I love this so much I can’t even talk. At this point, I’m just staring and drooling… join me, won’t you?
Preschool Prison Tats
I didn’t see this one coming. Clearly. Clearly, I should have. We all know Emma has been an innovator in Sharpie fashion for years and Sadie’s recent flirtation with all things goth should have been a red flag. But yesterday, I got busy making my AWARD WINNING White Chicken Chili, (What’s that?? WHAT award-winning chili?? I’m sorry… did you not hear?? I WON my church’s chili cook-off.) And had I not been obsessing about whether I should sauté my onions in butter or just throw them in to the pot to simmer in chicken broth, I would have realized that Emma was busy giving Sadie prison-style tats with a ballpoint pen.
Upon first glance, I assumed Sadie had scribbled all over herself again. But once I examined her face closely and saw the graceful arch of a butterfly wing above her left eyebrow– I realized Sadie had a little help.
Her colored in zipples are nothing new. It’s a Sharpie swimsuit… Sadie style.
I popped her up on the counter to get a better look and realized her right eyebrow had been penciled in… or rather, INKED in.
Then I saw this beauty and that’s when I knew, without a doubt, that Emma was responsible.
That’s definitely Emma’s handwriting on Sadie’s leg, but it was sort of hard to be mad… that’s pretty amazing penmanship for a 5-year-old.
Me: EMMA! DID YOU DRAW ALL OVER YOUR SISTER?
Emma, with her classic deer in headlights expression stuttered, “Uhhhhh. I just did the “M.”
Me: So you’re telling me that you “just” wrote the ‘M’ and SADIE, your TWO-year-old sister, wrote the ‘Ississippi’? UPSIDE DOWN? Really? That’s your story?
Emma blinked. “Well… okay. It WAS me.”
Clearly.
It wasn’t until several hours later when I was snuggling in my bed with Emma that I realized they had gone all Spring-Break-’97-Or-Bust and got matching tats…
At least it’s not a dolphin… right?
7 Links Challenge
My friend and fellow Bent Agency team member, Kimberly Brock challenged me to do this.
I feel like I’m picking my favorite kid, which is so hard and totally not fair– unless Aubrey and Sadie are cage fighting while Emma is folding laundry, then DUH. Super easy decision. Emma.
Or if Emma and Sadie are putting stickers over every flat surface in the house and I’m laying in the bed with strep throat and Aubrey is bringing me ice water and patting my forehead, then obviously SHE is my favorite.
OR when Emma and Aubrey are embarrassed to be seen with me in public and Sadie gives me one of her big hugs where she says, “Mmmm-MMM!” No brainer. Sadie wins.
So… picking my favorite posts, it’s gonna be hard.
Most Beautiful: Sleeping Sadie
I love this post because it captures perfectly, in my memory, all those middle of the night feedings with my babies. That moment, when you forget you are tired and dirty and you become totally aware of how amazing your child is.
Most Popular: Her Birthday, My Gift
My attempt at putting into words a few of the ways that my children have made me a better person.
Most Controversial: Breastfeeding: How I Hate Thee, Let Me Count The Ways
Breastfeeding enthusiasts be warned. There are actually other ways to feed your baby that are healthy and CHRISTIAN. Probably the most bizarre comments I’ve ever gotten were on this post. How can it be un-Christian to formula feed? Or is it the actual bottle? Can you pump and still be okay with Jesus? What about people who adopt? Are they less Christian too, or are they exempt? Also, where are you coming up with this stuff??
Spoiler alert: People of the internet do not get to decide what I do with my bewbies. You don’t even get a vote. Boom. Deal with it.
Most Helpful: Mommy Tips: Multitasking
With this post I singlehandedly saved mothers everywhere a good hour and a half a day. During the summer at least.
Most Surprisingly Successful: Bayway Bridge Poopfest 2011
I had no idea so many people were terrified of driving over open water… or being trapped in a car with three kids who need a potty. This post was syndicated on BlogHer and my peeps lurved it.
Post That Didn’t Get Any Attention: Lawd, Help. I don’t know.
I’ve been doing this full time for almost three years. There are plenty of posts that don’t get any comments, but I know people are still reading… I see the numbers. I don’t know why some posts are more compelling than others…
Post I Am Most Proud Of: Warning: Do Not Take Me Seriously
I am proud of this post because it is The Point. It is My Purpose and it is WHY I write. I don’t need anybody to send me emails telling me how to raise my kids. Trust me, I’ll ask when I need help. I’m proud of this post because instead of continuing to let people send me ugly emails about how I need to get it together and “try lovingly touching your children, and rocking them… even until they are in preschool,” I spelled it out for them. (And yes, someone really said that to me.)
Funny story: After I wrote in a column, “For future reference any emails sent to my address in reference to columns can and will be used in their entirety and with the author’s email address,” well… everybody got REAL quiet.
