Questionable Choices in Parenting

Laughing at life as a parent so they don't commit me

Silent Nights? Singing My Kids to Sleep Make Me Ugly Cry

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When I’m driving in my car and singing along with the radio, I’m often shocked at how I am note for note and tune for tune with the singing ability of Adele.  I mean really, my singing is amazing. Sometimes I wonder why someone hasn’t just thrown a Grammy at me.

OK, I just snorted from laughing so hard. That may be the biggest lie I have ever told; I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Apparently when they were handing out talented vocal cords, I was standing in the sarcasm line.

Never one to be deterred from a lack of talent, I belt out tunes all day long, much to the chagrin of my kids. Mimi usually tells me “Shhhhhh, no,” but the older and more verbal kid says “Mommy, stop.  Your singing hurts my ears.”   My bad singing isn’t what embarrasses me (although it should), it’s the fact that I am so crazy I can’t sing them to sleep without crying.

Silent Nights

I am probably traumatizing the kids and will need to pay for their sleep therapy bills someday because I have special songs I sing to each kid, and I can’t get through the first verse without weeping. Even if the kids have been really bad, my nerves are shot, and I am moments away from selling them on Craigslist, the minute I start singing “their” songs—it’s a waterfall and I am weeping uncontrollably. Should I just pick different songs to sing to them?  Probably, but, like I said, I am crazy.

I even create little scenarios in my head when I sing to them. Sometimes I imagine dancing with my grown children cheek to cheek at their weddings. Of course there are details like I am looking gorgeous in my dress, my kids have never been happier, and the crowd keeps remarking I look the same as on my wedding day and that having such an amazing waistline at my age should be a crime.

If you’re crazy and you know it, clap your hands!

For your listening pleasure, here are some slow jams—or the songs I sing to my kids.  For Monkey, Bruno Mars’ Count on Me–please note, I burst into tears while searching for it on YouTube.

And for Mimi it’s my singing soul mate Adele’s Make You Feel My Love. It’s too much for me. I am going to start the ugly cry.

Great songs, right? Did you cry when you were listening to them? Don’t lie, you did.

Just when I was coming to terms with my nighttime crying spells, I caught someone else in this house getting emotional when signing a few tunes to the kids.  It would seem that Hubby has my kind of crazy.

From the minute Monkey was born, Hubby has sung John Denver’s Country Roads to him. Since we are both WVU grads, that song is a rite of passage and probably one of the few songs (besides some Pearl Jam crap) that he knows all of the words to.  Sometimes I think Hubby is imagining taking Monkey to his first WVU football game, showing him around campus, wiping a tear when he passes the old frat house, and puffing up his chest when he points out the hot spots where he picked up chicks (gross). Every night when you ask Monkey what he wants to sing, it is always Country Roads, and I die a little when I hear that little boy sing “Almost Heaven…..”

When Hubby dances and sings with Mimi to The Lumineers “Ho Hey,” his eyes get all glassy as he sways his little lady back and forth. She squeals when he sings (why don’t I get that reaction?). I’m pretty sure the line “I don’t think you’re right for him” is his secret prayer that Mimi will always think he is the most wonderful man in the world and never, ever leave him.

Maybe he is just singing to his kids, but I like to think his delusions and crazy run deep like mine. After all, I shouldn’t be the only one to screw up these kids, right?

Share the songs you sing with your kids and we can cry together!

I also have a giveaway for my readers in Uniontown, PA and Morgantown, WV!  The super talent Melissa Rosic is generously giving one lucky reader a Family Portrait session!

Enter to win a Family Portrait Session from Rosic Photography! The session will include one 60 min session and 10 image file downloads with print release!  Session must be held during the month of June in the Uniontown or Morgantown Area. Regular Family Portrait Sessions details apply and can be found on her website.www.mrosicphotography.wix.com/lifestyle

Click the link below to enter! Lots of chances to enter! Share this with your friends!

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Cheap Tricks: Entertaining My Kids With a Carwash

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I am sort of feeling a little like gangsta rapper Ice Cube (not the bad movie “Are We There Yet” actor) because today was a good day.

While Ice Cube was happy because he “saw the police and they rolled right past me” my day was spectacular because I wasn’t just Mommy today. No, no, no I was Rockstar Mommy, Superhero Mommy, Better-Than-Elmo-DocMcStuffins-MickeyMouse-D.J.LanceRock-Mommy and all it took was a car wash.

