Tag Archives: funny

With great power comes great therapy bills

Posted on July 27, 2014 | 1 comment

I had no idea, you guys. No idea. I was ready for the sleepless nights, the dirty diapers and even the ass-numbingly dull act of reading the same stupid children’s book over and over again. But nothing, NOTHING, could have prepared me for the power that comes with parenting.

The sheer POWER, people!

And I’m not just talking about the immense physical power you have over a baby. Although I think we can all agree it would take very little effort on your part as an adult to kick a baby’s ass. I mean, sure, their little hands are always balled up in tiny fists, but most babies can’t throw a decent punch. So right there you already have a pretty big advantage. Plus it’s pretty difficult to execute a decent roundhouse kick when you can’t even hold your head up properly.

And I’m not even talking about the almost god-like power that comes with you being the only thing standing between your baby and certain death. They count on you entirely for food and shelter and clothing and hitting that button on their toy that starts the music. (They’re not like cats. You can’t just put them in a crib with a bunch of bottles and a litterbox and leave for three days. They’re much more like dogs in that they will alert you every five minutes with their status update. Hungry now. Want attention now. This ball appears to be stationary and I’d really like it not to be now). In fact, a baby’s survival rate without your direct interference is pretty low.

But even so, the greatest power you hold as a parent is that you are your child’s first and most important teacher. Seriously, these kids come out of the womb knowing nothing. They haven’t even heard of the Kardashians yet. You have to teach them EVERYTHING. (Well, everything except how to suck on a nipple and how to poop in the tub, both of which they do automatically by instinct).

As a new parent, this is a pretty intimidating thought. One, because with that much power, it’s very hard not to become corrupt. History has taught us that. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and whatnot. I mean, just think how easy it would be to teach them that the sky is called a nurple and that they should call your mother Dave instead of Grandma. If you think about it, there’s really nothing stopping you from doing this besides basic human decency and the priceless look on Grandma’s face when junior yells “Hi, Dave!” across the restaurant pretty much trumps that.

And two, that much power leaves a lot of room for mistakes. Take, for example, how my husband and I have accidentally set back our son’s language skills by years, if not decades.

It all started innocently enough. About three months ago, when Riker was at that stage where he was smiling but not quite laughing yet, we were doing everything short of standing on our heads to get him to giggle. Goofy dancing. Silly songs. Some Louis C.K. jokes while standing in front of a brick wall.

Nothing.

And then we did stand on our heads. And then we stood on each other’s head.

Again. Nothing.

Nada.

Zilch.

Just the vacant stare of a baby who is wondering just how crappy of a person he was in his previous life to end up with these two yahoos as parents this time around.

But just when we were about to give up and face the reality that we gave birth to a tiny Ben Stein, we finally discovered his particular brand of humor: The Horsey Noise.

Yes, for this kid, that sound when you vibrate your two lips together like a horse’s neigh was the height of comedic genius. He just laughed and laughed. And so we kept doing it. Because once you hear your baby laugh, you never want that sound to end. We did it 50 times in a row. And then another 100. He would just laugh and laugh and then poop and then laugh some more.

We did it so much, in fact, that he started imitating us. Spittle and drool flying all over the place as he Horsey Noised and then we Horsey Noised and then we all Horsey Noised together. We just couldn’t stop. It was so adorable. Not to mention so monumental considering it was his first major attempt to communicate with us that wasn’t in the form of screaming.

So there we are, the three of us, just doing the Horsey Noise back and forth for weeks. When one day we noticed he started doing it the moment he saw us. He’d greet us with Horsey Noise and say good-bye with Horsey Noise. And then he started doing it every time we talked to him.

“Are you hungry?”

“…(horsey noise)…”

“Can you say ‘Momma’?”

“…(horsey noise)…”

With growing uneasiness, we also noticed that whereas he used to babble and coo and make different sounds, they’d all been replaced by Horsey Noise. My name? Horsey Noise. Daddy is also Horsey Noise. The dog? You guessed it. Horsey Noise.

It’s gotten to the point that I know we should stop but I worry that if we do, it may cause some severe psychological damage. The Horsey Noise is the first time we’ve been able to verbally relate to each other. So suddenly no longer doing it back to him would be like your parents having spoken to you in French your entire life and then suddenly addressing you in Chinese with no explanation.

