Category Archives: Health

My very particular set of skills is finally needed

Posted on March 17, 2020 | 2 comments

Being a stay-at-home parent is an underappreciated job. Luckily, it’s also a job which results in a lot of expertise that has very little value outside your immediate family and involves absolutely no social standing.

Which is fine. We don’t do it for the glory. We do it because childcare costs in this country are ridiculous and out of control. (And, like, for love or whatever). 

All of which is to say that society places little worth on the ability to spend all your time with your family without murdering them, not even once. 

And then came the coronavirus. In times of great uncertainty, in times of dire need, leaders can emerge from the most unlikeliest of places. Which is why, as this pandemic is sweeping across the country and everything is closing and everyone is realizing they will be forced to spend all their time in very close proximity to their own families, with no escape, nowhere to run, me and my fellow brethren are finding that our skills are finally in demand.

Fellow caregivers! It’s our time to shine, baby! *ties hair up in messy bun and straightens sweatpants*

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Alright, now one of the most important things to remember is don’t panic. They’re just your family. You will survive this. Probably. I’ll be honest, I don’t know your family. But I’ve been stuck at home with mine for six years now and other than an extremely bloated wine budget and premature aging, I’m only mildly psychologically damaged. 

First things first though, what are you doing? Putting on real pants? Aw, that’s cute. I mean, if it makes you feel good go on ahead but, honestly, you’re probably going to regret it. Real pants just remind you that there is a real world out there, a real world that you are no longer a part of. You need something with stretch, with elastic; something that won’t judge you when you are stress-eating leftover chicken wings above the sink. 

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Of course, one of the biggest adjustments you’ll have to make is that within these walls during the day, time will cease to have meaning. Mornings will fly and the afternoon will be frozen. Minutes can feel like hours and hours can feel like regretting the decision to ever have children in the first place. For example, it should be mathematically impossible to watch “Frozen II” 43 times in one day and yet there it is, still playing in the background, for the 44th time. 

At least now with all this extra time we can sit down to a nice, big, family breakfast, I hear you thinking. But nope. You’ll try, of course. At first. But your eggs taste like poopy butt and you did the hashbrowns wrong (there’s brown on them!) and she just wants CHEERIOS and he wants butter with a side of bagel. NO! UNTOASTED! NOW IT’S RUINED!   

Time to start your workday. When I’m not getting yelled at for my poopy butt eggs, I moonlight as a writer so allow me to share what I’ve learned about working from home with children. Prepare for your productivity to go down immensely. Possibly to zero. Even if you have a home office with a door. Doors don’t stop children. Nothing stops them. Also, children can sense when you need to concentrate and/or are on an important call. This is when the little one will crawl on your laptop like a cat and the older one will burst in naked and fart on you while giggling manically. 

Hey, remember back in your former life when you had the autonomy to go to the bathroom whenever you needed to? Yeah, that’s gone. Even if you ask every single person in that household if they have to go to the bathroom before you go in there, and everyone says “no,” someone will still bang on the door within eleven seconds demanding to be let in because IT’S AN EMERGENCY and THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO GO THEN. 

If you want a snack, you either get real good at slipping in and out of the kitchen unseen or you make snacks for everyone. 

Sound? What sound? Oh, that? That’s just the 3 p.m. sibling screaming match. Right on schedule. Now, wait for it…hang on…in just a moment…yup, the elderly dog’s fevered barking in response. There’s an encore of this performance at 4 as well. And 5:15. Sometimes 7. 

Oh, don’t look so disheartened. Look, you will want to kill them at some point. Likely multiple points. This is totally normal. I mean, don’t. Kill them and whatnot. It will reflect very poorly on your parenting. But it’s completely valid to feel like you want to.

Here you go. You’ve earned this. I call it a martini but it’s just straight vodka in a martini glass.

And just think, only five more hours until bedtime. 

Tissue? 

 

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Posted in Family, funny, Health, Humor, Marriage, Parenting, Pets, Women, Writing

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When your kids have too much scream time

Posted on March 3, 2020 | Leave a comment

I had always thought of myself as someone who doesn’t follow the crowd. As the type of woman who blazed her own path, made her own destiny. I was a lone wolf. Who was also a unicorn. Who moonlighted as a succubus on days when she was feeling grumpy. 

