to watch before you became a parent. I’m lucky if I get to watch A movie a year these days. I’m not talking about all the children’s movies I have to listen to while doing dishes or folding laundry or picking up toys everywhere. I’m talking about movies with real actors, dialogue instead of sound effects, and an actual plot line. In parenthood, it’s always too late to start a movie, and someone always falls asleep (depending on who got to choose it). Since I haven’t seen anything new, I’ve made a list of my favorites where the titles describe parenthood perfectly.

  1. Dazed & Confused — cause that’s how you wake up every day as a parent.
  2. Reality Bites — cause the reality of parenthood bites compared to what you’d thought it’d be.
  3. Misery — cause even when you’re sick and miserable, you still have to parent.
  4. Groundhog Day — cause every single day you do the exact same thing over and over and over.
  5. There Will Be Blood — cause kids are insane and fall down just standing still.
  6. Clueless — cause that’s how you’ll feel about your parenting skills.
  7. Sleepless in Seattle (or whichever city you live in) — cause you never sleep again.
  8. Fight Club — cause you break up more fights than a referee in a boxing match.
  9. From Dusk till Dawn — cause that’s the only time you get to yourself but you have to spend it trying to sleep.
  10. The Neverending Story — cause anytime your kids tell a story, it’s neverending.

    These are called dvds in case you don’t know

     

For the Love of God Eat Your Dinner

Posted in Family, Humor, Mommy Blog, Parenting by

If there was an award for world’s pickiest eater, I would’ve held the title when I was growing up. It drove my mom to the edge, and now my daughter is exactly the same. There are a handful of things she’ll eat: peanut butter sandwiches, no jelly, just peanut butter, which isn’t crazy, but still, c’mon. She won’t eat hamburgers or hot dogs, but she’ll eat the buns and even dip them in ketchup which sounds repulsive, but I did it too when I was little. She’ll eat string cheese but not mac & cheese, no pizza, no grilled cheese, not even spaghetti. None of the “normal” things that kids eat. She’ll drink smoothies, and eat an entire carton of raspberries in one sitting, but god forbid she even try a tiny bite of potato or carrot. And forget eggs unless they’re baked into a cake.

The only thing that brings me hope is that I was the same, and today I eat way more than I did in my childhood. For me it was all about texture. I couldn’t eat anything slimy or chewy. There were many nights I had to sit at the dinner table alone because I refused to finish my pot roast or my broccoli smothered with mayonnaise…makes me gag just remembering. I used to tell my mom that certain foods gave me the shivers when I had to swallow them which makes me laugh now and think, god I was ridiculous and she must have been so frustrated with me. I’m ashamed to think of all the food I wasted.

I wish I could give my kids the three-course dinner gum from Willy Wonka minus the whole turning into a giant blueberry part. Somebody please make that happen while my kids are still young. It would make dinner time so much easier. I wouldn’t have to cook a meal that no one will eat while simultaneously keeping my kids from killing each other and burning down the house in the process.

It’s no wonder that there are people who love cooking and then there are parents.

 

The Tooth Fairy is a Cheapskate!

Posted in Family, Humor, Mommy Blog, Parenting by

If we’re going to have these ridiculous childhood characters like The Tooth Fairy then we, as parents, need to come to a consensus on what is an acceptable reward for teeth. I can’t have my daughter going to school bragging that she got $1 and 2 starburst (don’t judge, it’s all we had in the house) when her classmate got 5 large from the supposed same fairy. Now my daughter’s going to think her teeth aren’t as worthy as her classmate’s just because this other girl’s father is apparently Daddy Warbucks.

It’s a funny thing, this Tooth Fairy business. We sneak in to take their tooth and replace it with money while they’re slumbering away. But then what do we do with the teeth? As of now I have two teeth in a bag stashed away in my dresser. That sentence totally makes me sound like a serial killer and reminds me of that one Gillian Flynn book with the creepy dollhouse. So, what to do with the teeth? Throw them away? Keep them forever and make a charm bracelet? (Kidding!) Hold onto them for a little while then bury them in the backyard? Or just throw them in the trash like a normal person?

