A letter from the babysitter

January 13, 2013 By

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Note on my kitchen counter when I came home last night:

Tonight’s Babysitting Experience

  1. Your son fed the dog half his dinner
  2. I should have brought my bathing suit for bath time because your kids are freaking WILD
  3. No one went to bed on time
  4. I let them watch a movie and eat life savers.  I hope you’re cool with that.
  5. Pete’s Dragon is such a lame movie.  And old.
  6. Your son cried for his pacifier, but we couldn’t find it so I massaged his face until he could no longer resist my charms and he fell asleep.
  7. We watched Miss America.  But only the talent portion where the girls played the piano, sang musicals, and performed terrible dance routines. Your daughter clapped for them all.
  8. Miss New York won.
  9. Basically, I’m the worst babysitter ever.

Love (followed by a lot of puffy hearts),

J

My reaction?  You’re a rock star.

When my son woke up, he went searching the house in hopes that this sitter was now living with us, like a dear friend who came to stay for the Winter.  Which confirms my belief that parents have an obligation to hire very young, hip people to watch their children so that offspring get a glimpse of what cool looks like.

Here’s to another night out very soon. . .

—

Photo Credit:

IMGP4364 - cooking jackrabbit

Filed Under: Humor Tagged With:

Laugh Until Life Makes Sense

January 10, 2013 By

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I’m not a big fan of bumper stickers.  I find it odd that people want to display their political sentiments on a used Honda for the world to see.  I find it annoying to have to stare at hateful words about our President at the stoplight in front of the grocery store.  And I’m amazed so many people put stick-figure families on their mini-vans to display how many people and pets live in their households.  Yes, yes. Michael plays soccer.  You have a cat.  Riveting stuff.

My own daughter asked that her school name be displayed on the back of our Chevy Tahoe.  But do you think given my poor driving and bad texting habit I want to announce what school we’re affiliated with and have people stare into the car from afar to see if they know me? You don’t know me.  I’m likely to run into you from the rear by accident or be smirking unpleasantly at your family of stick people.

So it might surprise you that I slapped a bumper sticker on the back of my car.  Yes I did. The very woman who is constantly shaking her head at the stupid Jesus Fish / Darwin Fish debacle.  It’s on there, firmly planted square in the middle.

Laugh until life makes sense.

It’s one of my life mottos.  So when I saw this sticker a year ago, I immediately went home, created a (very often unseen) circle of clean with a paper towel and Windex, and stuck this saying on my back window.

Sometimes I check my rear-view mirror and see my daughter lip-syncing to Katy Perry, or notice that my son has used his squeezable yogurt to finger-paint on the back glass.  But quite often I simply catch the word – laugh. It’s written not only for the cars behind me, but for me to see when I need it most.  There are times I don’t feel like laughing. Times when I’m gripping the wheel in prayer that I’ll make it until lunch.  And yet somewhere in there, there’s a silver lining.

Given enough space and distance from pain, life can be funny.  What other attitude is really worth having? Who wants to hang out with people who scowl all day, eat fiber, and gripe about the lack of comfortable pants?  My oncologist said that people who laugh a lot really do live longer.  From one who’s made it through some rough health patches, I can use all the help I can get.

When my own life gets hard, I lose weight.  I end up putting the coffee creamer in the pantry and buy multiple cartons of eggs.  My dentist tells me that I might need a root canal and I realize my sobbing cry face looks like a hollowed out whale. So I go to the mall to invest in a quart of face cream but catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  How did a homeless woman end up at Neiman’s? Don’t they have security in this place?  Oh, wait.  That’s me, wearing a sweatshirt from high school that says Coca-Cola Classic.

And just like that, on my way to the YMCA to choke out a run on the treadmill, I smile.  It bobbles up and down into a chuckle, which erupts into a real belly shaker, and a few cackles later I’m in full-on snort mode.   Did I really go to Neiman’s wearing sweat pants with a hole in the knee?  Am I seriously going to need a root canal?  Why in the world do I have all these freaking eggs?

This life we live doesn’t make sense.  There is so much killing and suicide and death and mental illness.  There’s chaos and disarray and a dusty, cursed earth.  And yet we are made for more than this.  We are not in this place forever.  The righteous will not be moved, and you can only do what you can do in a day’s time.  And when the really hard stuff hits,  you’ll be prepared.  After a night of no sleep, you’ll wake up to discover you’re out of coffee, your kid’s school uniform is dirty, it’s snack day at your kid’s preschool and all you have is raisins, and some wild animal has knocked over your trash can in the night, strewing trash all over your front lawn.  You  have to fight demons and hurt with friends and heal from grief and now this? Yeah, it happens.  And it’s a tiny bit funny.