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Then I met my stupid adorable future husband and we started dating and everyone said “get married!” and we were like “ok.” Then after we got married, everyone said “have a kid!” and we were all “sure, who needs a disposable income?” Then after we had a kid, everyone said “have another one!” and so we did mostly because we were too tired to think of reasons not to. 

Then, when we were drowning in tiny, adorable, self-destructive gingers, those same people had the audacity to tell our exhausted, disgusting, overwhelmed selves that we couldn’t plop those kids down in front of a TV so we could get a moment’s peace in the diaper-stained tsunami that was now our lives. 

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Oh, and not just TV. This was a moratorium on all screens. Phones. Tablets. Laptops. Laptops that turned into tablets. 

“No screens! It will destroy their brains!” everyone shouted while sending torch and pitchfork gifs to our phones. 

And that’s where I finally broke with the crowd. Because do you know how long a day is when you are stuck at home with small children? It’s 57 hours. And that’s just before noon. I had no idea what to do with them. I’d read books, I’d build forts, I’d play hide and seek even though they hid in the same damn place every. single. time. (Spoiler alert: It was inside the fort). Then I’d look up and realize 12 minutes had passed. Which is when I would pull down all the window shades and put on “Sesame Street” with the volume super low, the kids pushing their faces against the television in order to actually hear Elmo. 

“It doesn’t count if no one but me knows” I’d whisper to myself while creepily rubbing my hands together villain-style. 

Look, I know too much screen time can have negative effects on children. I’m not saying everyone is wrong. I’m just saying they need to acknowledge that the alternative can be just as awful. That without any screen time, everything devolves into scream time. Mostly by the parents. 

Kids are more than capable of destroying their brains the old-fashioned screen-less way. Take this innocent little exchange between my kids I overheard the other day:

6-year-old: Ok, so put on your cape…

3-year-old Ok.

6-year-old: And then I’m going to push you off the bed…

3-year-old: Ok. 

6-year-old: And we’ll see if you can fly!

Me: NO! 

Or this one…

6-year-old: Did you get them?

3-year-old: Yup. 

Me: Get what?

*crickets*

Me: GET WHAT?

6-year-old: …nothing.

Me: *gets up and confiscates the big pair of scissors and three steak knives the 3-year-old is hiding behind her back*

6-year-old: Well how are we supposed to play pirates now?

And for everyone who claims that video games make kids violent, I’m not necessarily disagreeing. But I am saying that so do sticks. My children are constantly picking up sticks and using them to beat each other relentlessly. This usually escalates until they are using full on tree limbs to bash each others skulls in, which is when the park magically closes and we have to head home. 

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The thing is, sometimes you need screen time to make sure your children stay alive. To make their savage little butts sit down for a hot minute and kill pixels instead of each other. 

And sure, maybe it will eventually turn their brains to mush. I, of all people, am likely to find out considering both of my kids can quote the entire “Princess Bride” movie verbatim. But honestly, have you ever heard a 3-year-old yell “He didn’t fall!? Inconceivable!”? I’d argue it’s cute enough to warrant a reasonable amount of brain mush. 

In the end, I think, it’s all about balance. Let your kids play on their tablet guilt-free. Enjoy the quiet and peaceful non-homicidal atmosphere without beating yourself up. And then have them turn the tablets off so they can use them to hit each other over the head. 

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When life hands you spoiled milk, make bathtub gin

Posted on February 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

Ask any parent what their worst nightmare is and then immediately cancel any plans you had for the next three days. Because that’s how long they will take to answer you. Because parents are worried about everything.

For instance, among my top worst nightmare scenarios are:

A serial killer named Meatclaw kidnaps my children.

My daughter dies of scurvy because all she’ll eat is plain noodles. 

My son turns out to be awesome at soccer and all my weekend days have to be spent sober and pretending to like soccer.

My grandchildren will have to participate in The Hunger Games in the dystopian future, which they will lose because no one in my family knows how to shoot an arrow OR how to do a fancy side braid.

I get cancer and die. My husband, overwhelmed with grief, gets tricked into marrying my vapid, bimbo nurse Trixie after my funeral and she then raises my kids to be the kind of humans who genuinely enjoy keeping up with the Kardashians.

