Questionable Choices in Parenting

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

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?

Come Hell or High Waters

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This is how I sent my boy to school today:

Floods

First, pay no attention to the mismatched socks; today was “crazy sock day.”

Look again. Did Monkey’s school have a flood? Are those shorts or pants? Did his pants shrink? Nope, none of those are the issue. So why, oh why would I send my boy off to his fancy smancy preschool in those ridiculous pants? Well here is my sad, sorry, Questionable Choices in Parenting answer: The kid just won’t stop growing. Apparently all you need is lots of macaroni and cheese and chocolate milk to have HUGE growth spurts because that is all this kid consumes.  Monkey has always been super tall, but recently he has shot up and become quite the beef cake. Actually he is more long and lean, and now here we are, just a few weeks from spring and warm weather, and this kid has zero clothes that fit him.

Come Hell or High Waters

So you are thinking I should just head out and buy him more clothes, right? Wrong! I refuse, REFUSE to buy this kid a whole new wardrobe now! In a few short weeks we will ditch his too short pants and shirt sleeves that don’t come even close to touching his wrists for spring playground gear: t-shirts, shorts, bug spray, sunblock, mud and mulch.  I won’t waste money on pants this kid will wear for less than two months. So he will just walk around looking like a fool because his mom is too cheap to buy him new pants.

I know this probably sounds bad, but if he was say 13 and he had this growing problem, I would totally rush out to all of the cool and hip stores to shop for him. I will take my flashlight to walk through the darkness of Hollister, I will use ear plugs to protect my hearing from the blasting tunes while I peruse American Eagle, and I will completely embarrass him while wearing a gas mask to prevent convulsions from inhaling too many cologne fumes that waft from Abercrombie and Fitch.

Those teenager years are rough enough and no one needs their cheap mother messing up their style. However, if he does look like a fool with too  short pants, no girls will want to date him. Hmmmmmm…. I may be on to something here. I am getting off track. My point here is he is only three and I am sure no one (except  the other parents, and the teachers, and the school administrators—oh man I am really weakening my argument here, huh) will see him in these ridiculous pants.

You are judging me, right? You think I should go out and buy him some new clothes, right? Fine! You win. I will break down and get the kid a few things to survive these last few weeks of winter weather. If nothing else, the trip to the mall will provide hours of blog fodder!

Be sure to enter my giveaway with Pretty in Pink Designs for an adorable tutu and Easter headband. Click the link and enter today!

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Time Out During Timeouts

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This is Mimi:

Sweet Mimi

And this is Mimi in timeout:

Time Out

At the ripe old age of twenty months, we have decided that if this rule breaker is old enough to swim in the dog’s water fourteen times after being told to knock it off and if she continues to go all Picasso on the walls with crayons, she is old enough for timeout.

As you can see from the picture, timeouts are a bit trying….for all of us. However, I will continue to put her cute butt in timeout when she misbehaves and throws epic temper tantrums. In order to pass the time while she is being defiant and living up to her name of Screaming Mimi, I will not contemplate selling her on Craigslist. No friends, I will think about the future.

Time out!

If this was a movie, the screen would get all blurry and wavy so that you know we are jumping to the future.

I imagine Mimi and I strolling through The American Girl store while laughing and holding hands as we select overpriced doll accessories that she MUST have.

Now she is headed off to her first day of kindergarten and I am weeping into a hankie (must remember to purchase a hankie for that day). She turns before she steps on the bus, her pigtails swinging in the sun, and says “Don’t worry Mommy, I love you and will be home soon.”

Jump ahead a few more years and we are dress shopping for her prom. Notice how she picks out a totally age appropriate dress.  Isn’t she lovely?

Oh look, we are planning her wedding to the man of her dreams. That sweet girl let’s her mother go crazy and choose the flowers and the meal because, after all, mother knows best and her mother-in-law pales in comparison.

Oh yes, Mimi has a family of her own. She looks tired and weary. It looks like she is ready to cry, but she stops herself and calls me to say, “Wow Mom! I just don’t know how you did it. You were the most amazing mother ever.”