Ecclesiastes says there is a time for everything.  A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.  3:4.  So mourn and sob and weep and sigh.  Take Advil and Zanax and buy more coffee.  But in the end, realize that you have enough eggs to make quiche for the tri-county area, and that’s just downright weird.

As for me and my Chevy Tahoe, we’re dwelling in this season of laughter as long as we both can, puffing and choking and driving toward the bitter end.

—-

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/philliecasablanca/2578387623/

Quote “until life makes sense” credit:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Laugh-Until-Life-Makes-Sense/202930039805662?group_id=0

Filed Under: Humor, Inspirational, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

Odd and Curious Thoughts of the Week

September 11, 2012 By

(1) My daughter asked why baby teeth fell out and I told her that the big grown-up teeth are underneath pushing them.  She said that wasn’t true because she doesn’t feel those big teeth yet and if they were pushing wouldn’t she see evidence of it?  I sighed and said that baby teeth must just have good timing.  Teeth don’t have brains, she says. She’s already surpassing me in logic and she’s only six.

(2) I love rap so much and it annoys me that they keep talking about clubs and drugs and money.   Let’s quit degrading women and start using this incredibly emotional forum to discuss rising from poverty and struggling past the racial divide.  Because when I hear Eminem’s Lose Yourself after all these years I’m still so powerfully moved. 

(3)  I made a chicken black-bean casserole tonight.  I used refried black beans instead of whole.  I added sour cream.  I threw in some cream and cumin and added bell peppers.  I smeared it into the pan and topped it with sharp cheddar.  It turned out looking like a large platter of smashed up dog poo. My cousin is a chef and says we eat with our eyes. She speaks the truth.

(4)  Sometimes I get annoyed that my daughter’s private school is so strict and rigid and her homework consists of reading and more reading and math worksheets.  But then I think of how awesome it would be to be forced to do all that reading and it makes me feel better.  This weekend I’m going to have her draw all the animals she can muster so we can add glitter and sparkles and create a mud pie masterpiece.  We’ll shake out all the sillies and dance to Elvis and on Monday we’ll go back to math worksheets again.  A few drops of glitter may or may not fall out of her backpack Monday.  I’m denying any knowledge therein.

(5) I spoke poorly of someone long ago and it got back to him through a tangled web of connections.  Although I don’t remember what I said it was something related to our tense working relationship at the time.  Vitriolic speech comes back to haunt you.   It’s a reminder to not speak with a forked tongue.

(6) I tried to explain to my daughter the other day what it means to speak with a forked tongue as we were looking at my son’s book of reptiles. She just looked at me and nodded in that way you nod to senile people.  I think she secretly believes I’m a toad trapped in a mother’s body and most of what comes out of my mouth is pure drivel.

(7) My son cried for almost an hour after his nap today because I wouldn’t drop everything I was doing, hold him in my arms, rock him back and forth while standing, and tell him it would all be okay.  Well I have things to do, buddy, and I can’t just pacify you at your every whim.  I’m over thirty and you’re only two and I can’t go around caving in to your ridiculous demands.  I ain’t raising no sissy, I told myself as I stood firm by the sink rinsing vegetables for dinner.  Keep crying if you want to because it has absolutely no effect on me.

(8) This afternoon, after rinsing vegetables, I sat down on the chair and held my sweet baby boy in my arms.  I rocked his little body back and forth. It’s okay, I whispered to his tear-stained face.  Mama’s here.  You’re safe.  There is no hope for him, I tell you.

(9) When Adele has her child that poor little thing will be so spoiled because her mom will sing Over the Rainbow and Amazing Grace and will catch herself humming Rolling in the Deep in the Burger King drive-in.  The kid will forever cringe at church when the choir starts and there’s just no living with a music snob.

(10)               Today I talked to one of my best friends and we laughed about farts, fans, and how we weren’t buying our kids smart phones until they were old enough to earn them.  We are so turning into old people.  The only thing left to go is our hearing and cute underpants.  Lord help us.

(11)               Sometimes I sit and stare at the blank page like a devil that laughs at my face and tells me there’s nothing more to say.  I start writing anyway.

Filed Under: Humor, Inspirational, Motherhood Tagged With: , , , ,

Ten Things I Shouldn’t Admit

September 2, 2012 By

(1) I create very extensive stand-up comedy routines in my car while driving places.  The words “please stop doing that” and “leave funny to the professionals” just might have been uttered by some very tall man-person in my home on multiple occasions.