Prohibition comes back and I am arrested for Googling “how to make bathtub gin”.

And none of those things address the daily onslaught of new things we as parents are told to be afraid of, like haunted YouTube shows that possess children and studies that prove babies who didn’t learn Mandarin in utero will never get into college and that helicopter parenting is causing rebellious kindergartners to start snorting pure uncut sugar.

Of course, it’s not all death and delinquency and illicit moonshine runs. The mundane can be almost as terrifying when you have kids. For example, at some point on that mental list that every parent has, probably down around No. 37, is the nightmare of the missing sippy cup.

Oh god, the dreaded missing sippy cup. You know the one I’m talking about. It’s been on the back of your mind for awhile, the fact that you can’t remember the last time you saw it. And even though you’ve been known to struggle with anything above second grade math, you instantly do some fancy algebra in your head and deduce that there are two in the dishwasher, one in the cupboard, two they’re currently drinking out of and one being used as part of a load-bearing wall in the Fortress of Generic Blocks in the living room. 

Which leaves one completely unaccounted for. And after some more fancy mental calculations, you realize it’s been unaccounted for since Tuesday. And nope. Not that Tuesday. Last LAST Tuesday.

That’s not even the scariest part. The scariest part is that, unlike all of the tiny missing socks (which is about 1/3 of the total tiny sock population) and all those missing pens from the junk drawer, which I imagine are living blissfully together on some tropical island with all 12,000 of my missing bobby pins, sippy cups never stay lost. Oh no. They will mysteriously show up again. Right when their contents have ripened to their peak of nightmarish horror.

And despite the fact that when you asked your children to help you find this very same cup two weeks ago and they just did a series of figure-eights around your legs while repeatedly asking “where did it go? huh…”, it always, inevitably, reappears in their little hands when it makes its grand re-entrance, not yours.

Then, when that moment comes, that moment when one of your precious angels that you spent 36 hours bringing into this world on the sheer power of creative curse words alone runs up to you with a brightly painted cup of toxic sludge, a million more horrific questions run through your mind:

What unholy concoction is now in there? And has it gained sentience yet?

How much spoiled milk can a 30-pound body take before permanent damage occurs?

What strange alchemy must take place to turn apple juice that shade of green?

Or…wait…I think this used to be orange juice?

Does grape juice ferment into alcohol after so long? And if it does, how much prison kiddie wine did my child just drink before he alerted me that he found the missing cup?

How worried do I need to be about mold, because there are no less than 11 blog posts littering my Facebook feed at any given moment about the dangers of mold growing in sippy cups?

The good news is that there is hope. More than hope, actually. There is a foolproof method to never losing another sippy cup again. And that method is to only let your child drink water from here on out.

A sippy cup full of water has never, ever been lost in the whole, long, sordid history of parenthood.

 

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I’ll see you all in the spring

Posted on February 4, 2020 | Leave a comment

I never really understood those people who claimed that time is relative. That time is not absolute and can speed up and slow down depending on where you are, or how fast you’re going, or other amorphous, discombobulating, big word science stuff. 

Then January happened. And kept happening. Wouldn’t stop happening. It was a January that lasted for seven years. It was a January aging in dog years. 

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But hey! We all survived! And before murdering anyone (I’m assuming)! It’s now the beginning of February. Winter is officially half over. Which I feel I would be much more excited about if my one child hadn’t been coughing since November and the other one didn’t currently have a low-grade fever and runny nose that is going to last until April. 

I look forward to seeing you all again in May. Possibly June. Most likely 2034 when these two apple-cheeked petri dishes move out of my house. 

Honestly, it wouldn’t be that bad if these perpetually sick children had the decency to come down with an illness that makes them want to lay on the couch all day watching TV. You know, like any decent sick person with morals would do. But nope. My kids only get the germs that prevent them from going to school or library story-time or eating normal food or doing any chores BUT leaves them with enough energy to destroy my home and my sanity and my immune system. 

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I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fighting to get all my oxygen needs through nostrils that were only 13 percent operational. I’ve been dealing with an endless line of noses running so hard they would likely qualify for the Boston Marathon. And I’ve been riding a mucus tsunami like Moana crossing the sea to return the heart of Te Fiti, which is a very apt comparison considering I have seen “Moana” 116 times in the past five weeks. 