Five blogs I read on a regular basis who I nominate for a seven links challenge:
Jennifer Engelbrecht: The Engelbrecht Family (She has no idea how hilarious she is or what a brilliant writer she is. It makes me love her more.)
Lysa-Jo Baker: The Gypsy Momma (Encouraging, uplifting and beautiful.)
Ann Imig: Ann’s Rants (Funny, funny and funny.)
Pauline Campos: Aspiring Momma (Poignant, inspiring, funny. A great blog for writers.)
Britt Reints: Miss Britt: In Pursuit of Happiness (Just what you would expect from a mom who sold her house and most of her posessions to travel across the country in an RV with her husband and two kids. Ballsy, honest, relatable, funny.)
Halloween in Handcuffs
Halloween gives you a lot of insight into people in general. It’s enlightening to see how people will dress when all bets are off and it’s socially acceptable to dress like Snooki from Jersey Shore. This year I have watched and listened to my daughters in silence as their personalities have poofed out of their little bodies and into real life like some sort of Disney movie.
Aubrey decided three months ago for that she wanted to be a Southern Belle for Halloween. There was no princess dress that cut the mustard. No, that simply would not do, dahling. We needed hoop skirts, and a Big Hat— not unlike her Momma’s Big Straw Hat of yore.
I searched high and low (but mostly low, we’re on a budget, you know) for the perfect and affordable costume and finally found it at Target. It is Pepto-Bismal pink, has hoops that bounce when she walks and a hat that shades her body in a six foot radius. She puts on her hoop skirts and church shoes at least once a day and walks around the house, curls swishing and giggles into her hands. Well, I declare, it’s the perfect costume for her.
Emma, my future CIA agent/mechanical engineer/ assassin/ stunt woman, didn’t even wait for me to ask her what she wanted to be this year. As soon as the first fall catalogue landed in our mail box she’s been saying, “I wanna be a girl cop.” I took one look at the picture in the magazine and knew exactly what was drawing her to the costume.
“You just want the handcuffs.” I said staring her down.
She tried not to smile and her eyes went wide, “No! I really want to be a girl cop!”
I raised my eyebrows. Emma’s love for anything with a lock and a key is world renowned— it is now, anyway.
“Well, I do want da handcuffs, too. But I weally want to be a girl cop.”
Thanks to Wal-Mart, her Halloween dreams are coming true.
Although she’s already lost the key to her cuffs, which we realized after she snapped them expertly on Sister Wife’s wrists. I heard the click and spun around just as Emma cinched the second cuff around my best friends’ right hand.
“Oh no! EMMA! Where is the key!?”
Time froze as Emma stared into Wifey’s eyes, both of them in disbelief. They turned in slow motion to stare at me. I doubled over laughing, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“I’m not sure how I’m going to carry Annie,” Sister Wife said referring to her three-year-old, but at least I can still drive.
I finally quit laughing long enough to call my husband into the house, where he introduced us to a little safety feature that released the cuffs… and Sister Wife.
My almost three-year-old was just as decisive as her sisters but much easier to please.
“Sadie what do you want to be for Halloween?” I asked.
“A punkin! A weally siwwy punkin!” She giggled.
It was all I could do to keep from punching my fists in the air and yelling, “VICTORY!!”
When Aubrey was barely walking, I bought a pumpkin costume at consignment shop for ten bucks. Sadie donning the costume this year will mean that all of my children have worn that pumpkin outfit at least twice as an official costume. Best ten dollars I’ve ever spent.
I’m sure that Halloween is going to get scary at my house in a few years. I imagine I’ll be saying, “You will absolutely NOT wear that out of the house!” and, “You want to be WHAT for Halloween?” are coming. But for now, I’m going to enjoy eating dinner with Miss Scarlet every night, laughing at my last silly pumpkin and fall asleep every night with the assurance that there is a crime fighter under my very own roof— ready to cuff anyone who steps out of line. (Or doesn’t.)
What are your kids going to be for Halloween? (Which Aubrey helpfully explained to me last week is really, “The devil’s birthday.” Thanks Mom.)
Win a signed copy of The CHICKtionary!
One of my favorite bloggers, funny women and Super (Silly) Moms, Anna Lefler has written a hilarious book, “The CHICKtionary: From A-line to Z-snap, the words every woman should know.” Go buy it NOW! You will laugh your head off and NOT be sorry!
Tell me what your favorite part of the video was for a chance to win a signed copy of Anna’s book! Contest ends Tuesday October 25th, 2011.
(The Kegels killed me.)
WINNER IS…. JULIE F!!
What’s Better Than An iPhone4S? Dry Shampoo.
No disrespect to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, but I’m pretty sure I just discovered the most groundbreaking invention of the 21st century: dry shampoo.