(2) I love to iron, in the wistful sense that once a year or so I’ll pull out some cloth napkins and slowly press them during the changing of the seasons as the Autumn wind is blowing through the windows and I’m listening to an Adele album while drinking chai tea.  Aside from that one particular set of circumstances, ironing’s just meh.

(3) My two-year-old has decided that he has immunity from all bad deeds as long as he says I’m sorry and offers a hug.  Today he sprinkled baby powder over his entire room, squirted lotion on my wood floors, ate nothing for dinner but demanded bars for an hour, marked on the furniture, and hit his sister.  Sorry, momma?  Hug?  It’s not a magic eraser, kid.  I ain’t fallin for it.

(4) I made homemade play dough this afternoon because I am that cool mom that does fantastic crafty things with her children that they damn well better remember.  My son spilled salt all over the floor, I had to cook the concoction and dirty up several pans, I ended up getting green food coloring on my hand for the rest of the day that doesn’t come off even with sandpaper, only to end up with two tiny lumps that my children rolled into snakes and made into hearts for seven entire minutes.  Then they declared play-dough dull and boring in comparison to afternoon cartoons and ran out of the kitchen muttering about juice boxes.  Save yourself the trouble.  Buy it instead.

(5) I’m going to buy a new Burberry coat and when my husband casually asks how much it costs I’ll just say Sorry? Hug?

(6) I let my dog out to pee this morning before I even had my first cup of coffee and our neighborhood dog walkers stopped in their tracks at the sight of an unbound, leash-free animal.  Like my 14-year-old spaniel is going to attack them in a wild crazy old-dog vengeance.  I don’t even think he saw them given his poor eyesight and general inability to move fast or care much. He sauntered slowly toward the mailbox and began eating some other animal’s poo.  The dog walkers stared in disgust and one said “just keep going, Muffy.  It’s just none of your business.” I just waved.  “Have a great morning, ya’ll!” I called out.

(7) I have a thing for Jennifer Garner because I loved Season One of Alias so much and I secretly believe that if we were placed in a room together we’d become BFFs and would agree on all childrearing techniques and would bond over tea and scones.  But now that I’m putting it out there on paper it sounds weird and stalkerish and perhaps it’s strange that I always click on her picture in celebrity websites as she’s coming out of Starbucks.  I’m all “hey, Jen.  Is that your double frap with no foam? I know you love em. check it.”

(8) I am not ever going to make sandwiches in my kid’s lunch box that look like a tropical beach with coconut and palm trees or make vegetables look like monkey ears.  My knives aren’t that sharp and they won’t eat anything green anyway and I just can’t go around setting the standard that high.  I’ve decided that pinterest is evil and exists to make mothers feel like pond scum.  What happened to the simple lunch note that reads “have a great day in wonderland, sucka”?

(9) I honestly don’t know what Jennifer Garner drinks at Starbucks.  And I don’t say “check it” in real life because I don’t know exactly what that means.  I do, however, periodically watch movie previews in which she stars.  Maybe weird. Not as weird, however, as saying “check-it.”

(10)               I get winded sometimes when climbing stairs, but I’m too embarrassed to admit I’m out of shape so I say things like  (sigh) I’m so bummed that Heidi Klum cheated on Seal or (sigh) I really need to go the grocery store for toothpaste or (sigh) I really hope my daughter likes those new socks I bought.  Basically anything I can sigh about that brings more air into my oxygen-starved and bloated lungs.  Maybe I should just work out instead so I don’t have to sound like such a ninny.

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood, My life Tagged With: , , ,

Odd and Curious Thoughts of the Week

August 27, 2012 By

(1) I made Indian food this week and my daughter told me it was the best thing she has ever eaten.  She also wondered if we ate it every night of our lives whether we might still be Americans.  Yes, love. We’d still be Americans.  Pass the dal.

(2) The other night my son got up ten thousand times. I scolded him every time and told him to return to bed, and he would go sauntering back with his arms dragging by his sides.  Finally, I just sat in a chair in his room and he fell asleep immediately.  Funny how someone’s presence can be so soothing.

(3) My dog’s presence is full of insanely high-octane gas that reminds me of rotten, salty hay.  I could do without that.

(4) At a stoplight yesterday, I sat behind an Elantra.  Am I the only one who thinks that name sounds like a prescription drug?  Take ten milligrams of Elantra twice daily and come back to see me in three months. At least Trailblazer sounds adventurous.  I then went on an obsessed tirade of reading all the car names around me.  Rav 4? Equinox? Are we traveling to space in that Chevy, for heaven’s sake?