“Mom, how come you’re not sick?” my son asked one day while casually handing me a distressingly soggy tissue. 

“Because I have mom immunity. And I drink whiskey for medicinal purposes. And also technically I’ve been sick since the day after Christmas but everything still needs to get done because life is cruel and unfair.”

“Oh. Is dad sick too?”

“Yup.”

“Where is he?”

“Army crawling to work. Y’all expensive and we need to keep our insurance.”

Everyone in this stupid house keeps breathing all the same stupid air making each other sick but we can’t leave because we’ll make other stupid people sick so we stay stupid inside trying not to stupid kill each other while our stupid germs have air orgies and make new germs that we breathe in that make us sick all over again. 

And even when we get better, we’re not really better. And if we are better we aren’t better for long. Every time my son comes home from his school filled with other walking pathogens disguised as children, I can practically see the germs gleefully jumping from his hand to his backpack and giddily lying in wait for the moment when he asks me to carry it home for him and I give in because I’ve had 42 fights with his toddler sister that afternoon alone and my spirit is broken. And then those germs jump onto my hand, supersonically shouting out their battle cries and hacking away at my white blood cells with their super tiny axes.

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Or, you know, however germs work. 

There’s been so much sickness lately, in fact, that it’s gotten to a point where I’m a bit insensitive about the whole thing. 

“What? You’re sick again?”

*child finishes puking* “Yeah.”

*sticks thermometer in ear* “I mean, you only have a temp of 102. Here’s some Tylenol and a shovel. The driveway needs to be cleared out.”

*child has devastating coughing fit* “…ok…Momma…”

“And then after we can watch ‘Moana’ again!” 

*child gives thumbs-up from fetal position on the floor*

So, like I said. I look forward to seeing you all again in the spring. When everyone is finally healthy but all our allergies have kicked back in and we spend the majority of our time sneezing in your face. 

 

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Tired.

Posted on August 20, 2019 | 2 comments

I’m tired. 

But don’t worry. This isn’t going to be one of those pieces where the author spends 800 words telling you just how much MORE tired they are than you. (Although I only got two hours of sleep last night. Not that it matters. Because, again, this isn’t THAT piece). 

See, I know you’re tired too. We’re all tired. The whole world is tired. None of us are getting enough sleep and all of us are under more and more pressure to do more during our waking hours. 

Which is why, I suspect, we as a society have turned tiredness into a competition. We all feel guilty that we aren’t doing more so we try to win the only contest we can: Who is more tired?

Person 1: “I’m so tired.”

Person 2: “Me too. I only got five hours of sleep last night.”

Person 1: “I only got four.”

Person 2: “Did I say last night? I meant for the whole week.”

Person 1: “I meant for the whole month.”

Person 2: “I basically haven’t slept since I was a child.”

Person 1: “Must be nice. I haven’t slept since I was literally in utero.”

Person 2: “Really? I couldn’t even sleep in there, what with that constant beating of mother’s heart.”

I don’t know how we got to this point. Maybe it was the Internet, connecting us all to the world 24/7. Maybe it was the rise of social media, connecting us all to each other 24/7. Or perhaps it’s just hard to get a solid eight hours when the world feels like a dumpster fire. But whatever the reason, it appears there is some fierce competition for the title of “Most Tired.” Because you can get into this competition with pretty much anyone. Take moms, for instance. 

Pregnant woman: I’m so tired. 

New mom: HAHAHAHA…just wait until they are born. 

Mom of toddler: Aw, that’s cute. Mine is mobile and can open doors and has opinions. 

Mom of teenager: Well, I haven’t slept since mine got his driver’s license. 

Mom of multiple teenagers: I’M TECHNICALLY DEAD. 

There’s also the generational tiredness rivalry. 

Old person: I’m so tired. My angina and trick knee kept me up all night.

Middle-aged person: I was up worrying about taking care of my aging parents and my growing kids. 

30-something: My career is killing me. 

20-something: I work three jobs and have no money and no future and the Arctic is literally on fire. 

College student: I had to pull an all-nighter for exams and then work all day at my unpaid internship.

Teenager: I had to pull an all-nighter for Fortnite. 

