Tag Archives: snl

All I need now are the mom jeans

Posted on September 22, 2016 | Leave a comment

Hey, you know when you’re sitting around the breakfast table, or maybe it’s Thanksgiving dinner, and everyone is talking and having a good time and someone mentions that great new movie they just saw and suddenly your mom goes…

“Oh yeah, it stars that good-lookin’ fella; Peter Dunphy.”

And everyone laughs. Oh, poor, silly mom. It’s Patrick Dempsey. Geez.

Only the thing is, it’s no laughing matter. Celebrity Name Dyslexia is a real disease. And it affects millions of parents each year. I should know. My own mother has suffered from it for years.

And then, just the other day, this happened with my husband:

popryan1popryan2popryan3popryan4popryan5

Oh sure, I had a good chuckle at the expense of my husband. I mean, he’s older than me so it didn’t come as too much of a surprise that he would start suffering from CND waaaaay before I did. Besides, it was likely to never even affect me. I was too young. Too hip. I used to be on the entertainment beat for a newspaper, for crying out loud.

But then…then…(ragged breath)…this happened this morning:

popaprill1popaprill2popaprill3

Celebrity Name Dyslexia is real, kids. And it’s horrifying. So, let’s all do our part to raise awareness about this terrible disease that cripples the street cred of parents all over the world. Let’s organize a 5K or a charity concert. Maybe we could even get someone famous to host. Like, say, Selena Gonzalez.

Or Liam Hemmingway.

Or Liam’s big brother, Thor.

Or that singer Della who has that hit song “Hey.”

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

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When pregnant women attack!

Posted on March 20, 2016 | 5 comments

The other day, my husband woke up, rolled over in bed and just stared at me, his bleary eyes full of fear.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I had a dream. A long dream. That you were mad at me. Just one, long, giant dream of you being really angry at me,” he replied mechanically while shivering involuntarily.

And there it was. Out of the mouths of babes. Or shell-shocked husbands, in this case. I have managed in my pregnant state to thoroughly traumatize an adult man. So much so, in fact, that he can’t even catch a break in his dreams.

In my defense, this is at least 50 percent his fault. He made his bed and now he has to lie in it while a huge, puffy, irrational wife yells at him because Tina Fey is no longer on “SNL” and why the hell did they take Cecily Strong off Weekend Update? Huh? HUH!?!

Still, I feel deep down that I should apologize. But I can’t. I just can’t. I’m lucky if at this point I can choke out a “good morning” without literally growling afterward.

feeding rage 1

Honestly, trying to pretend to be a normal human being when really you’re drowning in lady hormones that make you want to light everyone on fire is one of the hardest, yet overlooked, accomplishments of womankind.

Have you been set on fire by a pregnant woman? No? That proves right there how much inner strength we females have. Cause somewhere down the line, I guarantee a pregnant woman really, REALLY wanted to do you significant harm. You might not even know her. She could have been standing in line behind you at the grocery store when you were taking too long to find your debit card, unlike a normal person who would have already had their card out and at the ready while the FREAKING CASHIER WAS SCANNING YOUR DUMBASS ITEMS, YOU STUPID, BLOODY MORON, I HOPE YOU DIE.

prego rage 1

It’s worse this time too, believe it or not. Because now I have a toddler and every ounce of non-crazy in my pregnant body (which ain’t much) is used up calmly trying to explain to him for the 33rd time why we don’t headbutt Mommy’s face, no matter how hilarious he thinks it is. And any leftover non-crazy is used up trying not to hurl the sofa at my dog every time he barks (which is any time anything within a three mile radius of our house slightly moves).

Which means my husband gets the full brunt of crazy thrown at him on pretty much a daily basis.

For example, here are some reasons I got mad at him today:

  1. He let me eat too much cheese
  2. Someone drank a martini on TV and I got really jealous
  3. He knew Sookie wasn’t asked to be in the “Gilmore Girls” revival and didn’t tell me because he was worried I’d get irrationally mad about it
  4. He let me eat too much fried chicken.
  5. I fell asleep and missed the end of “Supernatural.”
  6. I’ll never be able to read all the books in the world before I die.

Exacerbating all this hormonal craziness is the fact that all the fun has been taken out of modern day pregnancy. Because science hates fun. So, drinking, smoking, fancy foreign cheese? Fuggetaboutit. Opium dens? Nope. You aren’t even allowed cheap thrills like a heady dose of NyQuil (just non-coma-inducing Tylenol for you, missy) or chugging a Red Bull until you are so caffeinated that the number 11 smells like purple.