(5) Jesus renamed one of his disciples from the original name, Simon, to a new name, Peter.  I find it fascinating that you can walk around all your life being Amanda and then suddenly you’re Susan.  I get that Peter truly was a new person in Christ, but I secretly wonder if Peter liked the name.  And how did that make his mom feel?  After naming her sweet baby after great uncle Simon?  Did his wife have to keep correcting herself in the bedroom?

(6) I got a babysitter for my toddler this past week to take my daughter to a cooking demonstration at a local restaurant.  She begged to stay home because she was reading and didn’t want to change out of her pajamas, but I forced her to go since I had made reservations.  Since Monday is bread-baking day at my house, I had to hurry and get the dough to rise, and into the pans, and out of the oven before we left.  When we arrived, they announced that today was a special demonstration on bread baking.  My daughter looked at me like honestly, mom? We came for this?

(7) As it turns out, my daughter did have fun baking French bread.  She got home to show the babysitter, set the bread on the table to show her father when he got home, and the loaf was promptly eaten by the dog.  I’m really hating on him right now.

(8) I bought a futon for our upstairs play room.  It’s been described by my husband as “cheap,” “cracked,” and “rickety.”  However, my six-year-old has described it as “super fun,” “comfy,” and “very cool.”  Six-year-old wins.

(9)  Our two-year-old came into our room at 4:30 am this morning with a wet shirt and told me that he “washed his hands.”  That’s never good.

(10)               “Did you throw away that Toys-R-Us catalog?” my daughter asked me after looking all the over the house for it.  What?  You mean that tattered seven-page spread that you’ve been obsessed with for days and is causing you to ignore reality so you can memorize names and prices of various toys and remind me at every opportunity that the Lego Friends is on sale for $39.99?  Huh.  I just have no idea what happened to that thing.

(11)               Please let the school year come because I’m tired of hearing “don’t rush me” and “ it’s only 8:30 and in the summer I can stay up until 9.”  The juice and the popsicles and all that packing up and sunscreen application really wears a mom out.  And then there’s the boredom and “it’s too hot” and driving constantly to grandma’s.  Movie nights and play dates and nights without baths – my life would be much better if we could only get back to routine and consistency.

(12)               Please, Lord, never let this summer end.  My children are adorable,  my son won’t take a squeezable fruit without demanding one for his sister, and my daughter lost her front two teeth.  My sweet girl reads and draws and my son carefully places rocks in buckets and waters flowers.  We take turns hauling vegetables in from the garden and everyone is all giddy to get smoothies at 3 pm on a random Tuesday.  We swim and drink juice and make videos of ourselves dancing on the porch singing songs. It’s the best time of year and I want to cherish it forever.

Filed Under: Humor, Motherhood, My life Tagged With: , , ,

If you give a mom a coffee

August 21, 2012 By

If you give a mom a coffee, she’ll want a donut to go with it.

So she’ll stop by this great bakery on the way to the kid’s school drop off, get the éclair instead, and eat it in four bites.  Stuffing her face with saturated fat and sugar will remind her that she’s fifteen pounds overweight. So she heads to the gym.

At the gym, she starts to run on the treadmill.  Running on the treadmill and staring at a wall covered in closed-captioned televisions annoys the fire out of her because she can’t hear a dang thing and has to keep up with all those words popping up after someone talks.  It’s distracting.

All that useless television that no one watches because people’s heads are buried in their iphones makes her think that her mind is just a collection of closed caption nonsense with words popping up after the thoughts have passed.  And when a mom starts to focus on distracting energy, she obviously thinks of her two-year-old son, who loves animals and trains and has an odd way of making her sit in a chair holding him for a solid hour just to hear him breathe and inhale the loveliness of his messy, sweaty toddler hair.

Sweat reminds her of the gym, where she is currently still residing, and she glances down and sees that she’s burned off only 92 calories.  Close enough.  She gets into her car that smells slightly of either vinegar or rotten milk and notices her kid’s spare clothes sitting on the front seat that were supposed to be sent to school for water day.  It’s a little red shirt from the Austin Zoo.  Which reminds her of the Austin Zoo.   It’s plainly written on the shirt, for heaven’s sake.  That’s just called reading.  But she’s famished and dehydrated and exhausted from trying to read all that closed captioning.  Cut her some slack.