Everyone: Oh, shut up, Kyle.

Teenager (sulkily): I won, not that anyone cares.  

There’s also usually a romantic partner daily exhaustion war. My husband and I are experts at this. 

Husband: I had to finish 57 projects today and re-do the entire website and fight the crowds for the train home. 

Me: I had to drag two little kids all over town while dealing with 23 tantrums and 15 meltdowns and I have insomnia and I need to finish my blog about how much more tired I am than you and everyone else in the world.

(Again, NOT that this is all about how much more tired I am than you, dear reader. Even if it’s true, it’s not the point). 

And then there is all the situational tiredness. The bad job tired. You ever had a bad job? It’s exhausting. There’s the bad relationship tired, where your brain basically turns to mush rehearsing all the things you should say to your crappy partner but never do because you’re just too tired. Or the financial problems tired, where you trade sleep for calculating which limbs you can sell to make ends meet this month. 

And that’s all just the level of tiredness you feel when everything is going fairly well in your life. It’s a whole new level of fatigue when you are, say, battling a chronic disease. Or a mental illness. Or raising a child with special needs. Or dealing with racism and sexism and bigotry every day. Or struggling in poverty. Or…yeah, you get it. 

We’re tired. 

So who wins the award for most tired? I mean, clearly it’s me. Although the rest of you put up quite the battle. Which is why I’m going to pull a Cady Heron from “Mean Girls” and break apart the crown and give us all a piece of the title. 

And as for any solutions? How do we stop being so tired? Truthfully I have no idea.

But I’m sure I’ll be up all night thinking about it.

 

 

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Posted in funny, Health, Humor, Marriage, Parenting, Politics, technology

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What’s Wrong With Me Now!?

Posted on May 27, 2019 | 2 comments

Hello, everyone! And welcome to America’s newest show, “What’s Wrong With Me Now!?” The only quiz show game devoted solely to all the weird and awful medical maladies that start afflicting you once you hit the age of 35 and beyond.

Yes, your body is now beginning its slow decline toward death via a dirty bomb of disease and undiagnosed ailments. So, what’s wrong with you now? Let’s find out!

You wake up on Sunday morning and suddenly discover you can’t turn your head to the left. What is wrong with you?

  1. You slept on your pillow wrong.
  2. The fact that your mattress is 17-years-old is finally catching up with you.
  3. Now that you think about it, a hazy memory emerges of you attempting a cartwheel after that third glass of wine last night in a futile attempt to prove you’re still young.
  4. Neck cancer.

Despite having not worked out in a decade, your left knee has become sore and swollen. What is wrong with you?

  1. You have gout. Like an old-timey king.
  2. It’s about to start raining. Which you will always know now. Because congratulations, you have arthritis.
  3. You made the mistake of playing with your kids on the ground for 12 minutes yesterday.
  4. Knee cancer.

A red, itchy, painful rash has developed on your face for no reason whatsoever. What’s wrong with you?

  1. Heat rash. Because you can now be defeated by the sun.
  2. Mystery disease from one of your son’s preschool classmates. Probably the one who sneezed into your eyeball last week at pick-up.
  3. At least five of your Facebook friends think it’s your thyroid.
  4. Face cancer? Is that a thing?

When you go to the bathroom, it’s either constipation or diarrhea. There is no in-between. What is wrong with you?

  1. Nothing. This is your life now.
  2. Your diet. Which is awful. And which you will not be changing.
  3. So help you if you’re pregnant again. You’d murder your husband, ‘ol Mr. I’ll Get A Vasectomy Soon I Promise, if you didn’t so desperately need his help raising all these feral children.
  4. Colon cancer.

You can’t chew on the right side of your face anymore without excruciating pain. What is wrong with you?

  1. You need a root canal. Because all those times you told the dentist you were flossing you were lying through your disgusting unflossed teeth.
  2. TMJ. You don’t even know what that is. But you definitely have it now.
  3. It doesn’t matter because you hate the dentist and will die before going to one.
  4. Jaw cancer.

You feel bad. Just a general badness. All over. What is wrong with you?

  1. Indigestion from your breakfast nachos.
  2. Heart attack.
  3. Panic attack.
  4. All three…plus cancer!

You’ve had a dry cough for six-months now. What is wrong with you?

