Monthly Archives: August 2017

A funny thing happened on the way to New Hampshire

Posted on August 28, 2017 | Leave a comment

Family vacations are a funny thing. Essentially all you are doing is taking a group of people who are together all the time and plopping them down…

Hi!

Um…hi…

Where was I? Oh yes, and plopping them down into a new location. But this simple act of geography change can…

Hello!

Uh…hello?

That was weird. Anyway, as I was saying, this simple act of taking you out of your element, out of your daily routine, can expose a lot about your character. For example, my family and I are at a resort town in New Hampshire, where…

Good morning!

Oh, um, good morning.

How are you?

Good. I guess.

Have a lovely day!

Ok, sure.

Man, I lost my train of thought again. Um…yeah, so, anyway my husband and I schlepped our two kids to a tiny cottage on the lake up in New Hampshire for a few days to, as they say, “get away from it all.” A great idea in theory, of course. But in practice, leaving your house for even a small period of time with a toddler and a baby in tow is the opposite of relaxing. It’s basically spending all night getting kicked in the face by tiny feet (because, god forbid, they actually sleep in the bed provided for them) and spending all day hurling gallons of sunscreen at their back as they sprint toward the closest large body of water so they can eat sand and practice drowning.

How’s it going?

Huh? What..? It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Just sitting here trying to get some work done.

Fantastic! Lovely day, isn’t it? Well, nice talking to you!

I…sure. Nice talking to you. Random stranger.

Ugh. Why won’t people leave me alone? People around here are so weird. ANYWAY, like I’ve been TRYING to say, there’s nothing like a vacation to expose who you really are. Everything is different and you are constantly tackling unforeseen challenges, like how to tactfully deal with your son who just pooped his pants in the fancy bookstore…

Beautiful day, huh?

Alright, that’s it. What the hell is going on here? Can I help you with something, buddy? Huh?

Oh, my apologies. Just trying to be friendly. Have a good afternoon!

Trying to be friendly? Well who the hell does that? See, it’s just like I was saying, going on vacation exposes who you really are. And someone I truly am is apparently someone who has lived in a city for too long and is now just super rude and glares at everyone who smiles at me with my best April Ludgate impression.

Only it’s not really an impression anymore so much as it is just my face now.

Because we have apparently ended up in the world’s friendliest town and I am confused and angered by this tendency of people to be overly nice even though I used to BE one of these people when I was growing up in a small town. But I have now forgotten how basic human decency works. Meanwhile, my husband, within 30 seconds of arriving here, reverted back to his old, friendly, Midwestern roots as easily as breathing. I think I even heard him blurt out “howdy” at one point.

And so I guess the only thing to do now is to finish up this stupid column of mine and go sit in front of the mirror and have me a “come to Jesus” moment about how I have transformed into a stereotype in just a few short years of living in Boston…

Oh, excuse me, ma’am? You forgot your purse. Here you go.

Oh, and so you just thought you’d give it back to me? Without stealing my money or anything? Of course. Well, thank you, Mr. Nice Friendly Man. And sorry I sound so sarcastic. I am actually very grateful. But I just realized I am a horrible, rude, human pile of garbage.

Have a nice friggin’ day.

 

 

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Posted in Family, funny, Holidays, Humor, Travel

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Can we talk for a minute?

Posted on August 15, 2017 | Leave a comment

Hey. Hi. How are you doing? Busy? Yeah, me too. But if you have a minute, could you come over here? *pats chair* Oh, you’d rather stay there? Sure, no problem. We can just do this right here in the kitchen then.

Look, I know this won’t be easy. But it’s time. We’ve put this off for long enough. I know, I know. I’ve been dreading it too. But…sigh…

We need to talk.

How long have we been together now? Going on seven years, isn’t it? And hey, I’ll be the first to admit it hasn’t been perfect. I’ve said and done things I’m not proud of. Flipping you off and throwing spaghetti at you was not one of my finer moments. Nor was that profanity-laced tirade last month when I unfairly blamed you for breaking my favorite wine glass. You know, the giant one that can fit an entire bottle of wine in it? But you’re far from perfect too. Ok? You’ve flooded my kitchen. Twice.

We’ve made it work though. Somehow, through it all, we’ve made it work.

Oh, but dishwasher, lately it seems you are trying to hurt me on purpose. Every night, no matter what was cooked or what was eaten, there is always that one dish left over on the counter that simply won’t fit inside you. I rearrange, and rearrange, and rearrange again. But it just won’t fit. Sometimes it’s a plate, sometimes a pan, sometimes a sippy cup or two. It doesn’t matter what. All that matters is that it’s always SOMETHING.

