Posts Tagged ‘funny’

Parenting in Public Is About 75% Nodding And Smiling

Thursday, October 1st, 2015

When you are in a public or semi-public space with your child/ren, people are going to talk to you about those children. And when strangers talk to you in public, they have a tendency to say some really stupid things. Try to remember that 99.99999% of the time they are just talking to you because you are there and their mouths are capable of forming words. I am an expert at having people talk to me because I haven’t yet learned the art of making absolutely no eye contact. Also, my children like strangers (I’m pretty sure they were switched at birth. All of them. Individually.)  So when Grandma Grabbyhands starts petting Caroline’s hair, instead of screaming “STOP TOUCHING ME STRANGE LADY”, Caroline insists on chatting about how she’s four and a half and loves horses and goes to school and one time on the bus her friend Michael threw up right on the floor.

Here is a brief list of things strangers might say to you in public that make you do the slow double blink. Remember, none of these things are personal. They would probably say them to a brick wall if the wall appeared to be listening:

  • Calling your boy a girl or your girl a boy. Your beautiful little girl could be wearing a pink, sparkled, ruffled gown with high heels and full make-up, her long curly hair braided and tied in bows and holding a giant flashing sign that says “I AM A GIRL”…and some lady at the grocery store is still going to say “He’s so sweet, what’s his name?” I promise this is not what is going to send your kids to therapy, so just smile a nod and say “Matilda Jane”. Then you can laugh and point as she struggles to comprehend why you would name your son Matilda. Or maybe don’t laugh and point, just stick with the smiling and nodding.
  • Saying “Wow, you sure have your hands full!” You probably, literally, do not. Most parents I know cannot parent without at least one free hand so we have found a whole list of ways to keep them available: babywearing, carts, strollers, leashes, whatever. This is just stranger-talk for “I see you have some small children in your vicinity”. Non-responses to this comment include: “Yep, children are a blessing”, “I sure do!”, “Really, it’s not so bad” or the perennial favorite: JAZZ HANDS while you nod and smile.
  • Making completely arbitrary comments over your child’s physical attributes that are probably wrong. Someone looks at your child who is in the 3rd percentile for height and says “She’s so tall!” Or they see your 99th percentile in the grocery store and say “What a little peanut!”. These are just words people are saying because they want to make a comment. They might as well  say “She is wearing blue!” or “Your baby has feet!” Unless you are at a medical doctor during a medical doctor appointment and it’s the medical doctor who looks at your very small child and says “What a chub!”, do not react. Nod and smile.
  • Asking you if the baby is sleeping through the night. THIS IS A TRICK QUESTION. They do not care if your baby is sleeping through the night. What they want to do is tell you about their baby or their cousin’s baby or their hairdresser’s nephew’s mailman’s baby who either a) started sleeping through the night at 4 days old, b) still doesn’t sleep through the night at 10 years old, or c) refused to take this stranger’s advice and now their baby is broken. Do not waste your time forming a truthful and accurate answer. They are not listening. Just said “Mostly!” and then nod and smile during what is sure to be a fascinating story.
  • Giving you ridiculous or outdated advice. Again, unless it’s your pediatrician telling you a little Jack Daniels is the perfect cure for teething pain, nod and then smile and then nod some more to disguise the fact that your eyeballs just rolled out of your head. (If it is your pediatrician, may I gently suggest you look for a new one?) These people will insist that they raised children who have survived to adulthood, which means you should do everything they did or your children will diiiiiiiie.

via GIPHY

I know it can be really really hard to simply nod and smile all the time. When the people doing these things are inescapable – because you are trapped next to them on a bus or because you live with them – it is incredibly frustrating. But I promise you, 90% of the time they are not being malicious, they are just talking because at some point human beings evolved the ability to speak and they are afraid if they don’t use that ability as much as possible they will lose it.

Nod and smile. Nod and smile.

A Mom’s Real Life Guide To Stain Removal

Monday, July 20th, 2015

stain removal

Item: White t-shirt
Stain: Grass
Treatment: Dab stain with rubbing alcohol. When it’s time to wash, pour some detergent directly onto the stain before throwing it into the laundry.

Item: Pink ballet leotard
Stain: Blood
Treatment: Soak leotard immediately in cold water, then rub with a bar of soap. If it doesn’t all come out, treat with hydrogen peroxide, since a slightly pale spot on the leotard is less likely to get your yelled at by the dance teacher than an obvious blood stain.

Item: Swim trunks
Stain: Sand
Treatment: Wonder how the hell SAND can stain a pair of swim trunks. Leave in the back of your car for 2 days because you forgot them. Throw them in the once a week hot water load of laundry, cross fingers.

Item: Sparkly white tutu
Stain: Green chalk paint
Treatment: Throw it in the laundry with the regular stuff, because it’s just chalk, that should come right out. Realize the stain hasn’t even sort of come out. Spot treat with a stain stick, toss it back in the regular laundry. Realize the stain STILL isn’t out and now it probably never going to. Hide that tutu and hope your daughter never notices it’s gone.

Item: Baby pajamas
Stain: Blueberries
Treatment: Let the naked baby run around the house while you spray all the stains with OxyClean. Baby smears blueberries on everything. Forget pajamas, use a toothbrush and Resolve to scrub blueberries out of the new couch. Vow never to buy blueberries again.

Item: Batman underpants
Stain: Skid marks
Treatment: Throw them away. Kid sized underpants are cheaper than the price of your dignity.