So the next day mom hauls everyone to the small rescue zoo to see the prairie dogs and peacocks and ride the train.  As she’s passing by the grey wolves she thinks what a really strange zoo that has a hundred goats and a large potbelly pig with not one single zebra.  Of course zebras remind her of nothing, so she stares down at her bulging waistline and pats her children on the head.  She thinks she might hit the gym, but her son needs a nap so off they go for lunch and a big pile of laundry and she’s consumed with guilt over the fact that she paid a hundred bucks to the YMCA this month for a stupid 92 calories.

When she gets home, she notices that her husband hasn’t unloaded the dishwasher as promised.  She’s faced with a pile of dog vomit and her son has decided he’s rather not sleep but instead run around in concentric circles around the rug declaring to all who will listen that he’s batman.  She scratches her head at why all the magazines are not in their proper place but then realizes that the magazine rack has been converted to a trailer to be drug behind the rocking horse by one of her best winter scarves.  Her daughter is whining that she only likes mac-and-cheese and that she doesn’t like peanut butter and I could have sworn I told you that already, but the mom magically can’t hear any noise coming out of her daughter’s mouth and suddenly remembers there are dark chocolate oatmeal cookies in the pantry.  So she decides to let the house run amuck while she sits in the corner reading about Frank McCourt’s rotten life in Ireland.  And you know what happens when a momma starts eating cookies and reading a book.

She’ll most likely want a cup of coffee, a handful of Advil, and a babysitter to go along with it.

Filed Under: Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , , , ,

The BFF Rules

August 4, 2012 By

Girlfriends are awesome.  You call them when you’re bored, when you get a new job, or when you want to get a play-by-play rundown of Top Chef because you forgot to Tivo it and you were stuck in a meeting.  And when you just can’t breastfeed one more day or you feel like bludgeoning your own husband with a meat cleaver, you pick up the phone and speed-dial your BFF. It’s not like you can only have one of them.  I have several – each a bestie in their own right.  Here are my top ten rules to abide by when cultivating these important relationships:

(1) Accept them like they are, but also laugh at them. When a friend tells you she has a bad habit of buying fancy water, or expensive chocolates, or pricy shoes, tell her that her vices could be much worse.  Think of something more expensive that she’s not buying by the truckload (champagne/new cars/trips to Vegas) and tell her that she could be buying that.  So in reality she’s very frugal, and you’re proud of her, and agree that overpriced organic baby soap from France does smell quite nice.  But for the kid’s birthday, be sure to buy some generic bath wash from Wal-mart that has some Disney character on it and smells like raspberry that may possibly be radioactive.  Because honestly, it cleans just as well.

(2) Offer small reminders of your love.  Like care packages.  They can be small, and contain thing from your pantry, but how fun is it to get a package in the mail full of power bars, gum, and a message scrawled on the back of an electric bill?  Mail is giddy and silly and fun.  Go on and add that postage expense into your monthly budget.   To my friends who haven’t received a package from me in a while – I’m sorry.  I’ll do better. I may be mailing you fruit snacks and goldfish.  Deal.  I’m also a huge fan of random texts and short phone calls when you only have three minutes.  Please don’t use that lame excuse of “I was waiting for when I had time to talk.” When exactly does one have that kind of uninterrupted time?  I say never.   Unless you’re on the toilet, and that’s just disgusting.

(3) Pray for them.  For when they are going through hard times, or when their life is upside down.  Pray for their very soul.  And mean it.

(4) Support Them at All Costs. Repost and like and comment away on her witty facebook posts because flattery will get you everywhere and us gals have to stick together.  Celebrate your BFF’s adventures and never allow guilt or jealousy enter the relationship.  Just because you work at the DMV and she got a job in New York as a fashion model doesn’t mean you can’t be happy for her good fortune. Hug her neck.  Buy her a drink. Then look for another job.  For goodness sakes –why do you want to work at the DMV?

(5) Listen when they vent about their husbands, but the next day forget the entire conversation.  If a girlfriend unloads on you about how her husband is lazy and never picks up his dirty laundry and doesn’t appreciate all she does around the house, your response should be something like, “What a jerk!”  Fast forward three days, when the same girlfriend received a dozen tulips from her formerly jerky husband.  She tells you he’s the most fabulous man ever.  Your response should be, “What a sweetheart!” See the difference?  It’s subtle, I realize.