Cheap Tricks

It would seem that the lying bastard Puxatony Phil is being raked through the coals for leading us to believe that spring was right around the corner. Well yesterday it was a lovely 60 degrees in Maryland, and it FINALLY started to feel like spring. At nine in the morning we were out on the playground, spent some time drawing with sidewalk chalk, and finished the morning playing a rousing game of hide and go seek.

It has been a loooonnnnggg winter and I have dug into my Mommy Bag’o Tricks one too many times in order to entertain the kids. You know those kids that can happily sit inside all day and color or make crafts? Yeah, those aren’t my kids and if you have kids like that….I hate you. OK, I don’t hate you, but I am super jealous because both of my kids go bat-shit-crazy if I keep them inside for too long.  They start jumping up and down on the couch pumping their little fists chanting “We’re not gonna take it…”

Because my son is Captain Random, I shouldn’t have been surprised when he turned to me (covered in blue and green chalk, mud, and mulch) and said “Mommy, let’s go to a car wash.” A car wash? Really? All of the things we could do on this beautiful day and you want to go to a car wash? Far be it for me to deny that sweet boy from something as simple as a car wash. So I put the dirty little playground kiddos in the car and headed off to the drive thru car wash.

It would seem we were having a Goldilocks moment because the first car wash was too busy. There was a pile up of cars waiting for a scrub. The second one was broken, and I had all but given up hope until we came across a third car wash that had zero line, was in proper working order, and took credit cards for the Mamma that doesn’t carry cash.

When we pulled the swagger wagon into the car wash the kids actually cheered. Cheered!  Who needs Disney World when you have a seven dollar car wash?

Checkout my little professor studying the multi-colored soap. Who needs a roller coasters when you are already strapped in your Goldfish encrusted car seat?

Carwash

And here is Mimi, who was a bit apprehensive of the huge sponge-bristel-washer-things that scrubs the car, but she was digging the rinse cycle and celebrated with a cheerful “Yaaaaaaay!” Overpriced park admission? Not in this family. Sunoco Car wash,baby!

Carwash

Like all adventures, the joy ended too soon, but don’t worry, I took the kids for a second swing through the wash. They were just as happy the second time around. When we headed home, Monkey made up a song about the car wash and Mimi mumbled along. When they Skyped with my parents that night, the first thing they talked about: car wash. When their dad came home from work, what did they greet him with: car wash.

Tomorrow, kids, Mommy is going to give you a special treat: Home Depot! Take an adventure ride on a stationary lawn mower. Hurry up because there is no line in the rug and door displays! I will even splurge for the souvenir paint chip cards! Take as many as you like!

So, tell me, when you need to entertain the kids, where do you take them?

I’m Guest Blogging and Oversharing

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The super funny Stephanie over at When Crazy Meets Exhaustion has started a new series on her blog called Oversharing: I Ain’t Scarrred! She has asked bloggers to share humiliating, private, traumatic, and just down right hilarious stories with her readers. It really is pretty magical—like a unicorn!

Today she is featuring my piece and I have to give you a bit of a warning. If reading about girly parts gone wrong is not for you, no problem! Check out my blog for other posts to read or puruse my Facebook page for pictures of Channing Tatum.

If you are intrigued by a story of my girly parts (pervert), click here to me check me out!

OversharingPresentsQCIP

Things My Husband Can Do Better Than Me

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If you read my blog, you may think “Wow! That gal is a hoot!” or maybe you are thinking “That girl has pizzazz! That husband of her’s is a lucky devil.”  And if you think that, you would be sorely wrong (well I am a hoot, but the other stuff is a stretch).

To be honest, I am a pill to live with. I am bossy, demanding, over emotional, and a lousy housekeeper. On top of that, I don’t reciprocate backrubs, I often say things like “I’ll cut you if you don’t stop snoring”, and I threaten divorce if Hubby speaks to me during True Blood, Homeland, Glee, Scandal, Nashville, Friday Night Light re-runs… you get the picture. See what I mean? A real pill.

