Category Archives: Children

To Be or Not to Be…A Parent

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toy_mess_2When Ad Man and I had been married for a few years, I went through a period of being conflicted over whether I wanted kids or not.  I once said to him, “What if I decide I don’t want to have kids?” to which he lovingly replied, “I would leave you.”  (I have witnesses.) Clearly, Ad Man suffered no such ambiguity.  I think it’s notable to consider who ended up stepping away from HER career once we did procreate.  (Can I get an, “Amen, sister”?)

During this time, I searched for a book that would help me weigh the pros and cons of having children, but I came up empty handed.  The opinions of my friends with children weren’t helpful because, much like a foreign terrorist group, part of a parent’s job is to recruit others to the cause.  As I am nothing but helpful and don’t take orders well, I have decided to break with protocol and give you a real, constructive way of determining whether parenthood is right for you.  You and your partner should sit down and ask yourselves the following questions.

1.  Trying to decide whether to get pregnant?  Are you comfortable discussing the following with strangers?

  • The exact scheduling of your sex life
  • The quantity and quality of your husband’s/donor’s sperm
  • The evils of formula feeding
  • The evils of breastfeeding
  • The evils of starting a child on solid food before the age of 6
  • Whether or not you will circumcise a potential child who may or may not have a penis
  • Mucus plugs
  • The diameter of your cervix

2.  Are you willing to contend with the following?

  • Rock hard porn boobs (I’m guessing your partner will give that one a thumb’s up)
  • Cracked nipples
  • Hemorrhoids
  • Heartburn that makes Flaming Hot Cheetos seem mild
  • Leaking milk in public
  • Catching vomit with your bare hands
  • Having poop in the crevices of your wedding rings

3.  See your young, beautiful body?  Imagine you look exactly the same but for the following small changes:

  • Add dark circles under your eyes
  • Add wild eyebrows, hairy armpits and an unruly bush
  • Delete manicure and pedicure
  • Take your perky B cups and replace them with one of the following: 1) droopy A cups that look like deflated balloons, or 2) enormous D cups that require major structural underpinnings and make all your tops fit like that half-shirt you wore in 10th grade
  • Add stretch marks (this one’s optional, but you don’t get to choose)
  • Add one muffin top

4.  Imagine not being able to do any of the following again for a long, long time…

  • Have sex
  • Poop in private
  • Sleep 5 or more hours in a row
  • Eat a hot meal
  • Be on time for anything, ever
  • Have an uninterrupted conversation
  • Put your makeup on anywhere but in a moving vehicle

5.  To visualize your home, which you’ve so stylishly decorated, with a child living in it, make the following alterations:

  • Add approximately 5,000 garishly colored plastic objects
  • Add a film of filth to every wall measuring from the ground up to approximately 3 feet high
  • See that handy guest room?  Remove guests and add a bunk bed
  • Throw all your clothes on the floor
  • Gather all the objects that are irreplaceable and smash half of them
  • Replace that Diptyque candle with the scent of a teen boy’s feet after marinating in sweaty sneakers all day

6.  Listen to a 72 hour recording on a constant loop that says…

“Mom, mom, mom, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mom, mommy, mommy, mom, mom, mommy, mommy, mom, mommy, mom, mom, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mom, mommy, mommy, mom, mom, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mom, mom, mom, mommy, mommy, mommy, mom, mommy, mommy, mom, mom, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mom, moooooooommyyyy!!!  Now, how do you feel?

7.  A few more considerations that become more important as your hypothetical kid gets older…are you willing to:

  • Have your intelligence insulted on every subject?
  • Be the cause of constant embarrassment?
  • Be viewed as nothing more than a chauffeur, chef, ATM?
  • Receive late night calls from the police?
  • Listen to the same Taylor Swift CD over and over and over again?
  • Age 20 years in the next 5?

If all of the foregoing sounds like a fun adventure to you and your partner…congratulations! You are now ready for some super hot, rigorously scheduled sex. If not, then run!  Run for your life!  That is until your hormones take you hostage and send a ransom note demanding a soft, pink, sweet-smelling, little ball of love who will steal your heart and trash everything else in its wake.

Worst Mother Ever

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willa_tantrumLike most parents, I often lie awake at night worrying about what will become of my children and feeling guilty for the many things I’ve done wrong in raising them.  Every tantrum or door slam is due to some failing on my part and is just more evidence that my kids will, most likely, grow up to be psychopaths.  If Biggie gets up 10 times a night before finally falling asleep, it’s because I nursed her to sleep during infancy. When Smalls holds her pee for 8 hours refusing to go to the bathroom at school, it’s because I started potty training her too early as a toddler.

At least one of my children, will freely tell you that I am a terrible mother…definitely a contender, if not the finalist, for Worst Mother in the World.  Poor thing. What are the chances of being born to the very worst mother of all?!  Because of all the psychological damage Ad Man and I have surely done to our kids and because they’re my children and come from a long line of anxiety-ridden depressives, I’m sure they will find themselves in psychotherapy at some time or another.  So, in an effort to save them time and money in therapy bills, I’ve compiled the following list outlining my failures as a mother for future reference.

1.  By quitting my job and staying at home full-time during their formative years, I have robbed them of a professional female role model.  Moreover, volunteering at their schools, meeting them as they get off the bus every afternoon and bringing them to all doctor and dentist appointments mean I am clingy and overbearing.

2.  I moved them (well, at least Biggie) from the hip, glittery, idyllic wonderland that is Los Angeles to hot, buggy Atlanta thereby denying them the careers as actors, marine biologists, surfers or winemakers for which they were destined.