  1. Chronic bronchitis.
  2. Nothing some essential oils can’t fix, which luckily 14 of your former classmates sell.
  3. Allergies. Or asthma. Or acid reflux. All the A’s, pretty much.  
  4. Lung cancer. From that one cigarette you smoked in 1996 to impress Todd Peterson.

Well, looks like that’s the buzzer. As usual, there are no winners in this game. But you’ll all be going home with some consolation prizes from our sponsors. Tell them what they’ve won, Johnny.

From the makers of Advil, comes Purse Advil. Purse Advil: Like Advil but for your purse because you never not need it now.

And say hello to your very own treadmill! This beauty from NordicTrack has a smart response motor, a 10-inch interactive screen and plenty of places to hang up those clothes you’ve already worn but aren’t quite dirty yet so you don’t want to throw them in the hamper.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow when we try to figure out if that mole on your shoulder has changed shape and/or color and what is the best remedy for acne in your 40’s!

Goodnight, America!

 

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Bad Poetry By A Tired Mom

Posted on April 22, 2019 | Leave a comment

 

I have two kids

Two beautiful unique souls

Each with a unique illness

Germs, his and hers

 

Simultaneous sickness

But different miseries

Because they couldn’t even

Extend the courtesy

Of having the same goddamn disease

 

How does that even happen?

What did I do wrong?

Is it revenge for when I was bragging

About their immune systems being so strong?

 

Hand, foot and mouth

Fever, cough, sore throat

Luckily, sharing is caring

Which is why every surface of my house

Has been smeared with snot

 

There is so much gross

Just

So much of

The gross

 

Noses dripping

Phlegm flying

Rashes rashing

Or whatever the hell they do

 

Oh, is this awful to read?

A thousand apologies

But imagine a tiny clone of your husband

Sneezing directly into your face

 

Speaking of husbands

He’s busy, off working

Meanwhile, I’m drowning in used tissues

Trying to build a moat

By drinking enough Merlot that I practically float

 

It’s not working

There’s so many leaks

That’s what we call a double entendre

Or something like that

 

Something something insert funny line here

And here

And here

I’m so tired, you guys.

 

What rhymes with “someone, dear god, help me”?

Is poetry still suppose to rhyme?

Omg, when’s the last time I actually read a poem

Not composed by Dr. Seuss?

 

Twin rivers flowing in tandem

Bearing colorful waves of a neverending pour

Tylenol

Ibuprofen

Here to save us all

 

We’ve watched Tangled three times

Just today alone

Take your screen time limits

And shove them

We’re in survival mode

 

But don’t you worry about us

They’ll end up being just fine

Sickness doesn’t last forever

And at least I still have (cough) my health

Oh crap, (sniffle) what the hell was that?

 

Dammit.

 

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Disappointing your dentist & other fun grown-up stuff

Posted on April 2, 2019 | Leave a comment

If you were to grade me on my adulting capabilities, I’m fairly confident I’d receive a solid C average. For instance, I always pay my bills on time. But I’ve also been ignoring my leaking dishwasher for three weeks and can never seem to eat the avocados in my kitchen before they go bad. Mostly because they’re avocados and, as such, taste like avocados. I pretty much just buy them so when other adults come over to my house, they look at the avocados and think “wow, she has avocados, she must really have her life together.”

And then there’s the whole dentist thing. Rumor has it that as an adult you’re supposed to go to the dentist on a fairly regular basis. Fairly regular basis, of course, meaning “at some point.”

Oh, so when’s the last time I went to the dentist, you ask? Well, that depends. Do you want the answer I tell the dentist, the one I tell my mom, or the truth? Either way, the answer is always wrong.

I know this. I am an adult, afterall. I have the I.D. to prove it and everything. That’s another aspect of adulting I’ve mastered. I always renew my driver’s license on time. On time, of course, meaning “within six months after it expires.”

So, yeah, I’d been meaning to make a dentist appointment. It’s just life got in the way, as it so often does. There was work and then I had kids and then there was all the time and energy I had to spend on ignoring my dishwasher.

Also I was scared. Super scared. Just a Scaredy McScarepants.

