All I want to do is make a pine cone bird feeder with my kids.
I snagged two pine cones on a bike ride a week ago.
We’ve got the peanut butter.
I got bird seed at the grocery store. (It’s for parrots, but can they REALLY tell the difference?)
I got yarn to hang it with from my sister-in-law in the hopes that the birds won’t choke to death on some tougher kind of string. (blue yarn can’t be great either, but at least I’m considering their health)
Now, when will I have the time to do this?
Never.
The current state of things has allowed for a complete lazification of parenting. (yeah, I made that word up.)
We’re ALL working. We have NO TIME.
Hate making lunch for your kids? There’s Lunchables.
Want to avoid any paint or marker stains on your furniture or table tops? Invisible ink markers!
Hate spending hours shopping for bloomers for toddlers that don’t exist because suddenly it’s a.o.k. for little girls to go flaunting their My Little Pony skivvies on the playground? ONLINE SHOPPING.
Life has gotten so convenient. Too convenient.
I want to have kids that have fingerpaint trapped under their nails.
I want my kids to be like, “Dang, my mom sent me to school with carrot sticks!”
The other day as I strolled through Target with my 3-year old fashionista, I realized I absolutely love shopping with her. I LOVE it. She points out 300 things she wants and I deny all but one. This is so much better than me buying 6 things she will NEVER wear.
I’m not saying I want to be June Cleaver, but it would be nice if we could bleach sand dollars or make bracelets or just make those stupid pine cone bird feeders already.
And here comes Easter.
I adored Easter as a child. Not the whole going to a super long church service to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but dyeing Easter eggs was ahm-azing.
I can still smell the vinegar.
We had egg salad for a week.
It was way more fun hunting for hard-boiled eggs that were starting to sweat in the Florida heat than finding plastic eggs filled with sugary shit. (Seriously)
No time to put together an Easter basket for the kids? Well, they put them together for you now at the Walgreens.
Feel compelled to put a little energy and thought into it? Target has an entire section dedicated to Easter and every other seasonal holiday.
I feel like I might as well just take my kids there and say, “Go ahead. Pick your Easter out.”
Are you a terrible gift wrapper? Who wraps gifts anymore? Don’t you know EVERYBODY is now just throwing stuff in a store bought bag and shoving some colored tissue paper in there?
BAM. Best parent EVER.
Or not. You just stole the very best part of a birthday celebration. Everyone knows unwrapping a gift is the ultimate kid high.
I’m gonna get on that bird feeder. And buy wrapping paper. Dangit.
I’ve been thinking a lot about getting old. Because I am.
I’ve been thinking a lot about plastic surgery. Because I’d never do it.
I’ve always had the utmost respect for beautiful women who allow themselves to age gracefully, but it seems to be a process you don’t see very often anymore.
There’s Elizabeth Taylor who spent her final days looking like a clown and obsessing over Michael Jackson.
There’s Meg Ryan. America’s Sweetheart went from fresh-faced to freak show.
Oh, and the self-proclaimed “world’s first supermodel” Janice Dickinson whose hideous face is only rivaled by her foul demeanor.
I long for the days of old, when gorgeous Hollywood starlets embraced their wrinkles and graying hair.
We all grow old, God willing.
We all die.
So, here’s to the glamorous ladies who didn’t waste their later life waging the uphill battle to look like a teenager.
They didn’t all end up looking gorgeous, but that is the real beauty in how they lived.
Rita Hayworth
Esther Williams
Lauren Bacall
Donna Reed
Ginger Rogers
Lana Turner
Bette Davis
My husband was gone before dawn, heading out of town for work.
It’s kind of like waking up to realize you’re on a bus with a bomb about to detonate and you have ONLY 45 MINUTES TO SAVE EVERYONE ONBOARD.
Cut the right wires!
After a speed-shower, I start by trying to dress my son who spends the next ten minutes fake crying and wiggling away from me half-naked.
I move on to my daughter, ignoring my son whining in the background for “daddy.”
She immediately starts to battle me over whether she can keep on her pink knee-high socks that she slept in, then arguing that pink LEGGINGS are NOT the same as TIGHTS and she wants the TIGHTS.
I go along with it.
Downstairs they both stoop down to pet our dog Frankie, who they hate 98% of the time.
Frankie lusting after the cereal.
Huck starts yelling at Alma, “MY DOG, MY DOG!”
I say, “He’s your dog, my dog, Alma’s dog, EVERYBODY’S DOG!!”
No makeup, no breakfast… I pour Golden Grahams into a couple of bowls for the kids and shove them out the front door.
