Tag Archives: humor

What kids want.

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I recently caved and bought myself a pair of Tom’s shoes.

I even splurged for the Vegan pair, made from hemp with recycled plastic for the sole. Cool, right?

I had held out for a long time.  It just seemed to me that Toms shoes were something for kids.  Ok, not like my kids, but you know, young-ens, whippersnappers, ‘kids these days’ kids.  Read: not my demographic.

The more I heard about the founder and creator of the shoe and the work he does, the less I could resist.  It married something I perceive as ‘fresh’ with social responsibility.  That’s a win-win in my book.

However, there are some other products out there aimed at the ‘kids’ of which I will NOT partake.

Freshly cracked eggs in MOST areas? What is the Egg McMuffin made from in OTHER areas?

You know honey, the double strand of pearls really looks best with the black Genie Bra, not the nude. Single strand, definitely white. You hit that on the head.

Remind me again why I’m wearing pearls with my bra?

The Street King by 50 Cent

Here’s an unlikely pairing if I’ve ever seen one. One energy shot for you, one meal for a hungry child.  And does the 50 Cent/the Street King really crave an orange mango dietary supplement?  I guess cheeseburger flavor failed market tests.

Jelly Belly. The Original Gourmet Jelly Bean.

The irony of a sugar-free jelly bean was what made me pick up the package.  I mean, if you take the sugar out of jelly beans, what else is there?  That weird gel crap?

But upon closer inspection, that wasn’t the most absurd part of this product:

I hope the people who develop, create and market this crap (no pun intended) don't sleep at night.

Cause, you know, I prefer my jelly beans come without the need for a DISCLAIMER.  Especially one that reads: consumption may cause stomach discomfort AND/OR laxative effect.  Individual tolerance will vary.  We suggest starting with 8 beans or less.

Sorry kids, I’m not buying it.

Nevermind that noise, it’s just my ovaries whining.

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Ladies (and the three men that are obligated to read this by marriage or blood) — listen up!  I am in desperate need of your help.   You see, it’s May!

[you nod in confused agreement].

What’s so special about May?  You mean, you don’t know??

May is THE month I get pregnant.  Every other year.

Let’s recap:

May 2008 – after nearly a year of trying, May was the magic month.  That year I shocked the hell out of surprised my husband on Father’s Day by making him breakfast and breaking the news (no, I’m not sure which shocked him more).

May 2010 – armed with the confusion that it took nearly a year to conceive our first, we decided to let nature take its course when I stopped nursing just a few short weeks before.   And a few short weeks later my 15 month old had the positive pregnancy test in his mouth (I was too shocked to grab it away after it dropped from my stunned hand).

So here we are, May 2012.  The kids are sleeping wonderfully (finally).  Ian and I are going on a Caribbean vacation.  Alone (as in no kids).   And I just held the 7 day old baby of one of my best friends (I loved every second of it).  My uterus is feeling kinda lonely…

Come and play with me, I'm a harmless plush uterus!

WAIT, WAIT.  This is craziness!  We cannot have any more children!  Why? you ask.  Well for starters:

1.  I suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum.  Which might just sound like the worst morning sickness ever, but in reality it involves vomiting that scares small children, hospital stays, IVs, threat of miscarriage and generally complete incapacitation.

2.  We live in NYC and are not in the 1%.  Which means the third child will have to sleep in the sink until it’s old enough to move out.

3.  I love sleep.

4.  I need sleep.

5. I finally get to sleep.

This isn't me, but I am sure I look that adorable when I'm rested

What’s that?  Those aren’t good enough reasons?  The joys of motherhood far outweigh these minor details?

Ok, well here are my top five reasons that we should have another child (ranked in order from the most important to the most shallow):

1.  Boobs.

2.  The first time I delivered I almost died, the second time I delivered was the most life-affirming moment I could imagine and now I’m curious what a third February due date would hold.

3.  No periods for another two years.

4.  Because I’m obsessed with baby names.

5.  We have one kid that is my mini-me and another that is my husband’s clone.  What would the in between mix look like?

As you can see, I’m not fit to be a parent to the two I already have, so we can all agree a third is out.  Right?