And he’s just so proud he finally mastered Horsey Noise. I can’t take that away from him.

So, obviously there’s only one solution. Everyone is just going to have to make Horsey Noise their primary language. Even Dave.

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Humor, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Time flies when you’re elbow deep in poo

Posted on July 20, 2014 | 1 comment

It is currently 9:04 p.m. as I write this. If you were to put a gun to my head right now and demand that I recount how I just spent my entire day, I’d be dead. Like super dead.

(Super dead, of course, being more dead than just regular dead and a lot more dead than mostly dead).

That’s because I have no bloody idea what I did today. Or yesterday. Or for the past five months.

It wasn’t always this way. I used to be able to flawlessly recall my daily activities, from what Netflix show I was currently binge watching to what specific type of pizza roll I was mindlessly eating while binge watching said Netflix show.

And then I became a parent.

See, as it turns out, parenthood is a constant state of being where you never have any free time and yet nothing ever seems to get done. And even though my to-do list has now been whittled down to just one main objective every day (“keep kid alive”), at the end of the day, I can’t tell you how I got there.

free time 3

I mean, sure, in general terms, I can say, yes, I fed him and changed his diapers and played “I’m Gonna Eat Your Tootsies” roughly 316 times. But the math just doesn’t add up. Because doing those things technically only takes up a relatively small portion of my day.

free time2

So, how is it then that when I crawl into bed at night, I have no idea where the other 70 percent of my day went?

Well, being the scientifically minded person that I am, I came up with some theories.

Possible Theories On Where The Time Actually Goes:

  1. Babies are like vampires. You look into their adorable eyes and are unknowingly glamoured. But since they can only babble instead of talking in full sentences, your brain isn’t filled with false memories but rather with a jumble of random sounds and images.
  2. Just like road hypnosis, where you are suddenly sitting in the parking lot of work but don’t remember driving there, there is such a thing as diaper hypnosis, where you change diapers so often you no longer remember doing it.
  3. Patrick Stewart invented some kind of machine that steals minutes from the lives of anyone who watches reruns of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and that’s why he hasn’t aged in 30 years.
  4. Maybe time really does fly when you’re having fun. And it shoots off like goddamn rocket when you have a baby screaming directly into your face.
  5. Technically bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly because their bodies are too heavy for their wings and other science stuff. And yet, they still fly. I don’t really know how this relates to me never having any time but you gotta admit, that’s pretty shady. They’re up to something.

free time 1

Or it could just be that you can no longer remember what you’ve done all day because as a parent, you’re doing 12 things all at once, all of them one-handed and at least three-fourths of them half-assed.

For instance, I still watch Netflix but now I’m also trying to shovel a spoonful of glop (the technical term for rice cereal mixed with breast milk) into a tiny and constantly moving target at the same time. And then I’m cleaning up the glop from the floors and the walls and the target’s hair and feet while trying unsuccessfully at the same time to keep the dog from eating the leftover glop that is smeared all over the kid’s face. All while also talking to my mom on the phone because this was the only “free time” I had to talk. And then I empty only half of the dishwasher because I just remembered I need to take the clothes out of the washer, the same load that’s been in there for 11 days because I keep forgetting about it, just rewashing it over and over again because by the time I remember it’s in there, all the clothes are dank and musty. But on my way there, the kid throws up and so I go to change his clothes, putting him in my old Nirvana T-shirt because all his clothes have been in the washer for 11 days. And then he’s crying so we go for a walk in the park (first packing a diaper bag with 98 percent of my son’s belongings inside it) while I try to pay bills online via my smartphone, steering drunkenly one-handed and running over squirrels and small dogs. And then we’re home and I take him out of the stroller only to discover he left behind the entire contents of his lower intestines. So then I’m elbow deep in poo and bleach and my husband calls to see what we want to do for dinner and all this continues for 16 more hours until I go to bed wondering what the hell just happened.

It could be that’s where all the time goes.

But personally, I think it’s the bumblebees.

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Humor, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , , ,

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Baby Toy Assembling

Posted on July 13, 2014 | 1 comment

I was told a lot of things about being a parent before I had my son. For example, some of my favorite gems include:

“You’ll never not be doing laundry.”