Most days I am really hard on Hubby and I know I need to lay off him because he really is a great guy (even if he is missing a chromosome that reminds him to shut drawers and cupboards). Today I watched him push the kids on the swings outside and I got to thinking about the things he is better at than I am, and they are all things that are super important to kiddos. So for once, I will ease up on that boy I married a million years ago and let him know he is doing a good job. Here is what I came up with:

Things My Husband Can Do Better Than Me

  1. He is way better at rough housing than I am. Maybe it is because I am terrified that I will hurt them or I have had by boobs stepped on one too many times, but I leave all of the rough housing over to their Dad. Research suggests kids rough housingView More: http://stevebeltzphotography.pass.us/event/t2Vl5127177 with their dad is actually good for a kid’s development. So go ahead, big guy, throw those kids in the air (but you better catch them or I will cut you), roll around and wrestle, let them win sometimes, let them lose sometimes, let them knee you in the balls and pretend it doesn’t hurt because the kids LOVE when they pin you, and I can sit on the couch and play referee with both boobs intact.
  2. He said he was getting his MBA, but I suspect he was taking classes in fort building. I’ll admit, my forts are super lame. Usually I throw a blanket over a chair and call it a day, but when I leave Hubby to his own devices he will create a fort masterpiece. I’m talking couch cushions, blankets, ropes, tunnels, doors, and even secret hideouts. He puts my fort skills to shame and that’s OK because I would rather play in his fort too. That sounded dirty…
  3. He reminds me that breaking their schedule is OK sometimes. I am super Type A and keep my kids on a tight schedule. They thrive on their schedule, I thrive on their schedule, but if the kids go to bed late or miss a nap once in a blue moon, it’s fine and I will just make him deal with their crabby arses the next day.
  4. He always cleans out the rogue sippies. You know, the ones that were filled with milk and have been hiding under the couch for a few days. I seriously just vomited in my mouth thinking of it. Because I gag at the thought of opening that toxic waste, I rely on him to open and clean the cup so that we are not running to the store each week to replenish our sippie collection.Taking one for the team.
  5. Because I am with the kids all-day-every-day, my fuse is super short at night. So when Monkey and Mimi start streaking through the halls after bath time and I am left with their jammies and lotion, Hubby scoops them up before I lose my shizzz and put everyone in bed naked and itchy. As the second string quarterback, he makes sure the kids make it to bed every night lubed up and in jammies and Mamma has a sliver of sanity.

See, the guy is great. Maybe I should think of these things when I have told him 374 times to take the recycling bin to the back of the house and he ignores me. He can still be a real pain, but he is super cute. So I am going to try to cool it with the cutting threats…for now.

View More: http://stevebeltzphotography.pass.us/event/t2Vl5127177

Oh, Babe, can you take the recycling bin to the back of the house?(375)

Losing His Nap & Finding Inner Peace

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Namaste, friends

Namaste

Please, come into the little Zen Garden that is my home.

Why the sudden nirvana (and I don’t mean the Kurt Cobain kind)? Well friends, this new enlightenment has come from my son’s nap. Actually it is the release of his nap that has me in perfect chi. This sounds absurd, right? But I am really thinking Oprah is just minutes from calling me to share my “A-ha!” moment on her network.

After months of fighting the inevitable, ignoring the words of wisdom from my friends, and driving myself freaking bananas, I have let the nap go. And just like that “poof” the naps are gone like they never existed, and life in this house is still going on. So why was I holding on for so long? I have a couple of theories.

Losing his nap

One, I am a moron that likes to drive myself bat-shit-crazy.  Because who doesn’t love to fight their kid for an hour to take a nap that will usually last 45 minutes? Oh and be sure to note this lame nap will ensure he won’t be able to sleep until 10:00 each night. No one and I mean no one should be with their own child for that many hours a day. To add insult to injury, I would FINALLY get Monkey to sleep for his nap and would start skipping down the hall for a few glorious moments of freedom only to hear Mimi waking up from her nap. More times than I can count, I would drop to the floor and sob because I was so tired and just needed a break. If I wasn’t so tired and so desperate to get both kids to sleep, their timing would be hilarious. Instead it was just painful.

My second theory is my inability to break our schedule. From the minute Monkey was born, I have been the queen of schedules, and this kid has been napping at 1:00 since he was one. How was I going to change our schedule all of a sudden? Aren’t kids supposed to nap every day? At what point is it OK to let them just stop? I think I was afraid of doing something wrong and messing him up for life. You know, like if I let him stop napping too early he would end up doing crystal meth as an adult and would be living on the streets with a  sign that said “If my mom had only made me nap I wouldn’t be in this mess today.”  Strangers that passed him would throw him change and judge me for my Questionable Choices. So in reality, I was making him nap to keep him from becoming a meth addict, right?

My final theory is that his daily naps were his last “baby” thing he had left.  I know that at three and a half the kid is not going to pack his bags, fall in love with some terrible girl that I hate, and move across the country with this home wrecker girl, but he really isn’t a baby anymore. WAHHHHHHH!