(6) Be insanely loyal.  If you hear someone talking bad about a bestie (She’s a bit controlling if you ask me), redirect the conversation (she’s strong willed, but man that girl can run a meeting like you wouldn’t believe.  Makes the men shiver in their boots). Then meander from that to a conversation about boots in general, which leads you to that trendy little boot store on South Congress, which of course makes you focus on funky clothing, which you lack, and then you can begin a tirade on how your mother keeps buying you sweaters from JC Pennys.  See how this redirection thing works?

(7)  Don’t keep score.  If you watch their kids twice and they only watched yours once for half an hour, or if you always bring them Starbucks but they never return the favor, remember that a friendship isn’t always completely equal.  You have them in your life because they bring something wonderful and precious to yours.  It’s not a card game whereby they owe you when you do something for them.  You each have your strengths and weaknesses.  Give effortlessly without keeping a tally.  That’s exhausting.

(8)  Don’t let things fester.  The worst is when you allow some minor annoyance to get out of control and it drives a wedge into your long-standing relationship.  If they always text when you want to talk by phone, or if they smack their gum too loudly, or always wait for you to pick up the check, tell them.  It doesn’t have to be some insanely serious talk, where you hold their hand by the fire and say “it’s not you, it’s me,” but you can respectfully tell them that “hey – what’s up with me always paying for lunch?” or “it bothers me when you always email when I just want to visit.”  You have built up enough rapport to be honest.  If you can’t, or if you are afraid of splintering the friendship, how solid is that foundation?

(9) Keep it real.  The best thing about girlfriends is the ability to find common ground, and laugh about shared experiences.  Whether you are sitting around drinking wine or running together at 6 am or just texting in the carpool line, find a way to add humor to their day and remind them of how blessed they are.  So their kid broke their arm and they had to endure ten days in the Cayman’s with their overbearing mother-in-law and their husband is away on business for two weeks.  Your response shouldn’t be “you poor darling – that just sucks for you and I don’t know how you’ll possibly endure.”  They went to the Cayman’s, for crying out loud.  They drank fruity cocktails and now they get to wallow around in stretchy pants making microwave dinners.  Life really isn’t that rough.

(10)               And finally, be careful who you let in.  Don’t throw your heart into someone who doesn’t hold friendships in high esteem, or who won’t get your back, or acts one way around you and a different way around others.  If you work this hard to cultivate friendships (time and energy spent away from your own family), make sure you give your heart to someone who will cradle it, and respect it, and who deserves who you are.  Because you are fabulous.

Filed Under: Friendships, Humor, Inspirational, Love Tagged With: , ,

Olympic Fever

July 31, 2012 By

I love the Olympics.  They make you feel and do strange things, such as:

(1) Mutter to yourself, after a bottle of vegetable oil topples out of the top cabinet, “Oh man.  So close.  It sucks to fall.”

(2)  Hold your head up high and prance around on the pads of your feet as you walk across the kitchen floor towards the trash to dump used coffee grounds.  Because you normally walk that way and all.

(3) Comment on the form and mistakes of random gymnasts you’ve never heard of before last week who fall off the pommel horse.  After all those years of studying the pommel horse.  Finally, a chance to show off your knowledge.

(4) Look in the mirror and think, “I could so totally rock that.  I’m hitting the YMCA tomorrow.”

(5) Ponder nicer looking women’s swimsuits.  I mean really.

(6) Pray that someday, your daughter will never, ever win a gold metal in the Olympics.  Because if that happened, you’d be that mom who’s all weepy with mascara running down her face and her hair tied up in some strange pony tail with a USA flag sticking out of it.  The world would see you jumping and screaming “she’s miiiiiiiine!  That’s my baby girl!  Right there in the ugly women’s swimsuit that makes her look like a dude!”  Do you want to be that mom?  Do you?

(7) Wonder if anyone actually watches horse jumping.  The Queen might, but it’s England.  And her granddaughter is competing.

(8) Allow your 6-year-old daughter stay up until 10:30 pm so she can see synchronized men’s diving, answering fun questions like “why do they wear one half of a girl’s bikini?”  There are no good answers.  Mention something about aerodynamics and change the subject.

(9) See quite a lot of Ryan Lochte’s shaved chest, and finally,

(10)               Max out your tivo with events you don’t care about, just so you can fast forward through them and feel you are watching.  Because men’s team volleyball needs love too.

It’s the Olympics. The one time you will watch insane amounts of sports on television, feel proud to be an American, and cry at Proctor & Gamble commercials. Give these hard-working athletes their moment of fame, until one comes in 7th place.  Then you can critique their form before forgetting all about them because they won’t have endorsement deals and their face will fade from your memory.  Good effort, folks who spent ten years of their life pursuing one solitary goal only to have their dreams dashed on time-delayed television.