In the car, my daughter reaches up to touch her headband and shrieks in horror.
“This isn’t the one with the flower!! This is Hello Kitty!! I wanted the one with the flower!!!”
She is literally hysterical.
I tell her there is no time to go back inside. I have buckled them both in. I can’t unload them and drag them inside because she suddenly despises Hello Kitty.
So, I tell her to stop crying, back out of the driveway and whip off down the road to try and reach daycare the second they open the doors. (they open at 7am, my work day starts at 7:30am… for every minute past 7am traffic increases exponentially by at least 5 minutes. I hate word problems, but you get it.)
As I peel out, I hear a strange scraping noise and the sound of plastic hitting pavement.
I watch in my rear view mirror as my daughter’s plastic bowl of cereal bounces down the road.
I left it on the roof of the car.
So, then she realizes the cereal is NOT in her lap and starts screaming about that.
I scream for Huck to share with her. He meekly hands her a single Golden Graham and she shouts through sobs, “I want my own bowl!”
I get her to be quiet in time for arriving at daycare moments later.
Rush them inside, rush back out, hop in the car, speed off only to be stopped immediately by dozens of drivers turning onto the next street to take their kids to high school.
I end up behind a school bus on Hillsborough Avenue that stops to pick up kids at least 6 times. Since when are bus stops lined up alongside a major thoroughfare??
I arrive at work ridiculously late.
Gas station shooting, students stabbed at school, Reeva Steenkamp’s bloodied head being compared to a watermelon.
Before I have even written a tease, I am already getting shit for the video that it will show. It’s not written. No instructions for editors. No video chosen. Yet, someone is already complaining.
Then it’s “You wrote the cars recalled were ‘produced.’ Don’t you mean manufactured?”
(AP wires said ‘produced’)
“You say the ‘mystery man.’ If the identity is a mystery, how do you know it’s a man?”
(the MAN went to the school to drop off the wallet but did not reveal his name)
“Is Obama presiding over the memorial service at Fort Hood?”
(No, it’s going to be someone even bigger! George Carlin’s ghost!)
I think I forgot to put on deodorant this morning.
If I die in some weird car wreck today, I am wearing Wonder Woman underwear.
I better be careful today or the ME will be joking about my stinky body and humiliating underthings.
And people wonder why I find it completely reasonable to have a glass or two of wine or a couple beers after work. Harumph.
We finally watched Gravity last night!
So, now I am suffering from PTSD.
I spent the entire movie sweating and holding my breath. Sandra Bullock and I nearly passed out simultaneously.
Forget about sequestration. If NASA wanted to end their space program they could’ve just shown aspiring astronauts that movie.
After spending 91 minutes pumped up on adrenaline all I wanted to do was go to sleep.
I am reading my book, about to drift off to peaceful images of Palisades Park in the 50’s when I hear Huck screaming.
I ignore it.
His cries become more plaintive.
They get louder.
Finally, I go to his room and find him wrapped up in his blanket like a cocoon, his hair soaked in sweat.
My first guess is he just had a nightmare about being in a full nelson with a cuddly dude in a fuzzy blanket covered in choo choo trains.
Like this….
… inside this.
I rub his back and remain half-asleep, hoping he’ll soon join me.
But, the crying won’t stop.
I offer him water.
No reaction, wailing louder.
At this point, I start trying to find the little marble he went to bed with. He uses it like a security blanket. (I’m telling you, the kid is OBSESSED with balls)
I nearly have a panic attack considering the possibility that this ball is at the bottom of his stomach instead of just stuck under the mattress.
I say this to my husband who stomps groggily into the room and says grumpily, “I’ll take care of him.”
I repeat my concern about the missing marble and and am greeted with a cranky glare.
So, I go back to bed to keep reading. It will take me another 20 minutes to fall asleep again.
As I finally feel my eyes getting dry from the tired, I hear a loud thud followed by a high-pitched whinnying cry.
Artax is not dying in the swamp of sadness in Alma’s room.
Alma has fallen off the bed again. I get her tucked back in.
Sleep eludes me for the next hour, like my brain is preparing for the possibility that I will have to rush to save my shrieking children from a burning building ANY SECOND.
My husband found our daughter sleeping on the floor of her bedroom this morning. I guess those pool noodles really aren’t effective “guard rails.”
My daughter uses them like hurdles.
Weakened by the horrors of my night, I spilled raw sugar all over the counter, floor and Alma while making coffee.
I spilled refried beans on my shirt.
As I scramble to get out of the door, Alma says, “I have to go poo poo.”
ARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH
I kiss my son goodbye, him ducking to see Tom and Jerry around my head.
I kiss my husband who looks miserable. (or maybe it’s the mustache)
I kiss my daughter, who smiles sweetly but doesn’t even say goodbye.
Then I hit traffic on the way to work and arrive with an extra dose of PTSD to start the day.
(My apologies to anyone who actually suffers from PTSD. Clearly, I am exaggerating and it is a serious disorder which I do not suffer from)
(Warning: If you read my posts to have a chuckle or bond over the fact that little kids suck, you may want to skip this one.)
Ever find yourself trying to hide the tears streaming down your face at work because you’re overwhelmed by all of the tragedy in the world?
I do.
But, that probably has something to do with the fact that my job is reading and writing about all of the tragedy in the world.
Being a news producer, I try very hard to make stories more meaningful. When I am tasked with writing a dinky 45 second story on an art gallery and scholarship program in honor of two teens murdered 3 years ago by their own mother, I put real effort into it.
I find good pictures of the victims, check out their father’s Facebook page… and then I cry.
Because the two teenagers were once babies.
Because this is what their father wrote on their birthdays:
Beau,
On your 16th birthday, I should be sharing some football and Krispy Kremes with you and laughing at your jokes until our stomachs hurt. Instead I find myself struggling to find adequate words to express the joy you continue to bring to me and to the lives of so many. I am so proud to be your Daddio. I miss you more with each passing day.
Love you forever …+1 with Beau Schenecker and Calyx Schenecker
Calyx, missing you is the hardest part. Celebrating you is the easy part. So on the eve of your 19th birthday, I join thousands who rejoice in having your presence in their lives. From your first day on this Earth, you set out to make the world a better place…Oh my, how you have greatly exceeded expectations! I love you forever + 1, Daddio with Calyx Schenecker and Beau Schenecker
Then, I move on from that story to a 20 second update on the Washington mudslides.
We’ve been updating the death toll for weeks. There’s only so many ways to talk about the search for the missing.
But, they named the latest victim.
Billy Spillers.
I could leave it at that.
Or, I could go look up more information about him and find his wife’s Facebook page.
Their 4 year old son was rescued by helicopter, the mud so thick it ripped his pants off as they hoisted him to safety.
Their 2 year old daughter is still missing and presumed dead.
Their other two children are confirmed dead.
This is a woman who has lost her husband and three children and yet she still refers to the rescue of her son as a miracle.
Time to take a break and check in on my Facebook feed… where I get updates on a friend of a friend’s daughter who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor.
She posts pictures like this and somehow remains upbeat. Her strength blows my effing mind.
Pre-hydration went well-much better than last time! First chemo was started about an hour ago and the second will be going up soon. Chloe didn’t want to nap earlier so, of course, when the nurses started her Benadryl at 5:15 to pre-medicate her she passed out cold. It may be a very long night or very early morning!
I try to keep my posts upbeat, sarcastic and brutally honest.
Some days I can’t keep up the charade.
Some days are just heartbreaking.
The only benefit of spending my days writing and reading about such heart wrenching, soul crushing things is that I love my kids more than you do.
Kidding, of course.
But, it does put things in healthy (or unhealthy) perspective.
It is the reason why every single stupid-cute thing my kids do makes me worship the ground they walk on.
It’s why I post pictures of them obsessively and daydream about being a stay-at-home-mom.
I want to spend every second loving my children, because you never know when you could end up being the story someone is hunting for more details about to make it more “meaningful.”
Oh, and one more thing.
Damn you Viral Nova for being a perpetual buzz kill.
Maybe this was just one long excuse for why I’m not gonna workout today. Who can go to the gym after that?
My daughter tried Cracker Jack for the first time yesterday while I took her on a bike ride.
I told her that there was a surprise at the bottom.
She responded, “Probably a lot of peanuts.”
Smartass.
Today at work someone was asking for suggestions of a musical instrument for their young daughter to take up.
I am the wrong person to ask.
I am a chronic quitter, always have been.
When I was in elementary school I took gymnastics classes. Within weeks I was told I was “too tall” to be in the tumbling class and “not advanced enough” for the next class.
What I did instead of gymnastics.
So, I quit.
I took up the flute, but learning how to read music gave me the same kind of panic attack as those timed multiplication charts.
So, I quit.
I took Jazz dance with a friend of mine from the ‘hood and couldn’t memorize the steps to save my life. Not to mention that I resembled a knock-kneed skeleton on crack.
So, I quit.