Whatever my well-intentioned but misguided reasons for holding on to the nap for too long were, I am happy to say that life is a lot better around here. I take Mimi up for her nap and he heads to his room for “quiet time.” However, quiet time really doesn’t last too long because he comes downstairs to tell me that daddy penguins take care of the eggs while the mommy penguin hunts. Thanks, Captain Random.

Usually we do things that we can’t do while Hurricane Mimi is awake, like play Candy Land 584 times or color without her eating the crayons. So he and I actually have a little bonding time rather than me being so angry he isn’t sleeping. Cue the Oprah “A-ha!”

Even the nights are better because he is so exhausted and can’t keep his eyes open past 7. It is actually a joy to put him to bed now.  He falls asleep quickly in my arms, but I hold on to him for a few extra minutes, kiss his sweet face, and whisper in his ear “I am only this crazy because I love you and I don’t want you to do Crystal Meth or marry some awful girl.”

Sharing My Bed Used to be Easy…

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This past week Hubby was on a “business” trip, and I use the term “business” lightly because a week of sleeping in a hotel with no kid duty sounds like pretty sweet “business” to me, but I digress. While he was away, I thought it was the perfect time to get another man into my bed. It was this handsome devil…

Handsome DevilYou were nervous there for minute, weren’t you?

I know a lot of people who co-sleep: some by choice, others well….not so much by choice but necessity and exhaustion.  I’m not big on co-sleeping because I really hate sharing my sleeping space with anyone. If Hubby tries to wrap an arm around me, he usually gets an elbow to the gut as a warning shot. Your space and my space, buddy. Don’t cross the line.

Mimi takes after me and has no interest in an all-night snuggle fest. She has a precise system of sleep that she doesn’t want interrupted.  If we play our cards right and get her system down, we don’t hear from her for 12-13 blissful, sleeping hours.

So when I had an itchin’ for some baby love, I knew Monkey was my man. I envisioned snuggling with him all night and breathing the sweet smell of his head (don’t act like you don’t love the smell of your kid’s head) and being lulled to sleep by the sounds of his soft snores. Ahhhh bliss….

Silly me, I forgot this kid is the WORST person to share a bed with.

Sharing my bedFirst, I couldn’t get the kid to settle down. He was like a crack-head all jazzed up and ready to party. He spent a good half hour practicing his forward rolls over and over in my bed.  Then he started singing a rousing rendition of the ABCs while jumping up and down, and it wasn’t until I bear hugged the kid into submission did he simmer down.

When the sleeper-hold I had him in finally put him down for the night, I realized it was only 7:30 and I really needed to pee. But Monkey rolled over and wrapped his arms in a death grip around my neck. I tried to sneak away, but he pulled me back. I tried to unwrap his limbs from me, but he squeezed harder. Finally I just resigned to snuggle down even though I was wide awake and praying I didn’t pee the bed.

I’m not sure, but I think the kid might be part furnace because heat just seeps off of him at night and sends me into hot flashes that make me wonder if early menopause has struck. The only way I got out of his death grip hold on my neck was my perfuse sweating that gave me enough slide to wiggle out of his clutches.

He also talks in his sleep; actually it is more like ramblings of a man who has lost his mind. At one point he said “I just want to dance to the doorbell. We have to get to our rocket ship.”  Then he would just burst into giggles, fart and roll over. What the hell is going on with this kid?

When I would catch a few winks of sleep, I would wake with his hard head pushing into my shoulder-blade or a quick jab of his toes into my kidneys.

I tied pushing him to the other side of the bed, but he would wiggle back over to me, wrap his sweaty hands around my neck and say “I got you, Mommy.”

Since I clocked about two hours of solid sleep that night, I prayed the Sleep Gods would take pity on my, but oh no, they laughed in my face and Mr. Hot-Crazy-Talker was up bright and early ready to talk about buffalos being brown and having four legs. Oh listen to that, Rip Van Winkle is up in her crib and demanding milk and Doc Mc Stuffins.

Someone pass the coffee, cause this is going to be a loooonnnngggg day.

Going Once, Going Twice, SOLD!

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After months of agonizing and stressing over our decision and weeks of cleaning, fixing and preparing this house, it only took two weeks, but we officially have a contract on our home! If you have been reading my blog for a while you know that I have been going bat-shit-crazy over selling our house. New around here? Well check this post out and this one.