Toodles, ya’ll.  I have fencing to watch.  Go U.S.A!

Filed Under: Humor Tagged With: , , , ,

Why well-check appointments make me feel like a bad mother

July 16, 2012 By

I dread well-check appointments.  It’s not that anything is wrong with my kids, but those darn visits make me feel like an inadequate mother.  But this year, I was prepared.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has a list of questions that my doctor uses to judge the overall health and well-being of a child.  They are good questions.  Based on solid evidence of what’s harmful to kids.  I’m all over it. No, I don’t keep a loaded gun around.  No, I don’t feed my kids fast-food burgers three times a week.  No, my kids don’t watch hours of television.  I’m really quite an all-star.  Did you see that one answer I jotted down about the excellent reading skills and vocabulary? I hand the form over to the bubbly little nurse.  Here ya go!  Here’s to high percentiles and healthy habits!

I’m not sure why I worry.  It’s not like they take your motherhood pin away if your kid eats nothing but noodles with butter. But still. 

This year, I prepped my daughter in advance.  In the car ride over, I subtly reminded her that she does eat carrots, corn, and roasted broccoli.   And if anyone asks, just say yes to bike helmets.  Just random conversation on a Monday morning.  Nothing to worry about.  She just looked at me like I had marker on my face.

Our pediatrician, who is warm and lovely and not at all judgmental, walked into the room and happily started up a conversation about life.  My daughter started off by explaining that Kindergarten was hard.  She talked too much and didn’t feel like following the rules all the time.  Typical stuff.  Her tone was so matter-of-fact.  Then she smiled and wiggled her front tooth.  I wanted to crawl under the table at the honesty.  Kids are like that.  We should take more lessons from them.

After lifting up my daughter’s arms and legs and peering inside her nose, the doctor started squeezing in the tricky questions.

“Does an adult watch you at all times by the pool?” the doctor asks.

“Well there was this one party where mom was just hanging out inside with a friend and I pretended to be a mermaid.”

That is totally not true!  I watch her like a crazy vulture!  As a matter of fact, I was apologizing to another mom because I couldn’t keep my eyes away from my six-year-old, who was only in the shallow end, with one other girl, twirling her hair around and sitting on an underwater bench laughing while I sat ten feet away inside the glass-covered patio.  I mumbled something to the doctor about that being a bit of an exaggeration, and that I’m always looking, and by that point she had just moved on.

“Do you drink lots of water and milk?” the doctor asks.

“Not much,” she says.  “Hardly ever, really.  I do drink chocolate milk.” I felt like kicking her under the table, but there wasn’t an under because she was sitting on top of it.   The doctor then gave my six-year-old a very nice lecture about how it’s really hot, and how important it is in the Texas heat to be well hydrated, and to drink cold water whenever she can.  This is crazy.  Can’t I just answer these questions, for crying out loud?

Finally, the doctor asked about my daughter’s diet.  It’s decent, with the exception of our one splurge – a Wendy’s baked potato.  When this little jewel is revealed, my doctor suggests I put steamed broccoli on top.  So helpful.  In between my two-year-old having a meltdown and trying to assuage my pounding headache, I’ll steam some.  Just so it will be pushed aside because it’s not roasted until it’s dark and crispy with sea salt and parmesan.  Because that’s the way I make it where it tastes good.  I’ve ruined her for life.

I’m left with the lingering feeling that I’m a horrible mother, that my child needs to take more vitamins and eat more green things, and she must triple her fluid intake or she’s going to shrivel up like a raisin.

Afterward, we head to lunch.  My daughter wanted a lemonade (no), a smoothie (again, no), and a ham sandwich with absolutely nothing on it but ham and cheese.   She refused to eat the sandwich because she wasn’t hungry and only drank water when I allowed her to put three lemons in it.

Later, when she’s starving to death (her words), I point to a shriveled up sandwich.  She frowned and said it was stepped on in the car by her brother.  I finally gave in and let her eat a baked potato for supper, covered with spoonfuls of tomato basil soup.  She sighs, sips on soup, nibbles at the potato, and tells me that she wants to go back to the way it used to be, when she can have a potato with sour cream and a side of apple juice.   I told her to drink more water.

My daughter is a very smart girl.  Eventually, she’ll figure out that the better she answers the questions at the doctor’s office, the better I will feel as a parent, and when we get home, I’m likely to make everyone chocolate-banana smoothies.