“You’ll never not be covered in fluids that aren’t yours.”

“You’ll spend the first part of their life trying to teach them to talk and the rest of their life telling them to shut up.”

But the one thing I wasn’t told? That I would need a degree in engineering.

Yes, I was, and still am, highly ill-equipped to deal with the barrage of “some assembly required” items that have entered my home since junior arrived. Toys, activity play sets, swinging chairs, various contraptions that basically serve as baby jails. All of them needing a toolbox and a set of skills that are more advanced than my current level of construction knowledge, which begins and ends with the phrase “rightie tightie, leftie loosie.”

And silly me, wasting all that time getting a journalism degree (which now should just be called a “Hey, want to write for my website for free? It’ll give you good exposure” degree) when I should have been building a replica of the Death Star or whatever it is they do in engineering school.

Take my most recent baby item building adventure. Last week, I discovered a still-in-the-box bouncy chair, which was revealed after the Great Stuffed Animal Mountain Avalanche of 2014 (a mountain hastily constructed by me a few months ago while “cleaning” the nursery closet, which should already give you some idea of my engineering capabilities).

I immediately decided I had to put it together because as I’ve learned (and here’s a little parenting gem I can pass on to you), you can never have too many places to set your child down. So, I opened up the instruction manual and spent the next three hours doing the following:

Step 1: Hold down the two sides of the dobbler and insert the dobbler into the doohickey. But only if you happen to have the natural strength of Hercules because the dobbler is actually manufactured to be just slightly larger than the doohickey because we here at Generic Toy Company have a cruel sense of humor. In a last ditch effort, use a hammer (not included) to just bang the crap out of both parts until they fit.

Step 2: Take the oddly shaped bright red thingy and screw it into the oddly shaped bright yellow thingy.

Step 3: Insert the dancing cow beside the singing duckies until you hear it click into place.

Step 4: Hook the canvas piece onto the tiny plastic hook and then attempt to stretch it all the way across to the other tiny plastic hook. Which is, of course, impossible because we manufactured it to only go three-fourths of the way across. But that won’t stop you from pulling and stretching and pulling and cussing and getting all red-faced and sweaty until you finally get so fed up you throw it across the room while your dog cowers in the corner.

Step 5: Spend a frustrating 20 minutes looking for that stupid blue piece, which was JUST HERE A MINUTE AGO, DAMMIT!

Step 6: Locate the battery panel. Which you probably won’t be able to do because we hid it. Extremely well. And even if by some miracle you do happen to find it, we screwed it tightly shut because of all the criminals out there who sneak into homes and steal all the batteries from children’s toys. Even though technically that’s a counterintuitive measure considering there are no batteries in there yet. Spend 45 frustrating minutes trying to unscrew the battery panel screws, which are specifically designed to not fit well with any standard screwdriver. Insert 28 double AA batteries.

Step 7: Debate internally for at least an hour on whether or not this death trap is safe enough for your child.

Step 8: Decide “screw it” and plunk him down in the bouncy chair because you’ve been up since 5 a.m. and haven’t peed since 5:01 a.m. and it’s now 8 p.m. and your arms are numb from carrying him around and he hates the crib and the swing this week and you haven’t eaten since Tuesday and hey, kids in the 60’s survived licking lead paint walls and cars with no seat belts.

Step 9: Enjoy 12 blissful minutes of peace as he plays in the bouncy chair, which seems, at least marginally, structurally sound.

Step 10: At 13 minutes, take him out of bouncy chair because he is now crying hysterically.

Step 11: Add bouncy chair to the Corner of Useless Baby Crap, which is now no longer really a corner but more three-fourths of your living room.

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Humor, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , , ,

How to simplify your life in one easy step

Posted on July 5, 2014 | 3 comments

When you become a parent, you quickly find yourself looking for anything that will make your life easier. This is exactly why I own no less than five Fisher-Price devices that are all just glorified chairs, each of which moves the kid in a slightly different way. Oh, you’re tired of vibrating? How about swinging? No? Bouncing chair it is then.

Seriously, most of my day is spent just moving the kid from chair to chair so I can do fun parent stuff, like washing the covers of whatever chair he is not currently in because he doesn’t consider it a successful day unless he’s pooped through his diaper at least three times.