Not for any good reason, mind you. Dentists don’t deserve their reputation. They are kind and hardworking people. They are highly-trained professionals. They provide an invaluable service to society. Think about the last time you had a toothache. How awful it was. Most of us would run over our own mothers just to get to a dentist to make that pain stop.

And there are plenty of people who have far more evil occupations. Serial killers, for one. Investment bankers. Those people who keep calling me from my alma mater asking me for money.

Why do we hate going to the dentist so much? Well, for one, you never leave there with good news. And if you have ever left the dentist with good news, if your dentist has ever told “wow, great job, your mouth is perfect,” then what are you doing even reading this? You clearly are a responsible, respectable member of society and are not my target audience. How about you go floss some more, nerd.

As for the rest of us, there’s a root canal or lengthy flossing tutorial or partial jaw removal in our immediate future.

Besides, I’m one of those people who just assumed that if I brushed twice a day, used mouth wash, and randomly remembered to floss every few weeks, everything would be fine. Teeth are one of those things, like cars and dishwashers and trendy vegetables, that I expect to last forever and ever until the end of time without any interference from me.

But you know what’s coming next, don’t you? Of course you do. Because no one just wakes up one day magically wiser and goes “ok, I’ll finally do that awful thing I’ve been putting off for far too long.” Oh no. No, something FORCES you to do that.

In my case, I woke up with mysteriously painful and swollen gums. So, like the C average adult that I am, I walked around and complained about the pain for a week. And then I screwed up my courage and finally made a dentist appointment.

More importantly, I actually showed up to the appointment. Where I was politely shamed about my dental history. That’s the other reason why we hate going to the dentist. They’re always disappointed in us. Don’t get me wrong. He was very pleasant and kind about it. But I knew I let him down.

Imagine how upset he’d be if I actually told the truth about the date of my last dental appointment.

But the bigger lesson here is that whatever it is you’ve been putting off, whatever it is that’s been on your undone to-to list for months or years, it’s never as bad as you imagine.

I’m kidding. It was exactly as bad as I imagined. Possibly worse.

But I survived.

And you’ll survive whatever your metaphorical dentist is too. Even if it is the actual dentist.

 

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Cover your mouths, you animals

Posted on January 22, 2019 | Leave a comment

It’s been a long, hard winter. A long, hard winter that is barely a third of the way over. And yet, if I’m doing my math correctly, my family has already been sick 1,376 times since November.

I’ve seen things, man. Things not even a mom should have to see. Every shade of vomit. Every consistency of mucus. Pure liquid evil coming out tiny terrified tushies. All of which I cleaned up while dealing with my own vomit, mucus and terrified tushie.

An experience like that changes a person. It hardens you. These illnesses have taken away my family’s health and sanity and our entire NyQuil budget for the whole year already.

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But no more. I’m not letting them take anything else.

Which is why I have a message for all the people out there who have passed their germs onto my family…

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I also don’t have are skills, particular or otherwise. Unless you count writing as a skill and even then, these skills I have acquired over a very long career are still mediocre at best. Still, I will find a way to make myself a nightmare for people like you. I will look for you. I will find you. And I will kill you.

Ok, Ok, I won’t kill you. That’s pretty illegal, I think. But I will tie you up and waterboard you with Purell until you’ve learned your lesson.

So you, yeah you, on the subway. The one hacking into his hands and then TOUCHING THE POLE. I’m coming for you. And I will hurl cough drops at your face until you learn how to do the vampire cough, you animal. You know, where you cough into the crook of your elbow so your germs don’t INVADE EVERYONE ELSE WITHIN A 20 FOOT RADIUS OF YOUR DISEASED FACE.  

And to all you parents and nannies and caretakers coming to library storytime with your leaky charges, I get it. I do. You need out of the house. You need to entertain the kid. You need basic human interaction. However, if your child puked that morning but now “feels, like, so much better!” that doesn’t mean they are, like, magically healed. They are still contagious. Go home before I dump buckets of bleach mixed with Emergen-C over both your heads.

Also, to literally everyone who works in my husband’s office…dammit, guys. Come on. I don’t know if there is an office pool or something for who can bring in the most devastating domestic illness but we are done participating. Don’t make me come there and spray you all down with a Nerf gun I filled with Lysol.