Now jump years and years into the future and my sweet girl is taking her dear old Mom to Atlantic City. See how she carefully pushes my wheelchair up to the slot machines. What a good girl!

What is this? Oh that sweet girl is taking care of her mom in a nursing home by following her mother’s step-by-step instructions of making sure I always have a fresh manicure, my upper lip is always waxed, and she plucks those few errand hairs on my chin. That darling Mimi knows her brother would never do these things and we shook hands years ago that she would keep me looking good. 

Aaaaand the temper tantrum is over! Breathe in and out. We have survived yet another timeout episode and we are all better for it.  That nice flash into the future should help us get through the day or last until the next time out.

Be sure to enter the custom tutu and Easter headband from the amazing Lindsay from Pretty in Pink Designs!  Click the link below!
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Sit Down Tiny Dancer

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When I was three years old my mom enrolled me in baby ballet as a way to help me overcome my shyness, and by shyness I mean my inability to detach myself from my mother’s leg while in public. For months she dressed me in adorable leotards, put my hair in pig tails, and ripped me from her leg in order to shove me through the dancing room doors only to have my dance teacher carry me out ten minutes later because I was sobbing and shattered because my mother forced me to tap, tap, perch without her .

She stuck it out, I stuck it out, and with weekly bribes of milkshakes, I grew to love ballet and bribery ridden milkshakes.

Years later when I heard the words “It’s A GIRL!” all I heard was “You’ve got yourself a baby ballerina!”

The thing about Mimi is that where I was shy and introverted she is FIRE and ready for action at all times. When I found a ballet studio that started kids as young as 18 months, I signed my girl up immediately.

When the day of her first class arrived I dressed her chunky little thighs in pink tights, I squeezed her into a pink leotard, and what ballet dance outfit would be complete without the pink shoes? I’m telling you this girl was made to be a baby ballerina!

Then the real fun started. In a class of six little girls, Mimi was the only one that refused to sit during circle time. She had more important things to do, like hang upside down on the ballet bar. When the girls were tiptoeing around in a circle, Mimi was busting a move of her own in front of the wall of mirrors.

Her ballet teacher said “She is a bit of a free spirit, huh?” Translation: “Get your freaking kid in check and following along with the tap, tap, perch.”

Mimi did take a break from her nonsense for costume time; here she is as a lamb:

But she was back in action with a random temper tantrum where her fellow ballerinas needed to dance around her because she was sprawled out in the middle of the wooden floor kicking and screaming.

One little girl listened to everything the teacher said, sat quietly next to her mother, and even answered the teacher’s questions. Surely this girl is way older than Mimi; maybe the reason Mimi was so unfocused is because she is so young? When the girls were dancing across the floor, I moved next to the ballerina’s mom and started to strike up a conversation. Here is how it went down.

Me: So Black Swan seems to really like this class.

Black Swan’s Mom:  Yeah…

Me: I think Mimi really likes it too (watches Mimi do a belly slide across the floor).

Black Swan’s Mom:  Umm hmmm…

Me: Soooooo… how old is Black Swan (sends up a silent prayer she is a really short three year old)?

Black Swan’s Mom: She will be two in March.

Me:  (calculates that she is only three months older than Mimi) *Crap*

At the end of the hour I was sweating, mentally and physically exhausted, and in desperate need of a milkshake.  Mimi strolled out of her first ballet class with a stamp on each hand and a smile on her face.

So maybe she won’t be dancing in Swan Lake, and  I can assure you we won’t be on an episode of Dance Moms. In a few months she will have her first recital  and I will drag each member of our family to sit in the front row and cheer on our free spirited, tiny dancer. Maybe she will follow along, but I if I was a betting woman I would say she makes up her own dance. I’m really OK with this because I get my baby ballerina and we both get milkshakes.

 

 

Meet and Greet

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Roll call, roll call! Let’s all scream as we introduce our team. Let’s multi-task, shall we?  Since today is my birthday and there are so many new readers thanks to Scary Mommy, let’s get better acquainted. These questions came to me from the crazy funny Stephanie from When Crazy Meets Exhaustion and they came to her from the hysterical Marcia from Menopausal Mother. Here we go!