And I don’t feel I’m exaggerating when I say that the one thing that won’t fit in you is ruining my life.

Now wait, wait, wait. Don’t get mad. Just listen. Because I know I’m asking a lot more of you these days. We have two kids now. We basically doubled the size of our family in just a few short years. And even though it’s only two kids, it pretty much tripled your workload. I’ll be the first to admit those tiny, adorable creatures are super gross. Especially when it comes to food. The sheer amount of leftover ketchup we force down your throat now…I mean, just gallons of it. You really have been a champ about all of it.

But that is no reason to start slacking off. To start being petty and refusing to fit ALL the dinner dishes inside your, let’s be honest, cavernous insides. No, no, no. I don’t mean anything by that. Only that there seems to be ample room in there. And yet, there’s that one pot still sitting on the stove. Unable to fit. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Wash it by HAND? Does the technology to do that even EXIST anymore?  

Oh, well yes, if you must know, I have had a few glasses of wine already, but that has nothing to do with this. And you can take that judgmental tone out of your voice, DISHWASHER. Who are you to judge me? I wouldn’t even let my smartphone talk to me like that and it’s my best friend.

Sigh…look, we’re getting off track here. Let’s just breathe and regroup.

I just want the kitchen clean. For once. Can you understand that desire? Just completely, undeniably clean when I wake up in the morning. It’s a small thing, but thanks to those beautiful ketchup-guzzlers I gave birth to, my life has devolved into utter chaos. And there are days where I am barely holding on. I need just one little, small, tiny area of my life that is orderly and tidy, especially since I have ceded the rest of the household territory to my savage heathen offspring and their army of toys. They’ve even laid siege to the bathroom with their giant militia of bathtub duckies.

So, that space, MY space, has to be the kitchen. But when I wake up in the morning after yet another night of not enough sleep and see there are still dirty dishes, it pushes me into an IRRATIONAL RAGE that I find hard to CONTROL because I spend all DAY trying to be Mary FREAKING Poppins, only WITHOUT THE PAYCHECK, and since I SWALLOW MY ANGER ALL THE TIME IT HAS TO BE UNLEASHED SOMEWHERE AND RIGHT NOW THAT IS ON YOU.

*heavy panting*

Sorry. That was uncalled for. Let’s just calm down and try this again. Rearrange a few things. I’ll move this plate over here…and put this up here…flip this skillet the other way…and…ahhhhhhh…JUST FIT ALL THE STUPID DISHES INSIDE YOUR STUPID BIG DUMB FACE, DISHWASHER! JUST DO IT! DO IT, DO IT, DO IT!

AND BY THE WAY, I KNOW IT WAS YOU WHO BROKE THE WINE GLASS!

*grabs bottle of wine and storm out in a huff*

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Posted in Family, Food, funny, Humor, Parenting, Women

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What My Kids Did On My Summer Vacation

Posted on August 8, 2017 | Leave a comment

Hey! Hi! How are you?! We are Aprill’s kids! And we want to tell you all about what we did on our summer vacation.

This summer was great! We did so many fun things! And we did all those fun things for roughly an hour and 15 minutes before having dual marathon meltdowns! Mommy said this was because when we get overstimulated we turn into evil swamp demons! She’s so funny!

Like any good summer vacation, ours started early, with a trip in mid-May to visit family far away. We even got to fly in an airplane! Surprisingly, we both behaved extremely well during the flight. So, of course, we made up for that by refusing to sleep in the beds provided for us every night! And instead crawled into the bed our parents were sleeping in, not letting them get any sleep for seven nights straight! Because who needs sleep on summer vacation?! Who doesn’t love waking up to a baby foot in your mouth and a toddler foot buried in your rib cage?!

On Mommy’s birthday in June, we went to a pond to swim. Except neither one of us wanted to get wet. Because we can all agree that the best part of going to any body of water in the summer is baking in the hot sun while sitting on sand the temperature of lava!

There were also a bunch of little day trips this summer to fun and exciting places! Where we’d get in the car and complain, and then we’d get out of the car and complain, and then we’d go do stuff and we’d complain, and then our parents would finally give up and say “fine, we’ll go home!” and then we’d complain about not wanting to go home. Traveling truly is a priceless experience!

We also spent a lot of time this summer at the library. We did so many interesting things there, like pretending to listen to books during storytime but really just trying to steal the other kids’ snacks.

We also did a bunch of fun stuff at home!

One of our favorite things to do was climb all over Mommy when it was 92 degrees out with a humidity level of one thousand. This was especially fun that week that the air conditioner broke! The best part of this game was Mommy would pretend to get mad and holler “get off me!” but that just meant she wanted us to do it more!