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Oh, and Sophia P.? I know the cold that I just got over was from when you coughed in my mouth at preschool. Which is particularly egregious since we are not even related. You seemed so innocent. Your tiny hand tapping my arm, to gain my attention, only for me to bend down and then have you immediately cough directly into my face hole. I never saw it coming. A weapon of individual destruction. But still, I’mma give you a free pass, sweetheart. Even I draw the line at harming 4-year-olds. (But like, just barely. The line is drawn in a pale shade of pastel chalk. So watch yourself.)

There’s still a lot of winter left. Technically two more months, calendar-wise. Reality-wise, however, we have two more months followed by a month of just pure sleet, and then a surprise snowstorm and then a week of beautiful weather and then three more weeks of sleet before BOOM, it’s 90 degrees.

So, let’s all work together to try and keep ourselves and, by extension, everyone else, as healthy as we can for the remainder of the season.

Besides, I think all my other solutions might be in a murky gray area of legality and jail will just mean a whole new slew of germs I have to battle.

 

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Maybe technology is cyclical

Posted on January 14, 2019 | 2 comments

There are a lot of theories out there about the best way to raise children. These mostly come from people without kids, but a shocking amount of parents manage to form strong opinions about this subject too. Which they must do in-between chugging Merlot and crying in the shower, I imagine.

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I’ll admit I used to be one of those parents. With lofty ideals about proper nutrition and preschool STEM activities and basic human hygiene.

Pffft.

But that was before. Before the machine. Before…THE GAME.

Now none of it matters. Nothing matters. Nothing except…THE GAME.

Well, I mean, and my children and my husband and our collective health and world peace and our extended families and our beloved dog and protecting the environment and Jeff Goldblum because he’s a national treasure and all our friends.

But NOTHING ELSE.

It started innocently enough, like most of these scenarios that end up spiraling into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I bought my husband one of those Nintendo Classic consoles for Christmas. You know, the ones with all the games from our childhood? PacMan. Donkey Kong. Super Mario Bros., ONE, TWO AND THREE.

And it quickly became clear once we turned it on that my family is unlikely to do anything for the next 15 years other than play Nintendo.

Like moths to a super pixelated light, my husband and I pressed our noses to the screen, that oh-so-unforgettable music filling our ears. The music of the angels, if angels sported mullets and Jordache jeans and oversized, unflattering eyeglasses.

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It was all so familiar, and yet somehow new, considering it had been close to three decades since either one of us had felt those comforting buttons beneath our fingers. Almost immediately we fell into that old trance, eyes glazed and fingers moving like lightning, murdering everything in our path with glee.

Our children, curious as to why we were refusing to feed them or take them for walks or generally acknowledging their existence in any form, eventually wandered over and were also immediately dragged under the spell of the Nintendo. All too soon, requests of “can I play next?” started pouring forth from their lips, eventually escalating into shouts of “IT’S MY TURN NOW!” Which, as their parents, we very maturely responded back “NO, IT’S STILL MY TURN!”

We haven’t cleaned in weeks. Empty pizza boxes are stacked like fortresses around our living room, with discarded juice boxes and wine bottles acting as moats around them. All of our hair has started to resemble the characters on those TV shows about Vikings.

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Sometimes, in those brief moments where I blink and remember there is a life outside of rescuing the princess, I wonder if I should be worried about what kind of damage this is doing to us. Especially the kids. Everyone is always yelling about the importance of limiting screen time and how video games are bad for developing brains and that Cheetos apparently don’t contain all the nutrients a body needs.  

But then, happily, it’s my turn again and those silly thoughts shoot right out of my head with the speed of a jumped-upon turtle shell in Super Mario Bros.

Besides, I choose to think of this whole thing as more like how families of yore used to sit around the fireplace, reading classic literature out loud to each other and bonding or whatever. Only instead of a fire we have a magic box that makes little Italian men run and jump and squish evil mushrooms sporting heavy eyebrows. And is there truly any more of a bonding experience than witnessing your 2-year-old finally learning how to run AND jump at the same time as opposed to just walking into a wall for eight minutes straight? I mean…

There is only one thing truly missing from my life right now. So if someone could just leave Doritos and Jolt Cola on my front porch, I’d really appreciate it.  

 

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