1.  WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

An itty-bitty town outside of Pittsburgh, PA.  Tina Fey clearly used this town as her inspiration for Mean Girls. Sadly, I was a total Gretchen Wieners without the whole “My dad invented Toaster Strudel.”

 

2.  WERE YOU NAMED AFTER SOMEONE?

My older brother napped during Guiding Light, so that was the only show my mom watched. There was a character named Amanda. Eventually she went crazy and ended up in an insane asylum, but my mom thought it was such a beautiful and different name.  Guess everyone else did too because it was the #1 name the year I was born. Not too original there, Mom.

3.  IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN, HOW MANY DO YOU HAVE?

Two kiddos- Monkey and Mimi. Here are they are with bed head but sharing the iPad. Sharing is caring.

Sharing is Caring

4.  HOW MANY PETS DO YOU HAVE?

One dog- Suggie, the original baby. Here is a picture of her trying to eat a cookie in my bag, but she almost hung herself in the process. I get it, Suggie. I feel the same way about cookies

5.  YOUR WORST INJURY?

Well the whole birth thing wasn’t a walk in the park. You know, the part of pushing a kid out of your va-jay-jay. Other than that, I would say falling off a bar (graceful) while in Cancun on spring break and breaking my foot was pretty nasty. I had to hobble around on a broken foot for a week in another country  #survivor

6.  DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?

Besides making beautiful children? Lame TV trivia that was useless until a few weeks ago when I wrote a blog about life lessons in 90210. Jason Priestly retweeted it and it was on  Scary Mommy!—Welcome to the big leagues, folks!

7.  WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING TO BAKE?

My great aunt’s fudge recipes. Not going to lie, they are a little bite of heaven.

8.  FAVORITE FAST FOOD?

Any and all! Just gave it up for Lent because I was stopping for fries a little too often lately.

9.  WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?

Pre-kids, yes. Post kids, HELL NO! I can barely get on a roller coaster without updating my will and fearing my husband will remarry some evil step-mother that will be raising my kids

10.  WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?

If they are wearing the mom uniform—yoga pants, ponytail, someone else’s food on their shirt, stickers on their butt.

11.  WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?

Honey, I cry every day. I am an emotional basket case. I cry when I am happy, sad, angry, frustrated. If there is an emotion, I am usually crying.

12.  ANY CURRENT WORRIES?

Non-stop—my kids, hubby, parents, selling our house, finding a house, will I need Botox this year…

 

13.  NAME 3 DRINKS THAT YOU DRINK REGULARLY:

Coffee. Wine. Diet Coke- the Holy Trinity

14.  WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK?

Not going to lie, I love Mommy Porn. If you need some smutty titles, come see me. I’m like the romance drug dealer around these parts. No one wants to talk about it, but they come to me for the good stuff.

15.  WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE A PIRATE?

Is Johnny Depp on my boat? If so, yes. Otherwise, I’ll pass

16.  FAVORITE SMELLS?

The beach, my kids heads, my husband’s shirts—the clean ones, not the ones he has worn all day—gross

17.  WHY DO YOU BLOG?

I am crap at keeping scrapbooks and baby books and sometimes I am funny—Questionable Choices in Parenting was born!

18.  WHAT SONG DO YOU WANT PLAYED AT YOUR FUNERAL?

Lots of show tunes to liven up the joint. Like A Chorus Line’s “One, Singular Sensation.”

19.  WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?

Staying in touch with my friends and family. However, a million different types of social media have helped. If I like your status on Facebook, it should be the equivalent to me calling you and saying “hi.”

20.  FAVORITE HOBBY?

Reading smutty books—you know want to read them too. Everyone is doing it. You know where to find me…

21.  WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A FRIEND?

Sarcasm, an appreciation for Howard Stern, and a love of wine

22.  NAME SOMETHING YOU’VE DONE THAT YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU’D DO:

Here’s the thing, I am pretty ballsy with a few cocktails, so I would go out on a limb and say I have done a lot that would shock people; however, my Dad and Mom read my blog religiously and I already got some flack for talking about shaving my girly parts. So let’s just walk away from this one, shall we?