You can’t even get properly fat anymore. It used to be you were supposed to take it easy and eat for two. Now my doctor is telling me hurtful things like “eat salad” and “exercise every day” and “your weight gain is unprecedented.” Plus, all those annoying people screaming at me to love my new soft, squishy, pregnant body; the same people, mind you, who for the past 30 years were screaming at me that the ultimate definition of feminine beauty was to be shaped like a scarecrow.

Is it any wonder we go crazy?

So, no, I won’t apologize to my husband. At this point, I’m just trying to survive until my due date.

But I do want to thank him. A huge thank you, in fact. As hard as pregnancy is, at least I know my partner won’t burst into tears and throw the remote against the wall if I ask him to turn down the TV. He has dealt with everything like a gentleman and a scholar. Even when I want to eat dinner at 4:30 p.m. because food is literally the only thing I look forward to anymore or I decide we have to go through all the closets RIGHT NOW and get rid of EVERYTHING because I am nesting and NESTING HARD.

Still, through all this, even when I’m getting ready to sling the last crazy arrow of the day at him, he kisses me, gathers all the pillows in the house and makes me a pillow fort on the floor because I can no longer get comfortable lying down on our lumpy couch.

And each night I fall asleep and sleep the peaceful, dreamless, beautiful sleep of the woman who knows she is truly loved.

prego rage 2

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Posted in Family, funny, Humor, Love, Marriage, Parenting, Pregnancy

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The Importance of Being Boring

Posted on April 18, 2015 | 8 comments

It doesn’t happen all at once. I suppose that’s why it happens to so many people. It just tends to sneak up on you. And by the time you realize what’s happening, it’s already too late.

Suddenly, you’re boring.

I should know. I have completely morphed into the most boring person alive (even including that guy I met seven years ago who started every sentence with “Well, actually,” and thought a three-hour diatribe about how much he hated George Lucas—while wearing a “Star Wars” T-shirt, mind you –was an appropriate response to the question “Hey, how are you?”).

Granted, the very idea of “boring” is relative. What you find boring and what I find boring could be vastly different. For instance, the few times I have accidentally watched sports is only because alcohol tends to hang out wherever sports are happening. And I’m the kind of devoted drinker that will pretend to care about 11 burly men in ridiculously tight pants if it means society will give me a free pass to get drunk at two in the afternoon.

boring 1

And you, for example, may find books boring. Or fancy cheese. Or Saturday Night Live. Meanwhile, my life goal is to find a job that just lets me read all day while eating fancy cheese and the only time I’m interrupted is when Tina Fey and Amy Poehler take Instagram selfies of the three of us with the hashtag “Best Friends Forever.”

boring 4

Legend has it there are even people out there who find math exciting. Yes. Math. That thing with all the numbers but also, cruelly, letters and tiny hieroglyphics. But just like so many other legends, their existence is hard to proof (but if you look hard enough, there are cosines of them everywhere).

Sorry. I’ll stop being so acute. Math puns are a sine of a big problem. Never drink and derive, kids.

But the kind of boring I’m talking about, the kind of boring I have turned into, is universal. It’s the kind of boring you become once you have a baby. And while our society may be fractured on pretty much every topic imaginable, we can all agree at least that parents of young children are just the worst.

We are utterly obsessed with our children. They are all we think about. They are all we talk about. And they are all we think everyone else in the world wants to think and talk about.

Granted, in our defense, nature makes us this way because it knows that only an obsessed person could find the energy to pull a kid away from the computer cord 200 times a day, every day, without their head exploding. But that biological explanation is a poor consolation prize for the innocent barista I cornered for 27 minutes with my rambling monologue on how my son used to love bananas and now he hates them.

And the worst part is that we don’t even care that we’ve become boring. We don’t care that the only thing we can contribute to a discussion about Netflix shows is that Ricky Gervais was on an episode of “Sesame Street” and it made you laugh so hard that you scared little junior. Or that the last book you read was “Let’s Go To The Baby Animal Farm!” And you actually LIKED it. Or that the only political opinion you have these days is that someone should probably be elected president but here, look at this rash on my baby’s butt…do you think it’s regular diaper rash or something more serious?