And suffice it to say, my kid is an overachiever.

But this quest to make my life just a little bit easier has led me to my greatest idea of all time. I am currently writing this using a speech-to-text app. Yes, no more trying to write with a squirming kid climbing all over my face. I just talk and it types. I know. I know. I am brilliant exclamation point.

Oh crap. Well, I’ll just go back and fix that later.

Where was I? Oh yeah, simplifying my life. Oops. I forgot it writes down everything I say. Don’t forget to erase this part.

Thankfully, we modern parents have fabulous technology available with just a click of button to help us out. I mean, I can’t imagine how hard it was even a few decades ago for a mom to try and work from home without all the conveniences that we have BUFFY, STOP LICKING THE BABY’S FACE. I mean it. I will spank your little puppy butt if you don’t knock it off.

New paragraph. Oh, son of a beach. Come on.

Well, at least the auto correct works on this thing. Thank Bob.

OK. So, modern conveniences. Just imagine, for example, how much time is saved with disposable diapers and the freedom that is gained with a breast pump. The fact that I can pump and leave my husband with a bottle so I can leave the house is pretty much the only reason that my sanity is still intact. I would have gone crazy long ago if Riker, get that out of your mouth. How did you even manage to pull that much hair off the dog? No, icky. Give it to mommy. Bob, I can’t wait until summer is over and the dog stops shedding.

Technology. Technology. Maybe insert some joke about Angry Birds raising my kid. No, that’s dumb. No one plays Angry Birds anymore. Words With Babies? Is that anything? This is going to be my worst column ever BUFFY, I SAID DUCKING KNOCK IT OFF.

Oh, sweetie no, don’t cry. Mommy was yelling at the dog, not you. Come here, little butt. Man, I really need to think of a better nickname for you. You’re going to kill me someday when you’re older and it gets out that I called you little butt when you were a baby. Speaking of which, do you need a diaper change? Oh, I think you do.

Whoa. Buddy, that’s a lot of shot. What have you been eating? Or, I guess, what have I been eating? With little butts come big packages, eh? Oh my Bob, I have poop on my shirt. When the he’ll did that happen?

OK, we a happy boy again? Who’s a happy boy? Who’s my happy boy? Wanna go in your chair so momma can finish dictating her column? Alright, let’s try Mr. Swing. I’ll even turn on the Bob awful music feature, where all the songs sound like they were composed on an eighties keyboard. No? You don’t like the swing today? OK, how about the highchair that feels like it’s made from Nickelodeon slime? You good there? Yes? Yay! That’s my good BUFFY! I will punch you in the face if you don’t quit it. That’s not your ducking toy and you know it. Drop it. I SAID DROP IT. Good boy.

Oh Bob. It wrote all that down? Shot, this was a horrible idea. I’m so ducking tired. And I should probably do the dishes before that leaning tower of plates collapses.

Hmm. I guess I could just come back later and fix all this. I’m sure I won’t forget. I mean, ha! Even I’m not that sleep-deprived.

Yeah, screw it. I’m gonna go stuff my face with chips.

3 Comments

Posted in Family, Humor, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

33 Things I’ve learned in 33 years*

Posted on June 22, 2014 | Leave a comment

*(New Parent Edition)

1. A baby’s cry has the magical ability to make time stop. For instance, 45 seconds of crying feels like three hours. And three hours of crying feels like you can’t remember life before the crying started and will probably die before it ends.

2. There are a lot of perks to having a baby. Using them as an excuse to stop cleaning your house is the best one.

3. How much a baby wants to vomit is directly proportional to how much you like the outfit you are currently wearing.

4. Never get mad when someone gets the gender of your baby wrong. Only get mad when they get your gender wrong.

33 things 1

33 things 233 things 3

5. Watching your kid get a shot at the doctor really does hurt you more than it hurts them. But then you remember how much the first six weeks of breastfeeding hurt and suddenly you don’t feel nearly as bad for them anymore.

6. Babies are born with two very strong instincts: To suckle and to headbutt you right on the nose. They will want to do both of these things often.