[please say RIGHT loud enough for my ovaries to hear you]

-

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If you are free tonight, God, I have a favor to ask

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Dear god:

I am so very sorry for laughing at moms who told tales of children over a year not sleeping through the night.  Please ask your fiery torture administrator (aka my daughter) to back off.  She not only doesn’t sleep through the night, she doesn’t sleep more than two hours at a time.  That’s not true, she has one four hour stretch when I put her down at 730. THEN it’s every two hours.  Sometimes every hour.  You must really think I was particularly cruel to these complaining women.  For this I apologize profusely.

As of late you seem to have engaged my son in your efforts as well.  I must report he is working superbly with your primary torture administrator.  They never wake at the same time, alternating seamlessly.  Some of your best work was Friday night.  Remember, when Chloe woke at 11:30pm and then again at 1230am?  Gavin shrieked about a wet bed at 2am.  Chloe up again at 3am.  At 4am, for the love of screaming at the top of your lungs, Gavin COULD NOT FIND FINN MCMISSILE.  That woke everyone.  Except daddy of course.  This torture is designed specifically for mommy and like a dog to his human, he cannot hear these cries.

I am wondering if you were busy with March Madness on Sunday night because Chloe only woke at 2am and 4am and Gavin slept until 630.  My bleary eyes were thankful that Kansas needed that much help beating Purdue on their way to the Sweet Sixteen.  Two night wakings after my own 4 hour stretch of sleep barely registered on my sleep deprivation meter.  It remained steady at “SEVERE” without crossing into “tomorrow you might be arrested for CHILD ENDANGERMENT.”

Despite thinking I was in a comfort zone as a mother, you have sufficiently humbled me.  I don’t know what to do about Chloe’s inability to sleep through the night.  I admit it!  I nurse, I refuse to nurse, I soothe, I let her cry.  I am at a loss.  There is no quicker and easier way to have a mommy call mercy than to render her sleep deprived…for over three years (what? no one sleeps during their third trimester).

You win dear god.  Consider me Daniel Plainview in church at the hands of Eli.  I will say whatever you need to hear.  Please just let my children learn to sleep a whole night through.

Eternally yours,

Carinn

 

PS – Don’t get all warm and fuzzy at this family cuddle.  It’s a survival technique.

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

PSS – note the offending Finn McMissile in the photo.  I wonder if he is the one behind all this torture.  He is a spy after all…

What I lost during March Madness

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Today is the first (real) day of March Madness.  Oh, how my former self LOVED March Madness.  The gluttony of competition.  The plethora of hope.  Rooting for the underdogs.  Keeping score, talking smack, spending your day at a sports bar.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year.  Or it was.

2007. You can see the games on the screen behind me. And yes, the photographer (Ian) was drunk and yes, that's why it looks like this.

2008. A particularly memorable blowout I wanted to capture.

which probably seemed funnier at the time because of all of this...

2009 – I kept the tradition alive even after my son was born.  He was days old when the brackets came out.  Without regard for sleep (silly, silly girl) I completed mine in the middle of the night during a long stretch of feedings, trusty laptop by my side for research.  Do I have enough upsets?  Where are my Cinderellas?  My favorites?  My unbeatables?  I looked at records, strength of divisions, seniority.  And sometimes I just loved the mascot.  It was a fun game and I was in it to win it.

2010 – I lost a little steam.  I had been sleep deprived for over a year and it just didn’t seem as fun.  But I filled out a bracket before the deadline.  Ian and I enjoyed taunting each other at home, if not at a sports bar.

2011 -  I had a daughter who was days old.  No way in hell I had the time or the energy to put into a bracket.  We watched a few of the games.  I was sad that I had nothing invested.

2012 – I am going on 3 years of sleep deprivation.  I didn’t even have a pang of regret when I saw the brackets come out this past weekend.  I am fine with sitting these out.  For now.

Though it got me thinking about the other things I have given up in ‘my life with kids.’  I mean, we all openly mourn the loss of privacy in the bathroom.  Or the ability to nurse a hangover.