Now that my daughter is losing her teeth, it makes me remember how she got her teeth. It takes me back to those sweet days of infancy. But it also reminds me that teething is one of the hardest things to go through for both the parents and the baby. It seems endless, taking years of sleepless nights dealing with a fussy, uncomfortable, rabid raccoon. Whenever my daughter was acting like this, I’d blame it on teething. I wish I could do that now. Now, she’s just a rabid raccoon aka defiant A-hole, I mean, six-year-old.

Maybe The Tooth Fairy was invented because it makes up for having to go through the trauma of cutting teeth and then having them fall out (or yanked out). My daughter was so excited to see the little pouch of treasure hidden under her pillow and promptly came in my room first thing to show off her prize. And when her classmate bragged about her $5, my daughter’s response was that The Tooth Fairy used glitter on her note and that made her happy, which in turn made this miserly Tooth Fairy smile with pride.

Birthday Wishes

Posted in Daughters, Family, Humor, Mommy Blog, Parenting by

Dearest E,

It’s here! Your favorite day of the year and one of my favorite days of my life…your birthday!

Six years ago you came into our world and taught us the definition of happiness. You also taught us the definitions of exhaustion and frustration, but let’s focus on the positive, it is your big day after all.

When you turned 5 last year I couldn’t wait to see what your fifth year would bring. To say it was exciting would be an understatement. You flew on an airplane for the first time, played on your first soccer team, started kindergarten, and recently lost your first tooth, which is adorable btw. A lot of firsts!

You still love horses, cracking jokes, and you’d eat pancakes for every meal if I let you (and some days I do).

We hope you have an incredible birthday full of surprise and joy because that’s exactly what you bring to each one of our days. I’m beyond proud you’re my daughter and am so lucky you call me mama. You are everything good in the world and we love you!

Hope your birthday is as magical as you are. Happy 6th Birthday, Miss E!

Entitled to Happiness

Posted in Humor by

Being a good parent means making sure your kids know they deserve the world but they’re not entitled to it. This coming from a very entitled baby of the family who threw fits when she didn’t get her way or a certain stuffed animal in a Colorado gift shop (which I still have btw).

mimi

I was a brat. Plain and simple. Although if you ask my mom now she’ll say I was an angel. Ah, how the passage of time erases the bad and only holds onto the good. I can’t wait to reach this stage of parenthood.

I will be damned if I’m raising bratty children though. Sure, they’re spoiled beyond all reason thanks mostly to their grandparents, but hopefully they’re learning to be grateful for all they have.

We give our children everything because they are everything to us. But at some point we have to make sure they understand why we’re spoiling the crap out of them. It’s a hard lesson to teach when all we want to do from the moment they’re born is make them happy. So while I want to give them the world, they must learn that the world doesn’t owe them anything. The sooner they learn that, the better. I want them to be grateful not greedy, thankful not thankless, appreciative not oblivious.

The only thing I want them to be entitled to is happiness and it’s my job to teach them that it’s not found in a Colorado gift shop, or any gift shop for that matter, and it’s certainly not found wrapped up in glittery paper under the Christmas tree. But it’s found in the moments between. Those unpredictable moments of shared laughter and ear-to-ear smiles that turn into the memories we treasure most.

If this reformed brat can learn that happiness isn’t anything we hold in our hands, it’s what we carry in our hearts, there’s hope for them yet. And sometimes we’re lucky enough to do both.

porch-hug

 

 

My Love/Hate Relationship With Motherhood

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There are times I really love motherhood–like at night when my children are in bed and there are times I really hate motherhood–like during the day when my children are awake. Ok, maybe hate’s a strong word, and I don’t “hate” it in the true definition of the word, but I sacrificed everything (including my lady biz) to become a mom so I’m allowed to say I “hate” it and if you disagree well nobody asked you.

I love making fun of motherhood while also embracing the soft, squishy Hallmark side of it. It’s this blending of inappropriateness with sentimentality that comes naturally to me.

I hate motherhood for taking away my sanity and ability to form one complete thought but I love motherhood for replacing it with the craziest kind of love.

I love motherhood for showing me how good life was before kids came along but I hate motherhood for making it so damn hard to complete anything.

I love motherhood for helping me find the funny in stressful situations but I hate motherhood for creating all the stress in the first place.

Motherhood makes us into schizos who fiercely love our children and fiercely hate all it demands of us. So it really is a fine line between love and hate and the trick is to straddle that line like a mother…a mother-effin’ boss.