7. Ironically, babies themselves are the best form of birth control.

8. You will love your baby more than anything else in the world. Except for sleep.

9. Always assume a pregnant woman is hungry. Because she is.

10. You cannot fathom how much you will talk about poop once you have a baby. How much, how often, consistency, color, smell, whether or not it exploded out of their cute, little tushie like an erupting volcano. It will sneak into every conversation you have.

33 things 4

33 things 5

11. Apparently, there is such a thing as a stupid question. Or at least that’s what my son’s pediatrician told me when I called him at 3 a.m. last night.

12. Dogs love babies. And they show this love by licking them directly in the mouth every chance they get.

13. Hearing your baby laugh is the best sound in the world. I don’t have a follow-up joke for this. It just really is.

14. You will often find yourself oversharing incredibly personal information to your other mom friends, such as how your C-section scar is healing and why you need to use a nipple shield while breastfeeding. And you will do this loudly. While in public places.

15. Never tell a pregnant woman that cheeseburgers are not an acceptable breakfast food. She will stab you.

16. Babies use sleep deprivation as a mind control device. You will quite literally be willing to do anything for them if it means you can just take a five minute nap.

17. No matter how clearly you explain it to them, babies will never understand the correlation between them shoving their finger in their eye and why they are currently in pain and crying.

18. Never ask a pregnant woman if you think she should be eating that. She will stab you.

19. You will completely forget how much you hated people who constantly posted photos of their kids all over Facebook and Instagram while you’re busy uploading 56 photos to your album “Baby’s First Tuesday!”

20. Never eat off a pregnant woman’s plate. She will stab you.

21. If there was an Olympic sport called “Who can pee the farthest?”, a baby would win.

22. If there was an Olympic sport called “Who can spit the binkie out the farthest?”, a baby would win.

23. If there was an Olympic sport called “How many times can I make this idiot pick up the binkie off the floor?”, a baby would win.

24. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure maternity ward nurses are angels. Angels handing out magical painkillers made of rainbows and unicorns and the happy tears of a teacup pig.

25. The second you brag about how well your baby sleeps through the night is the second he decides to wake up every 15 minutes every single night for the next six months.

26. Never ask a pregnant woman if she ate that entire cake. She did. And she will stab you.

27. Grandparents are the only people on this earth who will not immediately hand back to you your screaming child.

28. Screw sliced bread. Disinfectant wipes are the best invention since forever.

29. Once you have a baby, eating a meal becomes a luxury. One you can no longer afford.

30. For some reason, babies hate any entertainment that isn’t jiggling keys. Hence, you will never watch a full TV episode or a movie in its entirety ever again.

31. Never tell a pregnant woman you think she’s gained too much weight. She will cry. And then she will stab you.

32. There are a lot of things wrong with the world. But it’s hard to think of any of them when you have a sleeping baby on your chest.

33. It’s likely at some point in your life you will be stabbed by a pregnant woman.

Leave a comment

Posted in Family, Humor, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , ,

A closer look at the American family

Posted on May 4, 2014 | 3 comments

The American family. A tradition dating back to the early 1600s. They can be found living among various habitats in North America, from teeming cities rich in natural resources, such as Chipotle, to the peaceful suburbs, where powerful tribes known by the moniker of “The Homeowners Association” roam the land, dictating grass length and the number of acceptable lawn gnomes. Utterly unique in the animal kingdom, these creatures can easily be identified by their colorful plumage, having decorated their bodies with various diaper bags, oversized purses and backpacks featuring a “Dora,” a small-statured explorer with a bowl haircut that is worshipped among the youngest of the herd.

The American family is among the most social of all the mammals (except when it involves the subject named “Debbie;” the female of the species isn’t talking to “Debbie” this week…further extensive research has concluded that “Debbie” knows what she did). They often gather for elaborate eating rituals, where animal flesh cooked on a primitive device known as a barbecue, usually by a male of the species named “Dave,” is consumed in large quantities and the young engage in playful romping that involves murderous screams.

Let us take a closer look at this fascinating species, focusing on a newly formed American family that recently had its first offspring.

IMG_20140323_124722

Like many American families, this one began with marriage, a tradition in which rings are exchanged and the technology known as “Netflix” replaces formerly vigorous mating rituals. After three years of this marriage, the male of the couple impregnated the female by seducing her with his elaborate mating call of “Hey…you wanna…you know?”