If you are a man, I don’t know that you can understand the full gravity of the implications of this marvel of modern science so I will spell it out for you. See, we women cannot wash our hair, rub a towel over it, go to sleep then walk out the front door the next morning. I mean, I guess we could, it’s getting close to Halloween and we could all band together to try to bring back the Bride of Frankenstein look. Although I don’t even think that worked for her. We have to work to walk out the door. Shampoo, conditioner, blow drying, flat irons, rollers— the list is extensive.
Because I no longer have any shame.
Dry shampoo is essentially time in a bottle. I don’t consider myself extremely high maintenance. My naturally curly hair can be washed and styled on Day 1, worn again in the same style on Day 2, swept into a ponytail on Day 3 and if times are desperate, shoved under a baseball hat on Day 4.
(Side note: I would just like the world to know that I do actually bathe everyday. FINE, most days. I just don’t always take the hour and a half required to do my hair.)
This scenario is workable if it’s a regular Mommy week of dropping kids off at school and coming home to do laundry, cook, clean and write. But occasionally I am required to be in public wearing something other than snot stained yoga pants on Day 3 or 4 and that is where the magic of dry shampoo comes into play.
You spray it in your hair and magically, your hair looks and smells clean. (Also it’s important to note that it may not necessarily FEEL clean, but let’s be honest– if you are trying to figure out how you can only wash your hair every four days, you’re not REALLY concerned with another person running their fingers through it, now are you?)
My hair stylist warned me that some people complained it made their hair feel stiff.
“Did you tell them it’s not supposed to REPLACE regular shampoo?”
I got so excited about discovering dry shampoo at my salon that I bought two bottles. The ladies in the shop laughed, “Two bottles?!”
“One is for my best friend, I never got her a birthday present.”
They all burst into laughter and I realized that giving someone dry shampoo as a gift is tantamount to a husband giving his wife a vacuum cleaner for their anniversary or a mother-in-law giving her daughter-in-law a year’s worth of membership fees to Weight Watchers. But alas, my bond with Sister Wife runs deep and I knew she would squeal with delight at my discovery.
I realize my kids can talk on my iPhone and simultaneously see their grandparents hundreds of miles away via iChat, and I mean no disrespect to Steve Jobs. But dry shampoo is the best thing that happened to this momma since God invented formula.
What’s the best thing that happened to you since formula? (Or a breastfeeding sling?)
That’s What She Said: Apple Crack
Today at lunch I was attempting to slice an apple for Sadie and myself. I have one of those handy, dandy apple-corer/slicer multitasker thingies and I was trying to use that. The apple was too big and I as pushed down as hard as I could on the slicer, it became lodged half-way through the apple.
I leaned in a little harder then laid across my kitchen counter on top of the slicer and the apple, applying all 95 of my pounds (What? 0_O) to try to force the blades through the fruit. Sadie, almost three-years-old, glanced up and yelled, “DO IT GUHL! CUT DAT APPLE WIF YOUR BELLY!”
I fell off my counter I was laughing so hard. She sounded just like me and she looked at me like I’d lost my mind when I laughed.
And one more:
I love picking up my and Sister Wife’s kids afterschool. That’s when you get the good playground dirt. My oldest, Aubrey and Wifey’s son, John Man are in the same class and they regularly tell on each other without meaning to.
Me: How was everybody’s day?
Chorus of children: Good.
Me: How was recess? Was everybody sweet?
John Man: Well, one girl was kind of fighting with Aubrey…
Aubrey: JOHN MAN, I NEVER wanted to talk about that EVER again!
John Man gets an “Oh crap” look on his face. “Sorry!”
Aubrey: That’s when John Man was having to sit out…
John Man: AUBREY!
I am giddy. I love this stuff but I had on my Serious Parent Face.
Me: John-John! What did you say?
He looked at his lap.
Me: You’re not going to get in trouble with me. Have you EVER gotten in trouble with me?
(No, because I get to be The Cool Aunt.)
He grinned. “Idiots and butt-cracks.”
Me: Mmmmm, well. Yes. That is bad. We shouldn’t say those words.
John Man: Well… I didn’t even know I couldn’t say those words at school. And then this girl tried to tell on me but I was already in time out for the same thing.
Aubrey: Johnny (We have many names for him.) remember when you called me that ‘EEEE” word??
John Man: Yeah. That was back when I thought you loved me and I didn’t like it.
Aubrey laughs nervously. “I don’t LOVE you, love you. You know that.”
John Man: I know.
Me: I’ll take 2 small Powerade slushies, 2 small Cherry Limeades, one small orange slushie and a medium Cherry Limeade.
Happy hour, indeed
Be sure and click the events tab for dates about book signings and readings. I should be able to tell you the name of the book AND show you the cover soon!!
Photo credit: I mean a picture combining butt-cracks AND apples? Genius.
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