But what about those things we gave up with little fanfare?  Here’s my top 5:

1. March Madness. RIP. 1980s-2010s

2.  Grooming.  When did I stop shaving my legs?  When I was pregnant?  First or second?  Definitely before I let weeks go by without a visit to my local threading salon but after I gave up on highlighting my hair.

3. Snoozing.  As in your alarm clock.  In college I hit the snooze bar for hours (sorry Liz!).  I don’t even own one anymore.  My kids are my alarm clock now, and I still haven’t found their snooze button.

4. Travel.  I don’t mean the air plane kind.  I mean the completely unnecessary kind.  Like, ‘let’s travel through 17 neighborhoods to get that apple sausage bacon you love.’  Now it’s ‘what’s close, has no wait and customers that won’t spit on our stroller?’

5. Doing whatever the hell you wanted, whenever the hell you wanted.  Without having to plan ahead, make arrangements for strollers and naps, or bringing a weeks worth of snacks for every 4 hours you’d be gone.

At times like March Madness, I miss the freer times of my pre-children days.  I do.  But don’t tell them (you think it would spoil their fun?).

Gavin's look says it all. "MOM, you aren't talking about when you used to have FUN, are you?"

Flapjack Redemption

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I love pancakes.  Light, fluffy, buttery pancakes.  Buttermilk.  Multi-grain.  Stuffed with berries or bananas.  Definitely chocolate chips.  When I was pregnant with Gavin I ate them for every single meal during my first trimester.  Sadly they were all delivered from the Starburst Diner.

You see, I cannot cook a pancake to save my life.  Though I am not sure the scenario where my life would be in jeopardy and the only way to recover would be cooking a pancake.  But if that were the case, I’d be toast.

They stick to the pan.  They crumble.  Forget if I try to add something to them.  Battered covered raspberries are not delicious.

This weekend I was a mom on a mission.  Armed with a few new pointers and a refrigerator full of goodies, I was going to make some damn pancakes!

 

the game changer

“A griddle will make all the difference,” I was told by a friend late on Friday.  My first thought, “where the hell am I going to get a griddle for Saturday morning pancakes?”  Thanks Ian, for reminding me that we in fact already had a griddle.  A fancy one purchased for our wedding.  Seven years ago.

In my defense, this is where it was hiding. Way above the cabinets.

Saturday morning, bright and early.  I was pumped!

The goods

The gang was excited too.

Assistant #1 already banging her tray

 

Assistant #2 actually helping

started off well

Warning:  the following images are graphic.

 

the box and I have a difference of opinion as to what constitutes 'medium-high heat',

So I turned the flame down to something I would call ‘low’.

victory was found in the 2nd batch

Ok, so they weren’t from scratch.  Or very pretty.  And they weren’t going to get me added to the Top 10 Places to Eat Pancakes.  But they got a reaction that made my heart sing.  I wasn’t able to capture it with my camera but it looked a lot like this:

Happiness!!

This ain’t the Boy Scouts. You will be prepared for nothing.

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I just overheard this conversation:

Man 1: are you going to Florida with the guys next weekend?
Man 2: (regretfully) No.  My wife is very pregnant and I am trying to limit the number of nights out of the house.

Clearly their first baby.

Six google-able words in that one simple sentence but three bold face lies.

Lie: my wife is very pregnant.  Truth: she is due in 7 weeks.  Which means she’ll deliver in 9.  An entire season of Survivor will begin and end before that baby comes.

Lie: I.  Truth: my wife.

Lie: limiting the number of nights out of the house.  Truth: my wife insists I suffer through every moment of this with her.

Bless his expectant dad heart, I know he is trying to do the right thing.  I wish someone could tell him “get out of the house as much as possible now because it will be entirely unacceptable for a year minimum after the baby is actually born”

I also wish I could hug his little first time pregnant wife.  I know pregnancy is hard.  Even an “easy pregnancy” involves, oh how do you describe it, CREATING LIFE.  It’s hard on your body, your back aches, you can’t sleep.  I’ve been there sister.  You know the only thing harder than creating life in your body for 10 months?  SUSTAINING it OUTSIDE your body for the next 12 months.