IMG_20120913_181843

The gestation of the pregnant female is nine months, during which both the female and the male eat copious amounts of food, a biological response to the upcoming months of starvation they will face once the offspring is born and they no longer have time to forage for food in the kitchen.

For this particular American family, the bulk of the child-rearing duties falls to the female, whose personal hygiene has taken a backseat to ensuring that the offspring survives.

IMG_20140226_063606_438

Her day is also spent guarding the child from dangerous predators, such as the family dog, who lurks on the periphery waiting for its chance to attack the child with never-ending licks directly inside the child’s mouth.

IMG_20140411_111350

The male of the species, after a long day of hunting for editorial approval and gathering fonts, arrives to the shared dwelling and is greeted by the female hurling the offspring directly at his face while she retreats to the bathroom, where she will curl up in the fetal position on the floor and call her best friend to engage in a ritual known as “venting.”

Left alone with the offspring, the male attempts to keep it entertained until he notices the female crawling across the floor army-style toward the front door, where the following conversation takes place:

Male: “Where are you going?”

Female: “To the grocery store.”

Male: “But we don’t need anything, do we?”

Female: “I don’t care!”

It is at this point that the clock strikes seven and the male is filled with trepidation. For it is at this time that a unique phenomenon known among the natives as “the witching hour” begins. Although no one knows why, some biological urge within the offspring’s DNA causes it to cry and scream nonstop at this time every night, often to the point of vomiting (it being a well-known fact that the young of the American family are nauseated by the sight of a nice button-up shirt). Note, if you will, how former techniques used during the day, such as the “bouncy-bounce” knee maneuver and the “Look! It’s Mr. Giraffe!” distraction method are now useless against the growing tide of cries.

Exhausted and confused, the male will often resort to trying to use logic with the child, but so strong is this biological urge to cry at heretofore unheard of decibels, the child ignores his pleas of “come on, buddy, no need to get that upset”. Eventually running out of ideas, the male will often resort to simply letting the offspring cry, often crying alongside him.

IMG_20140419_213337

It is at this point that the female generally returns, after first standing outside the front of the dwelling repeating the mantra “I can do this, I can do this” for five minutes. But the storm is over. Just as quickly as it began, the witching hour ends and soon the exhausted offspring is fast asleep.

IMG_20140306_100033

And the male and female celebrate another successful day of child-rearing by drinking fermented grapes and vowing to never have any more offspring until the first offspring has graduated college.

 

3 Comments

Posted in Family, Humor, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , , ,

My baby is better than your baby

Posted on April 27, 2014 | 3 comments

I always said I would never be one of those parents that beamed with pride every time my kid did something, like fart. You know the parents I’m talking about. They show you their newborn and then regale you with endless tales about how the precious little lump can gurgle and spit up at a five-month-old level. And have you ever seen a more perfect poop? The kid can poop perfectly every single time. Look out, Harvard.

But not me.

Never me.

And that lasted all the way until I took my own precious little lump out on the town.

Yes, just the other day I took my two-month-old to my husband’s office for a quick lunchtime visit, our first big excursion out into the world together besides our daily walks in the park. Which means it was the first time I had showed him off to a large group of people. And being a new mother, I had no idea what I was in for.

As soon as we got in the door, people started “oohing” and “ahhing” over him. And soon thereafter, the silent “Someone Brought Food, A Puppy Or A Baby” alarm that all offices have went off, bringing people from all over the building to ogle my baby. We couldn’t walk two feet without running headfirst into another compliment.

I fought it for as long as I could. I really did. But soon all the “he’s so adorable!” and “look how alert he is!” comments started to get to me. My head started to swell and I started to agree with everything they said.

“Such a well-behaved baby!”

Pride 2

“Look at that red hair! That’s so rare!”

Pride 3

“What an angel!”

Pride 4

“He can hold his head up already? That’s amazing!”

Pride 5

I even started silently agreeing with people when they told me I had done such a good job, like I had personally sculpted his perfect cherub face with my uterine muscles while I was pregnant, rather than what I really did for nine months, which was eat cheeseburgers in bed and fart a lot.