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Oh my god, we are so boring. Which is why you see us parents of young children hanging out in clans. We’re the only ones who can put up with each other. And even then, we are secretly hoping Brenda shuts up about her stupid kid soon so we can talk about our own vastly superior kid.

The good news is that this too shall pass. The kids will get older and become more independent and with that freed up space in our brain that used to be occupied by cutting the crusts off approximately one million sandwiches, we will remember that we used to be a person too. A person with interests and hobbies and dreams and poop stain-free pants.

Yes, someday we parents will become people again.

But until then, you totally think it’s weird that my baby no longer likes bananas too, right? I mean, what’s up with that?

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Five years down, eternity to go

Posted on February 28, 2015 | 4 comments

As I sit here typing this, it’s my five-year wedding anniversary. Added bonus, this year also marks ten years since my husband and I first met.

I know, I know. So what am I doing writing and working on this oh-so-special day? But as I said, it’s been ten years. Using your anniversary to stare all googly-eyed at your significant other while you drink champagne and eat strawberries in bed is for new couples who haven’t yet had the experience of sharing a tiny bathroom while you both have the flu.

But still, this day is a pretty big deal, despite the horrible things that went down in that bathroom that we can never un-see. I mean, even after all these years, my husband is still my best friend. And I’ve only had two fantasies, three tops, of dropping a giant anvil on his head, Wile E. Coyote-style.

In all honesty, though, I love that man with all my…ugh, hang on a sec…what’s that, babe? … Babe? … RYAN! … What did you say? Are you talking to me or the dog? … Oh my god, if you’re talking to me, I can’t hear you. … Still can’t hear you. … Why the hell are you mumbling? … I don’t know, look in the junk drawer. … THE JUNK DRAWER. … Did you find it? … I said DID YOU FIND IT? … I can’t. … CAUSE I’M BUSY, DAMMIT. … I’m writing about how much we love each other. … I SAID HOW MUCH WE LOVE EACH OTHER, GRANDPA! Son of a …

Anyway, as I was saying, I still love that man as much, if not more, than I did on our wedding day. Which, trust me, is a lot considering the beer was flowing like wine at our reception and Momma was a VERY happy girl that day.

And now that we have a baby, we’re closer than ever. A child truly is the ultimate manifestation of love between two people and …ah, hang on…Riker, honey, Mommy can’t play with you right now. She’s writing about what an awesome wife and mother she is. Here, go play with Daddy’s cell phone. Just don’t throw…and you threw it down the stairs. Awesome.

Anyway, starting a family allowed us both to see each other in a new light. And while that new light isn’t always flattering (I haven’t plucked my eyebrows since November), there is this beautiful sense that you have created something that is not only bigger than you, but bigger than the both of you. And that bigger something is full of joy and love and yes, a bit of chaos, but chaos isn’t always a bad thing. Because, as the old saying goes…Oh, come on! What now? … Seriously, dude, you need to speak up. … No, I have no idea where your cell phone is. Now, can I finish this, please? For the love of …

ANYWAY, as I was saying, marriage is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. Wait, is that the saying? Well, it doesn’t matter. It still fits. I remember all the nights we sat around drinking wine, making elaborate plans those first few years. The things we would do. The places we would go. The shiny, shiny things we would buy because hey, it’s not like we’ll be poor forever.

And even though hey, we are going to be poor forever because kids need a lot of stupid, expensive crap, and even though I still haven’t been tapped to replace Tina Fey on SNL and he hasn’t yet turned into Batman, and even though our last vacation was to exotic Costco, what did happen was a decade of a very happy life together (minus one flu-ridden weekend that still gives us daymares).

You know, when it comes down to it, it really is the simple things in life that make it …I swear to all that is holy, if you two keep bugging me while I’m trying to write this, I will throw away both of y’alls toys and comic books, got me? Do not test me. And stop all that screaming. I’m almost done. Just give me a few more minutes.

Ugh.

Anyway…I don’t know. Marriage is great and junk. Blah, blah, blah. You get the gist. Now, if you’ll excuse me, one and/or possibly both of my beloveds is bleeding and it appears the dining room table is on fire.

P.S. While I’ve been busy making fun of my husband to collect some cheap laughs, he cleaned the entire house, arranged for a babysitter so we can go out tonight and took care of our fearless and highly mobile son (all while actually leaving me alone so I could write this). I know. I don’t think I deserve him either. Thanks for putting up with me all these years, Ryan. I love you.

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Posted in Family, Humor, Marriage, Parenting

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