3.  Because I am a vegetarian who doesn’t cook meat, I have kept them from all the meaty delicacies the world has to offer.  If they fail to become chefs, butchers, or cattle farmers they’ll have me to blame.

4.  I lied to them about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny making them believe in magic.  I then abruptly pulled the rug out from under them when they got smart enough to question my outrageous tales.  This will undoubtedly lead to trust issues later in life.

5.  I raised them in a mid-century modern house with weird art and 50s furniture which made them feel different from their friends living in cozy, shabby chic cottages and reproduction Tudor mini-mansions.  Surely, one or more character flaws can be traced back to never having a canopy bed or eyelet curtains.

6.  I refused to let them have televisions and computers in their bedrooms.  I’ve also, thus far, not gotten them cell phones even as they near the ripe old ages of 8 and 6.  Only time will tell, but I suspect my heartlessness will keep them from expressing themselves through naked selfies at least while I’m home or until they leave for college.

7.  I was a wildly liberal feminist campaigning for Democratic candidates, supporting women’s reproductive rights and LGBT rights and defending the separation of church and state in the midst of the Bible Belt.  This could go wrong in two different ways.  I could end up being the clueless hippie mom who is an embarrassment to my daughters when they decide to go all Alex P. Keaton on my ass.  Alternatively, they could agree with my politics and be left with nothing to rebel against…quite possibly a teenager’s worst nightmare.

8.  I failed to sign them up for etiquette classes and never dressed them in smocked dresses and giant hair bows instead allowing them to make their own (often ridiculous) sartorial choices, greatly reducing their chances of success in cheerleading, cotillion and the sorority of their choice.

9.  I stuck them with some pretty crappy genes.  In addition to the depression, mentioned above, I’ve also passed down a pokey metabolism, a propensity to carry weight in their mid-sections and strangely muscular legs that are exact replicas of their Grandpa Jack’s.

10.  But, worst of all, I loved them unconditionally which just set an unattainable bar for future significant others.

I’m sure this list will be expanded to 10 or 20 pages by the time Biggie and Smalls reach adulthood.  So, to my beloved children…for all of the above and for my failings to come, I am sincerely sorry.  Blame mom and get a good shrink.

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Crazy Stuff I’ve Had to Tell My Kids

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underpants_head_v.2I am constantly amazed that any child ever manages to live to adulthood.  Seriously, it’s like every single one of them has a death wish.  As soon as I found out I was pregnant the first time, I went about baby-proofing every room in our apartment despite the fact that I wouldn’t give birth for another 8 months and the child wouldn’t be even remotely mobile for some time after that.  As most parents do, I had visions of my kid sticking a knife in an electrical socket, falling down the stairs, cracking open her head on the edge of a glass table, chugging a bottle of Draino and diving into the toilet head first.  I knew a helpless baby or curious toddler could get in no end of trouble and believed I could protect my kid from all foreseeable dangers.

What I didn’t realize, however, is that my children would get themselves into precarious situations I could never in a million years have predicted.  Because, you see, children are stupid.  They do and say stupid shit ALL THE TIME.  And, it starts at a much younger age than you’d expect.  Not all of it has the potential to land them a spot as Darwin Award nominees, but it’s generally all either ridiculous, annoying, messy, embarrassing or all of the above.

Because of our children’s bouts of utter stupidity, we all find ourselves telling them things we would never have had to say prior to having kids.  There are just some things you shouldn’t have to say to another human being!  I have numerous examples from my own experience and have gathered many others from friends with children. I’m hoping to make this a recurring post, so in the spirit of laughing together so we don’t cry, please share your stories in the comments!  Enjoy…

“Take the turtle out of your underwear!”

“Don’t headbutt your sister.”

“You need to keep your eyes open when you’re riding a bike!”

“You do NOT wash your hands in the chocolate syrup!”

“You can’t do yoga with pizza in your mouth.”

“Don’t lick the television.”

“Get your sucker off the cat!”

“No pole vaulting in the living room.”

“No, the ducky doesn’t belong in your underwear.”

“Don’t put mud down your pants.”

“No those are not bite marks around my nipples where you used to feed. They just look like that.”

“Don’t point the arrow at your sister.”

“You have to wear underwear with dress pants.”

“No, that’s NOT what the hand-held shower head is for.”

“You can’t feed the dog Play-doh!”

“No, you can’t touch my boobies.”

“I’m removing all mirrors in the house so you can’t watch yourself cry during fits of rage.”

“Stop smiling meanly at your brother.”

“Your penis is not a drum.”

“No, mommy doesn’t have a ‘front butt.’ It’s called a vagina.”

“Is that your booger on the wall?”

“I don’t think you should practice the recorder in the shower.”

“Your arm will always be longer than your neck, so no, you won’t ever be able to lick your elbow.”

“Stop riding your brother like a pony!”

“I’m going to throw away any ammo or weapons I find that are not put away in the weapons closet.”

“Sweetie, girls can’t pee on trees like little boys. I am so sorry. No, don’t try!”

“Stop rubbing the hamburger on your face!  A bear is going to eat you.”

“You know I don’t like you licking my clothes.”

And, my personal favorite…“I don’t like the vengeful way you’re eating that cheese.”

One additional note, on occasion your significant other can be no smarter than his or her progeny causing you to have to ask things like…“Are you aware that your daughter is dipping her binky in your vodka?”

I would love to hear the crazy shit you’ve had to say to your children or significant other!

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