As you approach parenthood, you spend so much time reading books, creating a nursery, buying baby “gear” – all in an effort to prepare for the un-preparable.  And by 36 weeks you think you know – no – you are sure you know.  You know how you feel about breastfeeding, you know how you feel about co-sleeping, you know how you feel about pacifiers, crib bumpers, tummy time, TV, strollers, slings, solid food and swaddling.

But you don’t know.

You don’t know that all of that knowledge could fit in the thumbnail of the body that is shaking with fright over this new chapter in your life.  You don’t know how it is going to feel to see your baby, to hold your baby, to care for your baby.  You don’t know what it’s like to actually BE a parent, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I can say all this because in hindsight I know how sure I thought I was and how clueless (read: scared) I ended up feeling.

With Gavin turning 3 this month and Chloe turning one, I am in a groove, a comfort zone.

But thanks to this amazing post, I now have foresight of how clueless (read: scared shirtless) I will be once again.

If a mother ran the Boy Scouts of America they would change their motto from ‘Be Prepared’ to ‘Always Be Armed with Snacks’.  It’s really the best you can do.

Tantrum diverted only by throwing an entire box of snacks her way

 

You win some, you lose some.

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The game of motherhood is no different.  Yesterday morning was a stellar one.  Let me recount how it went down, with a rating of how remarkable each event was (scale of 1-10, one being as common as meltdowns and ten being as rare as Hailey’s Comet):

I woke up feeling refreshed (8)
Chloe woke up happy (3)
Gavin woke up happy (12)
Gavin was hungry (5)
Chloe was hungry (1)
I was inspired to make french toast (7)


Gavin thought it was a great idea! and did NOT throw himself on the floor at the tragedy that I could even suggest something so horrible, and instead couldn’t he just have some yogurt? (10)
Gavin helped me cook while Ian played with Chloe (3)
Both kids ate ALL their french toast (6)
And asked for MORE (8)

We ate, we danced, we laughed.  It was a regular day in the Brady Bunch household.  I’m not going to lie, that kind of morning sets you on cloud 9 for the rest of the day (or at least until dinnertime).

Lest you worry that my family has been taken over by pods, I assure you, breakfast was back to normal today.

 

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This could be a name changer

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I have been known to come up with some pretty insane ideas.  I seem to yank them out of thin air and use them to clobber Ian over the head.

They range from the mundane “I need to get out of this house right now.  Pack up the kids and your old person armor, we are going out to dinner at a nice restaurant (so what if it’s 430pm),” to the fantastic “Do you want to go to Hawaii…yes?  Great, we leave in 6 days.”  Some of them require a lot of faith, “I am going to open a yoga studio with all of the money I have ever saved,” and some of them he knows will never ever happen, “I want to throw away my entire wardrobe.”

After seven years of marriage, I have learned two things.

1) despite how well these ideas always turn out (not a single regret in the lot), my husband doesn’t like them.  They are drastic, spontaneous and generally cause a lot of chaos.  Ian, the even keeled, consistent and drama free only child, requires a lot of thought, planning and research to even consider a new idea, and even then, if it is going to require that much work, shouldn’t we just sit on the couch and watch football? “It’s Sunday for chrissake,” is what his face always says to me.

and 2) I am nuts.

#2 became evident to me only when I presented Ian with my latest idea.  “We need to change Gavin’s middle name.”

The fact that he didn’t laugh or explode with rage at the idea that we need to legally change the name of our 2 and 1/2 year old tells me that he has also learned a lot over seven years of marriage.  Instead, he begins peppering me with questions.

“Doesn’t that requiring going in front of a judge?”

Ok, doctors, the idea is alive.  Work fast!

“It will give me the opportunity to pretend I am a real lawyer.”

Gug-gong
 

“What about his fancy Pottery Barn chair?”

“I’ll get a new slipcover.”

Heart rate increasing.  Gug-gong, gug-gong.