And what is any good summer vacation without some cool treats?  Even though Mommy forced us to eat our popsicle outside, sticky melted popsicle juice still magically appeared inside. Mommy said bad words. It was so funny! We laughed and laughed and smeared our disgusting sticky hands all over the TV and then laughed some more. Which is why we repeated this exact same scenario with ice cream.

Speaking of the TV, we also spent a lot of time this summer whining and crying about wanting to watch very specific movies! Even though we have already seen those specific movies 78 times! And when Mommy finally relented, we would watch exactly 17 minutes of the movie before deciding to ignore it because climbing the bookshelves that are definitely not attached to the wall seemed way more fun. Even though this activity was bound to end in certain death!

The best part of this summer is that it’s not even over yet! In two weeks we will actually be going on real vacation even though all the cool and important people of the world are already done vacationing. SOMEONE (and I’m not mentioning names although it rhymes with “if you don’t like it plan it yourself next time”) was a bit late in trying to book a place to stay anywhere close to water and so was stuck with dates at the end of August.

We can’t tell you how excited we are to yet again share a room with our Mommy and Daddy and not let them get a wink of sleep! It’s the kind of stuff memories would be made of if it wasn’t impossible to make memories when you are brain-dead from chronic sleep loss.

Now most people feel sad when summer vacation comes to an end. But not us! Since neither one of us is in school yet, these good times can keep right on rolling into the fall. And winter! And spring! And next summer! And next fall! And next…

 

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Posted in Family, funny, Holidays, Parenting, Travel

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Boogers: A love story

Posted on August 2, 2017 | Leave a comment

There are a lot of mysteries in this world we have yet to solve. Why do we all accept kale as food when clearly it’s gross? Why do we all remember it as Berenstein Bears and not Berenstain Bears? Why do we all hate Anne Hathaway and her stupid face so much?

And then there’s black holes and stuff.

But while there are a million think pieces on Anne’s dumb horse face and our collective desire to punch it, I have yet to see professional, or even armchair, intellectuals address a much more important mystery, even though it is an issue that affects millions of households across this great nation of ours.

Yes, as common as it is, the blight of chronic toddler nose picking remains one of our last great taboos (and this is in a society that has made Irritable Bowel Syndrome a household name). So much so that even all those “Well, actually” guys who know everything about everything (but especially about whatever current topic you are discussing) are quiet on the issue. Star Wars? Feminism? The history of craft beer brewing? They’re basically experts. Yet bring up boogers? Nada. A resounding silence. Nothing except for the faint, squishy sound of a tiny, chubby finger shoved up a tiny nostril.

Sigh. Clearly, I get easily worked up over this issue. Because this one hits close to home.

My son, my beautiful, baby boy, is a nose picker.

It started out with just the occasional experimental nasal expedition. But now? Pffft. He’s gotta have a hit every 20 minutes or so.

What the hell is up there that is so goddamn important?

I mean, there has to be a reason. It must be something. Something must be worth all those nosebleeds. Something must be worth the endless punishments he’s given every time that finger finds its way back to its adopted home.

Is it nature? Some biological instinct? Although I can’t imagine what survival skill is represented by this habit. Unless, perhaps it’s a leftover part of our lizard brain from our caveman days? Maybe boogers were an all-organic pigment for cave drawings? Or a natural glue for the busy caveman on the go?

My own personal pride makes me doubt that it’s the other side of the coin, that it’s nurture. I pick my nose in secret. Like a lady.

It could have a nutritional aspect to it, I suppose. His body is probably screaming out for something with protein since all he’ll eat these days is cheese crackers and chocolate-covered raisins. Do boogers have protein? Either way, it’s gotta be healthier than the “cheese” (and I use that term oh-so-loosely) holding those crackers together.

Maybe the compulsion is psychological in nature. A distraction? A coping mechanism? Digging into his nose is a physical manifestation of digging into his psyche? He did watch a rather stressful “Sesame Street” episode the other day.

Is it a scientific experiment? Seeing if it’s possible to touch his brain? There are days he goes past the second knuckle. He’s gotta be somewhat close.

Maybe he is quite literally digging for gold. Are boogers kid currency? Has anyone investigated the seedy underworld of the kiddie black market? Two boogers in exchange for a gram of uncut Nerd candies? Three for a pack of candy cigarettes (are those even legal anymore)? An ounce of mucus mixed with blood for a used fidget spinner?

WHY DO CHILDREN DO THIS?

And more importantly, how do I get mine to stop?

Ugh. Truly, this is so frustrating. It’s enough to make me want to punch someone. Where’s Anne Hathaway when you need her?

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Posted in Family, funny, Humor, Parenting, Pop Culture

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