Pretty soon I heard myself saying things like “he already sleeps through the night” and “the doctor said he’s tall for his age.”

I wasn’t just beaming with pride about my kid. I was downright bragging about him. I have leftover pizza in my fridge that is older than he is, and yet I was acting like my baby had cured cancer in between his rigorous napping schedule.

I had turned into the kind of parent I hated. But it’s so hard to resist the siren call of public approval. Sure, you think your baby is the most adorable, not to mention smartest, child to ever exist. But when you also have a group of people confirming all these things to you in a high-pitch squeal, it’s almost impossible not to create a monster.

Luckily, once we got back home, he had an epic meltdown, which as it turns out is the perfect antidote for Giant Ego About My Baby syndrome. It quickly brought me down to earth and we returned to our mundane daily routine of feeding, changing and yelling at the dog to “Stop licking his face, dammit!” And once again he was just a normal baby and I his (mostly) normal mom.

Although, I’m pretty sure I heard him say “Momma” while he was crying.

3 Comments

Posted in Family, Humor, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , ,

The baby who cried “WAH!”

Posted on April 5, 2014 | 2 comments

I don’t want to appear ageist or anything, but there’s probably a good reason why there are no baby CEO’s or babies currently seated in the Senate. And that reason is that babies are horrible communicators.

I know, I know. That’s not a very politically correct thing to think in this day and age. But hey, someone had to say it. And, trust me, I would know. My very own baby just happens to be a baby. And most of the time, I have no bloody idea what he is trying to say.

Wah 1

For instance, just the other morning he was repeatedly trying to lodge a very loud and formal complaint about something. But all I heard was “WAH! WAH!” over and over again. Here is the exact transcript:

“Wah!”

“What’s wrong, little man?”

“Wah! Wah!”

“Are you hungry?”

“Wah! Wah!”

“Does your diaper need changed?”

“WAH! WAH!”

“Are you mad at the ever-increasing wage gap in America that will most likely ensure we’ll never be able to afford college for you?”

“WAAAAAAAAAH!”

“Are you saying you think Mommy should have vodka?”

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

“I’m just going to assume you’re saying Mommy should drink some vodka.”

This exchange went on for a good 30 minutes before I ended it like how I end most of our arguments, which is by shoving a boob in his mouth regardless of whether he wants it or not.

Now I know there are so-called “experts” out there (and by “experts” I mean people who have been parents for exactly 30 seconds longer than I have) who claim that after awhile you should be able to decipher the different cries of your baby, easily discerning which one means hunger and which one means “the monkey on my mobile, which was just making me giggle four milliseconds ago, is now terrifying me.” But I call shenanigans! Because much like how my dog’s bark has the same terror alert level for everything from “I can see a squirrel outside!” to “Hey, you are getting murdered by a serial killer!”, my child has the same soul-shattering cry for every possible situation.

Which means that should the day come, God forbid, that he really is hurt or in distress, I won’t realize it because I’m assuming his cries for “my leg has been chopped off” will sound just like the cries he uses when I suck a booger out of his nose using the baby booger sucker thingy.

Of course, maybe it’s me. Maybe there is a whole subtle but complex language hidden within each individual “WAH!” and I’m just too oblivious or too sleep deprived or too busy trying to find that one lousy damn sock that always falls off to notice. Maybe this whole time he’s been desperately trying to tell me his wants and needs, his hopes and fears, and here I am, all making fun of him and constantly shoving boobs in his face to shut him up. Maybe I’m the problem here.

But hell, since he can’t currently speak for himself (and even if he could it would just sound like “WAH!”) I’m going to put the blame squarely on his tiny shoulders.

So if you guys read a news story about a mom in Boston who didn’t immediately take her infant son to the hospital after his limb was severed, just remember that it wasn’t out of cruelty or neglect.

It was simply because I was probably too busy sucking boogers out his nose and figuring out just how big a glass of vodka he wants me to drink to notice right away.

Wah 2

2 Comments

Posted in Family, Humor, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Stay-At-Home Moms vs Working Moms

Posted on March 22, 2014 | 2 comments

For those of you in the betting pool who picked that I would fail as a mother within a month, bad news: Riker is still alive. Not even maimed yet. Or as far as I can tell, permanently psychologically damaged (granted, that might change once he finally learns to reads and goes through all my old pregnancy blog posts…”Really, mom? My nickname in utero was Demon Wizard? Really?”).