23.  FAVORITE FUN THINGS TO DO?

Beach, beach, beach with my kids, and beach.

Beach Babies

24.  ANY PET PEEVES?

People who have political rants on Facebook. Seriously, shut up. If you are so fired up all the time, go run for office or make that move to another country. Go back to posting your lunch and pictures of your kids.

25.  WHAT’S THE LAST THING THAT MADE YOU LAUGH?

I found this gem on Pinterest and was laughing so hard my husband left the room:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/funniest-youtube-comments-of-the-year

And this HILARIOUS post by Kerri from HouseTalkN.  I may have peed myself with #9.

http://www.scarymommy.com/when-assholes-criticize-public-breastfeeding/

So there you go, 25 burning questions answered about me! Make me a happy girl and take a one of the questions and answer it on my comments or on my Facebook page, OK? Remember, sharing is caring!

Good Luck Moving Up Cause I’m Moving Out!

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Yesterday morning I looked out my front window and saw two men digging a hole in my front yard. Without even thinking, I stormed out the front door in my PJs, no shoes, no bra, and all of my early morning glory. Stomping up to the two men, I didn’t even fire a warning shot before I started to berate them by yelling “Whatever the hell you are doing, you better clean this mess up because we are putting our house on the market in a few days, and I will not have this yard looking like crap.”  Without so much as a response from the two confused men, I stomped back to the house and, for extra effect, I slammed the front door.

About three minutes after my explosion, Hubby informed me that those two men just put up a for sale sign in the front yard. While I assumed they were some annoying utilities workers ripping up my front yard, they were making what we had known for months official: our house is for sale.

For Sale

After sheepishly apologizing to the men for my crazed rant, I tried to explain how stressful it has been getting the house ready to sell, with kids no less! Then I remembered I wasn’t wearing a bra and decided a simple “Sorry, I’m a wack job” would suffice.

We haven’t even started the showings of the house yet and I am already flying off the handle at random strangers. I need to simmer down, take deep breaths ,and get a grip before everyone stages an intervention in my spotless, toyless, dustless, take-off-your-shoes-before-you-walk-on-the-carpet-because-I-just-had-them-cleaned living room.

So I am going to be a glass half full gal and look at the positives of preparing and selling your house.  And if this doesn’t work, I am gonna need some meds to make it through this.

Moving Out

  1. Don’t threaten to divorce your husband every time he says “Wow, now that most of the toys are gone and we got rid of so much stuff, there is so much room here. We really don’t need to move!”  Simply nod and smile at his positive outlook. Remember that he has worked really hard too, and while you deal with stress with wine and sarcasm, he deals with stress by talking like a lunatic. Isn’t he just the cutest thing!
  2. When your cleaning lady informs you she will be out of the country for the next month and you are a poor excuse for a housekeeper, don’t panic! Just tell the entire family they are only allowed in one room of the house—until it is sold. Think of it as camping! Think of all the bonding!
  3. Even though you have moved out 95% of the kids toys and 75% of your belongings to make the house look spacious and roomy for the strangers walking through your house, just know when you exclaim “Look at how much room this house has,” those people did the same thing and their crap made the house small and cramped too.
  4. Since you and the kids will spend lots of time in the car driving around the neighborhood while random strangers are looking in your closets, try not to think about them looking in your underwear drawer,finding the post-pregnancy panties, and running out of the house screaming. No, no, no, just use the car time to play a rousing game of I Spy, sing a few songs, or just run them through McDonalds for a few minutes of peace and quiet.

Well folks, We have a long road ahead of us, and I can’t drop my basket now. Remember when I promised to be kind to this house?

I am going to keep looking at the positives (and drinking lots of wine), but I would LOVE your tips, tricks, or stories about moving! Share in the comments and we can all commiserate together!