My daughter wears her bike helmet. She loves carrots, roasted broccoli, and corn.  She runs to grab a paper towel when someone makes a mess and cuddles up next to her baby brother to help him sleep.  Despite the water, or the lack thereof, we’re all good.  We are getting what we need.  In spite of my insane need to look like the perfect mother at the doctor’s office, I realize that I’m not that horrible after all.

Here’s a chocolate milk, kiddo.  Drink up. 

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , ,

Odd and Curious Thoughts of the Week

July 13, 2012 By

This week, in the mind of Amanda Hill . .

(1) I’m always left scratching my head when advertising slogans are in quotes.  They jump out at me on billboards or on the backs of the trucks.  “Real country cookin,” one reads.  “We’ll be there when you need us,” says another.  Who is saying these things?  Is it similar to air quotes, where you say one thing but mean another? If that’s the case, don’t plan your day waiting on those losers.  They’ll come to fix your leaking toilet between 8 am and whenever they can pry themselves away from Denny’s all-you-can-eat pancakes.  That are “made fresh.”  Eeeugh.

(2) I am struck by the lack of random acts of kindness I perform on a daily basis.  I should pay for people’s groceries behind me in the check-out line.  I could stand to wait more, compliment more freely, and act more selflessly.  I think I’ll start by not screaming at my two-year-old for dumping an entire container of blueberries on the kitchen floor. I’ll just pick them up, some half-smashed into the bottom of my shoe and others staining our travertine tile, and simply say “there you go, buddy.  This act is for you. Don’t gripe the next time the door slams into your face, K?  How many of these do you think I can do in a day?”

(3) Why LOL?  Why not SFF (so freaking funny) or TAGO (that’s a good one) or just DTWA (dang that was awesome)?  These are at least more accurate.  Rarely does a friend’s facebook update on health care reform cause you to cackle uncontrollably until your eyes begin to water.  Unless you are friends with David Sedaris, in which case you have my full permission to use LOL.  Or SFIWMPA (so funny I wet my pants again).  But then you’d forget all those letters.

(4) I roasted some butternut squash in little cubes and then put them in ziplock bags for my kids to munch on during a two-hour car trip.  I really don’t know what happened to me.  For a moment, my mind went blank and I forgot what it was like being a mother at all.  My kids just looked at the bags like I was handing them chunks of poison-laden concrete.  “Uh, do we not have Cheese Nips?” my daughter asked.  Of course we do.  I’m not sure where that even came from.  I looked down at that alien squash and shook my head in disgust.  You are dead to me.  Pass the oreos.

(5)  My daughter likes Martinelli Apple Juice in a glass bottle.  When we drive through the coffee place by our house, she insists on me asking for award-winning apple juice, like they might make an error and hand her the off-brand swill.

(6) Speaking of my daughter, we were on our way to the pool when she was having a conversation with herself.  “Who ya talking to?” I asked.  “My feet families,” she said.  She wiggled her toes as if all the people were waiving at me.  Each toe had a name, and each foot was a family that occasionally got together with the other foot for trips and such.  I hope they like each other since they live so close. I wonder if other children act this way.

(7) I was in a rush the other day, and plucked my shoe-less two-year-old out of the car and plunked him into the grocery cart because I was too lazy to find a matching croc. But one item led to several, as grocery store trips go, and suddenly I had an urge to pee.  I’m trying to hold a wrangling and twisting two-year-old in my lap while using the restroom, but it was impossible.  I tell him to stand over to the side where people’s shoes probably didn’t touch as often, not moving from that one place, because at least that minimized the germs his feet would be exposed to.   This is the actual logic that went through my head.  I have no idea how I made it through law school.

(8) I sucked on my son’s pacifier to clean it the other day because I thought “I’d wash off the bad germs from the floorboard by putting it in my dirty mouth that hasn’t been cleaned properly since the Listerine wash at 9 pm the night before.”   That’s me reasoning to myself, in case the quotes threw you.  And we all know from (7) above how excellent I am with reasoning.  TAGO.

(9) I did one of those online tests to see how many books I’ve read of the 100 best books of the world, and I was hovering somewhere around the pitifully-low national average.  I have a feeling I’m going on an Amazon bender. Mark Twain and Nabokov. Steinbeck and Woolf.  I’m cracking open book covers not because I really want to, but because I’ll beat that other stay-at-home mom who has read more classics than I have.  I’ll show the world how smart I am.  I’ll make squash nuggets for long summer car trips and carry shoe-less toddlers into germ-infested bathrooms.

Oh, wait. . .

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , , ,

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