Item: Mom’s favorite shirt
Stain: Salad dressing
Treatment: Curse the fact that you can’t just eat your salad of sadness alone for FIVE MINUTES. Instead, you eat standing in the kitchen where you will always end up with half the salad falling on your cleavage. Try rubbing it with baking soda to draw out the oil, realize it barely even matters because you can’t have nice things.

Item: Brand new Tea Collection dress
Stain: Sharpie WTF WHERE DID YOU GET A SHARPIE
Treatment: Count to 10. Count to 10 again. Count to 10 one more time. Calmly ask daughter to remove dress so you can try to get the stain out. Blot stain with vinegar and pray to every god you can think of that it comes out.

Item: Wool rug
Stain: Pizza sauce
Treatment: Move rug to the other room where the stain is hidden by a couch. Order new rug.

Item: Every pair of shorts/pants your almost 1 year old owns
Stain: Baby poop
Treatment: Give up.

10 Ways Toddlers Are Like Supermodels

Friday, September 13th, 2013

10 ways toddlers are like supermodels

1. They have crazy sleep schedules and are often awake at 3 am.

2. They throw totally epic tantrums over minor things.

3. People are always shoving cameras in their faces and bossing them around.

4. They wear tiny clothes.

5. They can exist all day on a couple of crackers and one slice of cheese.

6. It’s pretty funny when they fall down.

7. They can be best friends with someone after knowing them for 5 minutes, but lose interest almost as fast.

8. Their outfits would be totally ridiculous on a regular person but are fabulous on them.

9. They have no real concept of money, like how much a gallon of milk or a flight to New York City costs.

10. They’ve been know to put stuff up their nose.

Talent

Thursday, August 29th, 2013

The other night my husband came home and said “I heard that Cups song on the radio on the way home. We should watch Pitch Perfect. Right now.” Of course I agreed, because I’m a sucker for cheesy singing and dancing in almost any form. And then he just CASUALLY mentions “I can do that, you know.”

Me: “What? You can do what?”

E: “The cups thing. It’s not hard.”

Me: “It looks hard to me. How could you possibly know how to do that?”

E: “Church camp.”

(If you went to church camp, you know that’s a totally reasonable explanation for all sorts of things. Why are you so good at poker? Where did you get all those macrame friendship bracelets? Why are you so good at ping pong? Where did you learn to shoot a .22 rifle? Why is “Books of the Bible” your favorite category on Jeopardy? Why do you know how to rappel off  a mountain? Why can you make macaroni salad for 200? Why does the smell of mulch make you break into weirdly Jesus-focused marching cadence chants? CHURCH. CAMP.)

Me: “To me, it just looks like a bunch of people snapping and throwing around a cup.”

E: “There’s no snapping. Why would there be snapping? It’s like line dancing with your hands.”

Me: “Oh well THAT makes it sound cooler.”

E: “You’re supposed pass the cup in a circle. Here, I’ll show you.”

And then I learned how to do the Cups song, exactly one million years late. Everyone is over the cups song. Maybe I need to apply for a job at church camp.

5 One Act Vacation Stories

Wednesday, August 21st, 2013

1, A Crime Story: Once there was a woman traveling with two small children. Her greatest fear was rest stop bathroom lines, since small children often do not alert you to their potty emergencies until the chance of getting pee on one’s self is at threat level red. The woman never asked to cut in line or skip ahead, but when it came her turn to use a stall with her two small children she made sure all three of them used the facilities to prevent stopping again 5 minutes down the road when someone who insisted they did NOT need to potty suddenly realized they DID need to potty. One day, at a busy rest stop in Maryland, a lady dared to glare at the woman and mutter “Ugh, FINALLY” when the woman emerged from a tiny, tiny stall dragging two kids. And then the woman murdered that lady with her mind. The end.

2, An Important Lesson: This one time, at my mom’s house, I was too lazy to get my toothbrush out of the car so I figured I could just rinse my mouth with the fancy mouthwash she keeps in a glass decanter next to the sink. This turned out to be a terrible, terrible choice, since I’m pretty sure whatever was in that decanter was NOT mouthwash. I don’t even want to think about what it was, but I can still taste it 24 hours later.

swans1

3, An Art Film: Girl gets up at 5 am to photograph beautiful sunrise. Girl realizes 5 am is REALLY FRICKING EARLY and hits snooze until at least 5:45. Girl finally gets out of bed, into a kayak and heads out to take some pictures. Girl notices totally perfect family of swans that appear to have been ordered from central casting specifically to make her pictures even more amazing. Girl takes photos of swans with her zoom lens until she realizes she can’t focus on them anymore because there are 5 giant swans charging at her through the water. Girl panics, tosses camera into the kayak and paddles as fast as she can away from the vicious swans. Girl realizes this is a sign 5 am is stupid and sleeps in the rest of her vacation.

4, A Comedy:
Idiot: Hey, let’s take my iPhone out to the float and take some pictures of you jumping off! It has a waterproof case, it will be fine!
Kid: OK!
Idiot: *Jumps in the water* OK, now can you hand me my phone?
Kid: OK! Here Mommy, catch! *throws phone into water*
Idiot: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! *scrambles frantically to catch phone as it sinks into 9 feet of water*

Postlude: The idiot caught it before it sank and immediately took it back to shore, where everyone laughs at her. IDIOT.

5. A Sappy Movie: I pretty much have the best parents ever. A lake house for us and the kids, amazing child-watching skills, super generous, and generally just really fun to be around. My 16 year old self certainly didn’t think I won the parent-lottery, but my 31 year old self knows I did.