However, now that we have made it to the one month mark fairly unscathed, the real test of parenthood is beginning. All the visitors have left. My husband has gone back to work. And I am now solely responsible for the lil’ Nipple Slayer (“Really, mom? Really?”) for most hours of the day.

Now, I was never one of those people who thought that stay-at-home moms had it easy. Nor did I think working moms were walking on down Easy Street in their pantsuits. And this is because (…brief pause while I dust off this here old soapbox…) I believe myself a true feminist who recognizes that women should not be judged for their life choices just because it isn’t the same as your life choice (…steps down and gently places soapbox back in its hiding place in the closet, right beside seven year’s worth of BUST magazine…).

But now that I am a few days into this new visitor-free, husband-less child care routine, while simultaneously still working from home writing my (WARNING! WARNING! Shameless self-promotion ahead!) award-winning newspaper column, I feel I can fully empathize with both sides.

In fact, just for fun, let me take you through a typical day of mine.

It usually begins at 4 a.m. That is, if my son decides it starts at 4 a.m. He could also decide to start it at 2 a.m. Or 3:17 a.m. Or, if he’s in a really festive mood, we simply blend the previous day into the next day with no discernible break in between.

Still half (occasionally all) asleep, I attempt to change his diaper, which he has turned into a fun game I like to call “Let’s Poop And Pee As Much As We Can In The Tiny Window Of Time Between Removing One Diaper And Thrusting The Other One Underneath My Tushy.”

He usually wins.

He also almost always wins what I call the Bonus Round, which is when he manages to pee on me no matter where I’m standing at the changing table.

We then eat breakfast, and by we I mean him and by breakfast I mean he gnaws on my breast for 35 minutes like a starving, feral piranha. Repeat three times until mid-morning when I finally get 47 free seconds and use it to eat my own breakfast of a moldy blueberry muffin, daintily crammed into my mouth whole.

After that, I usually kjfjfjfjfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff…

Oops, fell asleep on the keyboard. Sorry about that. What was I saying?

Well, anyway, at some point he finally falls asleep again, which is when I put him down in the crib for a nap, which is apparently the international baby sign for WAKE UP IMMEDIATELY AND START CRYING HYSTERICALLY! So I pick him back up and try to calm him while at the same time trying to clean my house at least a little bit considering I haven’t seen the dog in about three days and I suspect he’s stuck underneath the world’s largest pile of burp cloths.

Day in the life 2

At some point, I will actually get to go to the bathroom, which is when I notice I have run out of maxipads. And with necessity being the mother of invention and all, I make the executive decision to use one of Riker’s diapers until such time as I can get to the store (which I’m guessing will be in June).

By now, I’m lkkdkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk…

Oopsie. Fell asleep again. Um…where was I?

Well, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just say at this point I realize I have a looming deadline and need to finish (re: start) my column. So I put the baby in the magical vibrating bouncy chair I got at my baby shower and proceed to write exactly one sentence before I start to feel guilty because the baby is just sitting there, staring at me, doing nothing. And all the stupid baby books say you have to stimulate your baby CONSTANTLY or else he’ll end up as a drooling vegetable by the time he’s an adult. Or worse yet, an employee for the Department of Motor Vehicles.

So I then pick him up and try to write with him in my arms but this, as you can imagine, is less than sldddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd…

AH! Where am I!? Oh. Sorry. Happened again.

Well, at this point we’ve reached what is usually called “the witching hour,” which is when your baby decides to cry for three hours straight for no discernible reason. Although if I had to discern the reasons why he was crying, it would look something like this:

Day in the life 1

And now it’s the end of the day (the term “day” being subjective to my son’s whims, of course), I still haven’t showered, I have a tiny diaper shoved in my underwear and my column has exactly one sentence written and this helpful note below it:

“Something funny about soapboxes here.”

So, to all you mothers out there, I feel your pain. But let me share with you the one piece of advice I received that has truly saved my life and works whether you’re a stay-at-home mom or working hard at the office or doing both like me. And that advice is dffffgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg…

2 Comments

Posted in Family, Humor, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , , , ,