Tag Archives: humor

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.

 

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 costume needed).

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?