I was an aspiring artist for awhile, until I had a teacher who was a tad too touchy feely in middle school. I figured if I started drawing like a kindergartener, he’d keep his man paws off my bony shoulders.
That is one crappy dolphin.
So, I quit.
In 6th grade, I was forced by my mother to audition for a play. (there were tears, refusals… much drama, how apropos) I screwed up my lines the very first night of the run and… wanted to quit.
But, the lure of the stage was too great. The chance to be someone else, so that even if you DID mess up, it was almost like it wasn’t you anyway, so who cares?
Theatre DORK.
No groping theatre teachers either, for obvious reasons.
In retrospect, I would’ve excelled at soccer or swimming. But, those weren’t given as options back then.
Everything was clearly delineated by gender.
My big brothers played football, soccer, did karate, track and even golf.
Relegated to soccer spectator.
I… played in the backyard pool and read a lot of books with my door shut.
Now, I am at a loss when it comes to how to go about getting my children involved in extracurricular activities.
I tried to offer my daughter every possible sports option, even the clearly masculine ones like football. (I did forget about wrestling, but I don’t even want to watch my son wrestle. I don’t want to watch anyone wrestle)
She immediately expressed an interest in dancing (which I’ve mentioned is not going to be her strong suit) and horse back riding. (which could kill her)
My son’s obsession with balls and in particular kicking them will make soccer the likely choice.
But, how does a quitter teach their children not to quit?
How does someone with zero aptitude or athleticism ensure that their children lead healthy, well-rounded little lives?
I see other parents generally pushing their kids toward their favorite activities.
The hockey dad puts his son in hockey.
The Capoeira mom puts the kids in Capoeira. (Hi, Lissette!)
So, what does the mom who writes news, reads and drags herself to the Y to workout put her kids in?
“Honey, I am signing you up for boredom on Saturdays and Mediocrity on Sundays. Wednesday nights are for slovenly laziness and if the spirit moves you, perhaps a vigorous stroll.”
My kids will excel at chilling.
Last night I was cutting Alma’s nails and discovered there was black stuff deep underneath them.
I asked her what it was.
She said, “Dirt. I dig and dig and dig at school.”
I asked, “Why?”
She responded, “I dig for worms and snakes.” “I dig for worms and snakes.” “I dig for worms and snakes.”
Seriously, she said it three times while looking zoned out. Sounded just like Rain Man.
I don’t know what weirds me out more: her sounding like she’s going to start counting toothpicks any second or that she’s literally hunting for snakes.
Yet, I find my daughter’s bizarre eccentricities endearing.
Occasionally while I’m putting her to sleep, she launches into rapid-fire monologues, complete non sequiturs.
Last night, she randomly said, “Jimmy James (boy from school) can’t find my house. It’s way too far away. We can’t find his house either. It’s way, way, way, way far away.”
So, I’m wondering if they plot escape from the playground at daycare together. Then I picture them bumping into the enormous gator that lives in the lake nearby. (Reason #465 why I wish I was a stay-at-home mom.)
This is actually the smaller of the 2 gators.
As I’m reading her Mother Goose, she starts twirling my hair with her finger and says, “I like your hair growing long like mine.”
Then she says, “Ha! You cut my hair outside at our old house!” (Holy crap, that was at least a year and a half ago. I don’t even remember it.)
Then she gets obsessed with the fact that there is no actual Mother Goose inside the Mother Goose book, so I have to go find the other Mother Goose book we have so she can flip through the entire thing to find said gander.
As I walk out to leave, she tells me it makes her happy that daddy helped her put on her sneakers and that I let her wear them to bed. She explains that she likes sneakers with dresses now.
She’s random, weird and perhaps slightly unhinged and I adore her.
Everyone knows that what people post on social media sites isn’t actually an accurate snapshot of your life.
You put your best foot forward, your best pic posted.
It’s all smoke and mirrors.
This is never more true than for parents of toddlers.
Here are pictures of my husband and I on daycare date night.
It might look like we’re having a lovely evening, but we actually spent the entire dinner try to hail our waitress. We watched other diners arrive, be served and finish dinner and we couldn’t even get a second round of Sake.
That b*&ch interrupted our Sake cycle.
Instead of riveting conversation, we were busy glowering at the staff, pleading with our eyes for assistance from the hostess. (who was equally oblivious to our plight)
I considered luring her by dangling our food because she was all skin and bones, but my husband noted that she clearly wasn’t interested in eating. Maybe Meth would’ve worked?
The next morning, here’s a picture of my precious daughter hugging my dog. (Yes, he looks terrified. He’s old, partially blind and has Addison’s Disease. He’s always terrified.)