 

“Won’t our family think we are crazy?”

“We won’t tell them, it’s just his middle name.”  Eye roll.

Oh no, I’m losing him.  Hurry, think of something good.

“Your grandparents changed your mom’s middle name after she was born.”

Genius.  And true.  Gug-gong, gug-gong.


Now I know what question is coming next and I tense just a little.  My own heartrate picks up.”What are we going to change it to?”

“Jagger”

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.  Flatline.

Time of death 4:39pm.

For an extinct species, dinosaurs make my life miserable

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All month I have been asking Gavin what he wants to be for Halloween.  All month, my question has been returned with a blank stare.  I know he knows what Halloween is from TV school so I just assume he doesn’t have a preference.

That was my first mistake.  Assumed he doesn’t have a preference?  You mean the child that needs juice –  ”apple-juice, not-orange-juice-but-in-an-orange-cup, no-not-that-orange-cup, the-big-orange-cup, with-a-blue-straw, no-not-THAT-blue-straw-I-want-to-pick-my-own-blue-straw!”

This kid doesn’t lack opinions.

A week before his school Halloween party he tells me he wants to be a dinosaur.  I fought the urge to remind him “I-don’t-HAVE-an-effing-dinosaur-costume-I-have-a-hamburger-costume-that-I-bought-with-your-sister’s-strawberry-costume-four-weeks-ago-when-you-said-you-didn’t-care” and instead hoped it would blow over.  Cause he forgets things (never).

Two days before the party his nana asked him what he was going to be for Halloween.  “A dinosaur.”

F.

After dinner I run out to the pop-up Ricky’s shop down the street.  I feel like super mom when the employee tells me they have dinosaur costumes.  Even better when they have one in his size-ish (18-24 months isn’t a stretch, he is pretty small for 2.5 anyway)!  And it’s 50% off!  High on the spoils of being a delinquent mom, I hurry home to show Gavin his dinosaur costume.

He is unimpressed that night.

The next morning he won’t even put it on.  He carries the costume in a bag because I force him to.  He insists he will not wear it.

He comes home from school nonplussed with the T-Rex still in the bag.

ARE  YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?

Next year he is going as an easy child (no changes needed for that “costume”).

Hello world!

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I did a lot of mom blog research and despite what I found I decided to start my own.

Reading hundreds of other blogs made me cry, made me laugh, made me angry and gave me lots of thoughts about toilet-training.  Most importantly it inspired me to chronicle my own adventures, foibles, my ‘oh no’ and ‘aha’ moments, victories and outright missteps as a mom.

My biggest concern lies in the fact that all the blogs I read seem to have certain things in common, that, well, maybe I don’t.

Here are some examples:

1.  Other bloggers: love their kids but find the 24/7 care and feeding of them to be tedious (which is true).

Me:  I love being a mom and wife.  I secretly wish to spend several lifetimes doing nothing but watching my kids play on the playground, preparing cream cheese sandwiches (I said I love being a mom, not that I was good at it), and singing the Sesame Street theme song (without ever even wondering how you actually get to Sesame Street.  Though it is clearly in Brooklyn).

2.  Other bloggers:  hate Gwyneth Paltrow (especially the NYC ones).  Jennifer Garner too (her LA counterpart).  Like highly trained police dogs I think these mom bloggers can smell their 1950s housewife mentality from miles away and are on constant high alert from the mere mention of their names.

Me:   I worship Gwyneth Paltrow.  She can do no wrong in my book.  She loves to cook, she speaks spanish and she practices yoga.  She married a smart and sensitive rock star, she is best friends with Mario Batali and Jay-Z.  She beautifully reads my favorite poem on Classical Baby (All Grown Up…The Poetry Show).  All of this even gets her a pass for dumping Brad Pitt, Shallow Hal and yes, even trying to be a singer.  She’s my mommy inspiration.  Jennifer Garner too.

3.  Other bloggers:  are wildly successful

Me: only my mom will be embarrassed when this blog bombs

Which leads to me to wonder…for the first time on the interweb (though certainly not the last)…am I doing this right?