Humor

What Would You Do? The Spring Roll vs Pipe Bomb Incident

Picture this:

It’s a Friday, mid-day, and you are greedily wolfing down the cold, slobbery leftover mac and cheese your toddler fervently requested, and then promptly declined, but not before drooling on at least 2/3 of the plate like some kind of out of control Pavlovian test subject. You stand looking out your dining room window, lamenting your lack of self-control, watching the school kids across the street playing some sort of game that makes them all sound like broken tornado sirens, and then something strange catches your eye: A man, placing a package into the bushes that border the school, 30 feet from where the kids are playing. You watch him as he quickly but carefully arranges it so it is hidden from sight, and then looks around to make sure nobody is watching. He then jumps on his bike and rides off. (more…)

TGIF

20 Conditions Which Must Be Met For My 2-Year-Old To Use The Potty

Mercury must be in retrograde. Jupiter must also be ascending. Additionally, a bad moon should be on the rise.
The bathroom must smell as fresh as a meadow in spring, and not by the use of artificial air fresheners, but rather by a rotating selection of fresh, organic herbs, handpicked and bundled with a short length of periwinkle, velvet ribbon.
The overall wattage of the lighting must not exceed 120 watts.
The temperature of the bathroom must remain between 72.5 and a generous 72.7 degrees at all times. Showers must be postponed, as the steam will most certainly push the temperature out of the desired -nay- mandatory range.
A virgin sheep must concurrently be in the process of being shorn, somewhere within a 1,000 mile radius. (more…)

What To Expect When You’re Expecting Me To Blog For Another Year

One year ago, on a blustery fall day while walking through a street teeming with what appeared to be circus carnies but were, as I was later told, undergrads, I announced to my husband that I was going to start a blog. “Are you sure?” he asked me, “It’s a lot of work. I mean, do you think you have enough to say?” at which point I nearly fell over laughing. Do I have enough to say? Me? I think the real question should have been, “Will you be able to shut up your face when what you want to say does’t need to be said?” (more…)

In Case There Isn’t Amazon Prime In Heaven…

This weekend my husband and I spent our first weekend away from the babe in 2 years, road trippin’. It was an epic 2-day 1,500 mile adventure, complete with enough junk food, Wu Tang and unnecessary swearing to give any collegiate football team a run for their money. It was somewhere around mile 800 or so, when threading the needle between two GIGANTIC and terrifying thunderstorms steamrolling across the plains, that it occurred to me perhaps we will not be making it back home in one, unelectrocuted piece. (more…)

Communication Nation: What You Say vs What Your Toddler Hears

Communicating with a toddler can, at times, be quite frustrating, and not for the reasons you might think. Sure, the ear-piercing “NOOOO!” that can be heard 300 miles due South can be difficult, but our main issues seem to stem from what are turning out to be simple miscommunications. When I say something like “Go get your pink shoes,” what I am asking our daughter to do seems clear enough, and until recently I thought she was understanding me. But as time goes by, it is becoming more and more clear that Baby 1.0 does not understand approximately 80% of the words coming out of my mouth. Sure, there are people who will argue that she is hearing and understanding me, and then deciding to mentally flip me a tiny, perfect, pink, middle-finger, but she’s so sweet and precious and there’s just no way that she would consciously and intentionally disobey me this often. Clearly the only explanation is that she just has different definitions of nearly every word in the English language.

Here are our most common trouble words: (more…)

Surprise: You’re Doing Everything Right (Probably)

Last week I shared an emotional and moving guest post by a friend of mine who’s story really got me thinking. Her journey has been a long one, and having arrived at the shared destination of “motherhood,” it struck me that her challenges aren’t over. Far from it, they now look a lot like mine. These shared post-mother struggles are something I not only live out on a daily basis, but are something I see playing out on Facebook feeds and blog posts across the world, as I watch friends navigating the tricky waters of parenthood. The baby isn’t sleeping. The baby isn’t eating. The baby might be possessed. The baby bites the cat. The cat bites the baby. The baby locked me in the bathroom and I said shit approximately 1,000 times. I LOVE THE BABY! The baby the baby the baby. (more…)