I am ecstatic that we were able to sell the house so quickly, and my fingers and toes are crossed that everything works out smoothly during this entire process. However, the weirdest crap happened during the two week, non-stop showings of our house. Here is a quick run-down of the cray cray

Going once going twice

  1. In less than two weeks we had dozens of showings! Believe me, my house is nothing fancy, it’s just the crazy real estate market in the Washington D.C. Metro, but that isn’t the crazy part. More often than not, someone used one of our bathrooms. We found toilet seats up, the toilet paper roll ripped off the wall, and some “unusual suspects” in the potty.Gross. Until you buy the place, your own bathroom.
  2. Hubby has an OCD with turning off the Keurig coffee machine; however, we would come back after a showing and the machine would be on! Was it the same folks that were using the potty at our house? Is this their method for choosing a new home, try the coffee and make a trip to the John?
  3. Every time I returned to the house after a showing I was sure the last people were really terrorist that setup surveillance on our house…………..or I have been watching too much Homeland.
  4. Here’s a tip, if you are looking at someone’s house, take your freaking shoes off! The fact that I was picking up huge black chunks of mud from my closet is unacceptable.  Honestly, I am a stay-at-home-mom and  there is nothing designer in my closet. My yoga pants are not from Lululemon; they are from Target. Nothing to see here, folks.
  5. Most showings are at the most inconvenient times: lunch, naptime, dinner, and bedtime. However, I would panic and accept the showings because what if I turned someone down and they were the “one”. The “one” that would throw lots of money at us and buy our house.
  6. The other inconvenient element of showings is the quick panic of clean up the house and throw the kids in the car. Usually I would be sweeping and vacuuming minutes before we needed to leave. This meant the kids were put in the car without shoes or coats. I popped a movie in the car DVD player, threw them some snacks, and we were driving around the neighborhood until the random strangers left our house.

So we have some time before we have to close the door to this house for the last time. This means we are now full on Find-A-New-House mode. Because if we don’t, we have to move in with my in-laws, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a whole new blog in itself.

Cool Your Registry Trigger Finger

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If youth is wasted on the young, then the baby registry is wasted on those without kids. Even if you take the advice of all of your Mommy friends and anyone that adds their two cents, you will get trigger happy when you hit that baby store and end up with some nonsense like this:

Pee-Pee TeePee Bi-Plane

When my lovely pregnant buddy Chief asked for baby registry suggestions, I thought I had this easy task in the bag. But it has been a few years since I had the registry gun in hand and took a whirl around the baby store. I started to feel like Will Ferrell in Old School when he gets nervous that he missing out on something new and cool. Of course he was talking about panties and I am talking about baby gear, but I feel his anxiety:

So I thought the easiest thing I could do for my lovely Chief was to tell her what NOT to register for. You need a ton of crap when you have a baby but here are things you don’t need:

The Duckymeter– Yes you will need a rubber ducky for your sweet baby to play with while splashing in the tub; however, you most certainly do not need a duck that tells you the water temperature. You know why? Put your dam hand in the water. Is it too hot? Don’t put your kid in. Is it too cold? Don’t put your kid in. Amazing right! Think of this as “upcycling.”

 

The wipewarmer– Now who among us wouldn’t want a warm cloth to wipe our tush? Being a baby is hard and all of that pooping and peeing is exhausting. Sit back, relax, and let the wipewarmer produce a warm cloth to ease your worries. OR let the warm, dark, and moist wipewarmer create tons of bacteria that you are about to wipe against your sweet baby’s behind.  Gross right? *shudders*  Not to mention that the stupid wipewarmer takes more time and care then your newborn with all of the adding water, flipping and changing the pad—forget it!  Sorry kid, regular wipes will have to do around here.

 

Too many strollers– I wish someone had told me to cool it on the stroller purchases because I currently own four strollers. First I had the “Snap and Go” that I could put the kid’s infant carrier in, then I had the regular umbrella stroller for trips to the mall and shopping, don’t forget to throw in a jogging stroller for workouts, and finally a HUGE double stroller once the other kid made an appearance. Our attic looks like the place strollers go to die. If my pregnant readers take nothing else away from this article, take this little nugget—find ONE stroller for all stages of your kid’s life and skip the multiple strollers purchase!

Well with these three things off her list, now she just has to register for the 483,290,202 other items her sweet baby boy will need in a few months. So help me help Chief! What things does she need to leave off the registry list?