What you don’t see is my son screaming in the background because he’s sick. Our punishment for a miserable night on the town was waking up early to face a feverish toddler.
My son is a real jerk when he’s sick.
I feel bad that he doesn’t feel well, but I don’t exactly feel like babying him when he’s constantly trying to throw heavy objects at my head and screaming “NO WAY” when I’m not even touching him or talking to him.
A fun day at the park? I think not.
It poured the night before so the whole playground was a soggy, mulchy mess.
We had to cut it short when my son decided to run full speed through a mud puddle in canvas shoes.
I did find it amusing that Alma wouldn’t stop berating an older girl who was playing barefoot in the mud.
“She’s gonna get her pants wet! She doesn’t have shoes on! She can’t go in the puddles!”
Her mom was nearby.
I just said, “That’s up to her and her mommy or daddy to decide honey.” (as I continued to yell at my kids to stay out of the puddles… awkward, awkward, awkward)
Here’s what else there AREN’T pictures of:
1) Our kids both instantly falling asleep as we drive off for lunch, so we have to drive around for an hour being quiet.
2) My son crying when we have to wake him up because we HAVE TO EAT.
3) My son demanding to walk outside while we’re trying to eat at Chilis, throwing all food offered to him across the room. (even slimy segments of mandarin oranges)
4) Mommy downing two margaritas.
5) Daddy saying he needs to work on the computer and mommy nearly having a nervous breakdown considering time alone with the kids.
So, I took Alma to buy white poster board to draw on with markers outside.
Look how adorable she was playing with the neighborhood kids.
What you don’t see:
1) Huck stealing all balls from the neighbor’s garage. Bouncy balls, plastic softballs, a football.
2) Huck repeatedly kicking said balls toward the road.
3) Alma looking shocked and appalled when the neighbor’s little girl wouldn’t let her have a turn at basketball. (awkward, awkward, awkward)
So, we go back inside and I serve up the kids an enviable spread of fresh fruit, Gouda and ham.
We watch Monsters Inc. for the 30th time.
I give the kids a bath, which means I get soaked from head to toe, chase around a naked maniac who refuses to put on a diaper and occasionally pisses on the carpet and manhandle my cranky daughter who screams at me to get her into her PJ’s and then screams even louder that she CAN DO IT HERSELF!
At this point, my husband is still on the effing computer and I shout downstairs, “Are you DONE YET?”
He storms up and says no, but takes over. So, then I feel like a shitty wife.
My husband can’t get his work done and I am already trying to figure out if enough time has passed since lunch for me to start drinking alcohol again.
Let’s just say the night ended with me breaking my diet to eat a Lean Cuisine and my husband telling me I had purple teeth. Wine drinkers feel me.
No pictures of that folks.
Smoke and mirrors friends.
The most commonly heard phrase in our household used to be “I love you.”
Now, it’s “Go to bed.”
Our children are trying to slowly destroy us with interrupted sleep.
In the middle of the night my daughter started horror movie shrieking from her bedroom. I rushed in to find her placidly playing with crayons. She calmly asked, “Can I have a glass of water please?”
Her screaming disturbed Huck, so within a few minutes as I am just about to drift off to sleep, he strolls into our room and says in an outside voice, “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?”
For absolutely no reason.
My husband and I shout nearly in unison, “GO TO BED!”
I can only think of two things worse than being awoken by my children: A fire alarm or being waterboarded.
I love sleep. Why don’t my kids? Or maybe the better question is WHY DO OUR CHILDREN HATE US?
Why else would they refuse to sleep through the night when they are so far beyond infancy?
You know how in movies sometimes, it seems so sweet when the parents rushes to their child’s bedroom to calm their fears after a nightmare?
It’s not cute. It IS the nightmare.
And now my husband is harboring not so secret resentment toward me because I am a sound sleeper.
Oh, I am fully aware that the mumbled f-bombs and sh-bombs are for me.
Hey, if I were wearing ear plugs I’d be a bad parent. But, it’s not my fault that after 3 years of not getting enough sleep my subconscious has tuned out MEANINGLESS SHRIEKING.
Even if I do wake up, it takes me infinitely longer to get the kids back to sleep. I guess something about mommy screams “party time!”
But, I can’t just tell my husband at 4 a.m. “Honey, you’re so much BETTER at putting them back to sleep.”
Heaven forbid there is ever an actual emergency involving my kids. I will shoot out of bed like a zombie and shout, “GO TO BED!”
Living The American Scream 