Category: humor

babies · beauty · humor · mood issues · motherhood · sleep

The Latest Post-Partum Depression Fix: Flamboyant Baby Boy Clothes (from the Momplex Blog archive)

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My baby son is dressed like something out of Brokeback Mountain right now. He’s wearing a plaid flannel get-up that runs from head to toe with mother-of-pearl snap-buttons. My husband almost barfed when he saw it this morning. I purposely dressed the baby in something completely horrid-adorable (there is such a hybrid, you know), because I need a good laugh. There’s one to be had somewhere at this stage, isn’t there? I mean, sure, he can’t fall asleep or stay asleep without gobs of hair-raising crying or being bagged. And sure I basically have to wear him on me 10 or so hours every day. But isn’t there a bright side?

Heck, yeah! It’s the fact that little 12-pound baby boys look downright hilarious in flannel coveralls with mother-of-pearl buttons. They also look pretty funny in fake antennae from Gymboree, particularly when they’re crying. Oh, and a miniaturized huntsman cap with earflaps, like something out of the movie Fargo, is an excellent outfit for babies with colic, too.

He’s crying right now in his swing. He’s been up since 6 a.m. It’s almost 9 a.m., and I’ve been trying to get him to sleep since 7 a.m. His brow, as usual, is all knitted up . (I think the kid’s going to need Botox before he’s four.) His little stiff John McCain arms are shaking, and his mouth is in the shape of a big O, wailing. My nerves are completely frazzled, and I’m so tired and jittery that I’d probably fail a roadside sobriety test. I’ve had the reprise of this song, which I blasted on the radio to lull him to sleep in the car yesterday, running like a broken record through my head for about 18 hours now. I stink like spit-up.

But, man, I still don’t think it’s an emotional breakdown that a size 0-3 fuschia leopard-print unitard with a miniature clip-on bowtie couldn’t remedy. And, after all, it’s not couthe to start pouring martinis this early in the morning…

Is it?

Originally published 2009, JLF and the Momplex Blog
crafts · humor · motherhood · speed-posts

Pinterish: Kinda Sorta Making Something You Saw on the Web (from the Momplex Blog archive)

Jenny3 Comments

I once tried to fix the sole of a saddle shoe using nothing but Superglue. Just eight years old, I figured how hard could it be?  I ended up conjoining two of my fingers and gluing the shoe to the kitchen floor. With a great deal of tugging on my part, the shoe eventually did lift from the floor but so also did the white tile—a couple of quarter-sized pieces at least. My mom arrived home just in time to see me crying hysterically while trying to cover up the bald spots. Out, out, damn spots! I was using white watercolor and a tiny watercolor brush.

Fast forward 30 years, and I am still not a quality do-it-yourselfer. I wish I were, but I don’t have the patience. This is an actual board I keep on Pinterest:

Pinterest

See that teepee to the right? See that bleeping teepee? Well, I don’t know who the hell I think I am, but I tried to make that thing today. I can’t explain why, but something came over me in bed this morning when realized I had a whole day with my 5-year-old to myself. (Normally my mom has him for a few hours on Mondays.) It was windy outside, and I thought, “We should have a kite.” My next thought was, “I could totally make a kite.” But once I got onto Pinterest, my ambition somehow morphed from cutting out a paper-bag square to building a mother-loving TEEPEE.

The crafter who designed this project had me convinced that she made it out of random fabric remnants already somewhere in her house, and that she just had to buy six 1x2x8 planks, tie them together with some jute, and glue-gun a bunch of fabric pieces to the frame. She didn’t spend even $10 on the whole thing! Someone else on Pinterest actually had the gall to refer to this nightmare as a “fun DIY gift idea!”

Let me tell you, I worked my ass off making this ridiculous teepee today. Do you know what happens when a dwelling is designed by a crafter rather than an engineer? It looks great on Pinterest but has the stability of a drunk snow crab. Also, I don’t know how the hell this crafty person defines collapsible and easy to store, but I think she was smoking something. Well, actually the teepee was extremely collapsible until I went rogue with her design, yelled GODDAMNIT in front of my kids, and tied the thing my own way.

While I was trying to put together this hot mess of a teepee, the only way the kids could really help was by cutting some strips of fabric. Once that was done, I was on my own. It took me three freaking hours and so many hot-glue gun burns to my fingertips and wrists to make this unholy mess:

DSCF3422

It looks fine. I realize that. But if I had seen a picture of MY teepee on Pinterest this morning, coupled with an honest description, I never would have done it. I’d have made a paper-bag kite. “This overwrought reading nook will cost you only $60, too many hours, and much of the respect your kids had for you before you started it!”

I yelled a lot today, for example when my 5-year-old randomly peed his pants for the first time in probably two years while honoring my request that he find something to do other than beg to reload my hot-glue gun. He did find something to do, in the upstairs bathroom:

DSCF3417

Not sure what you’re looking at? I’ll zoom in:

DSCF3418

Still not sure? Me neither. Whatever it was, he couldn’t bring himself to leave it for long enough to sit on the toilet RIGHT NEXT TO IT when he needed to pee. And was he ever pissed off when he later discovered I’d drained that sink. He said I’d killed his “little glue man.” What? I don’t even know what. All I could think to say was, “OH. MY. GOD. DID YOU USE MY LAST HOT GLUE STICK!?” I said this as if he’d eaten the last tin of smoked fish on an Arctic expedition, leaving me no other option for my next meal but human flesh.

The sad part is that I was just trying to do something fun with the kids today and had it backfire in the worst way. Instead of making memories, I made a scene. Instead of making dinner or making time to read or making my son put on actual pants instead of his pajama pants with the hole in the crotch, or just anything normal like that, I made a mess. My son and I actually had Home Depot hot dogs for lunch because I was more concerned with building this teepee than making something to eat. Which wouldn’t have seemed stupid at all if this teepee had been as awesome as advertised–not just to look at but to make. As it was, I worked on it all the way until my husband walked in the door from work, late, at which point I said, “Go look in the basement, then in the bathroom. Don’t ask me questions until after bedtime. I haven’t showered. The kids are having frozen pizza. We’re ordering Thai.”

When he came up from seeing the teepee, he couldn’t resist asking just one question, with the slightest hint of annoyance in his tone:

“Is that thing collapsible?”

No, honey. No, it isn’t. But I sure as hell am.

humor · phobias

How to Control Your Hygienist’s Uterus (from the Momplex Blog archive)

Jenny6 Comments

A gal walks into a dentist’s office. It’s the day of her child’s first-ever filling. This is a child who’s uncontrollably afraid of shots–so afraid she can’t even say the word shot. The child has tried, but before she can get it out, her face goes white as a sheet and she looks like she’s going to pass out. So, this gal who walks into a dentist’s office? She’s a little nervous about the Novacaine shot that’s going to precede her daughter’s fillings. She comforts herself with the signs that remind her it’s a children’s dental center. Of course, children’s dentists are trained to create a magical experience, calling their instruments of torture things like Mr. Thirsty and Little Tickler, words that sound dirty and sexy to adults but like a bucket off mewling kittens to kids.

Still, the gal is anxious that someone’s going to slip and use the word shot. If they do, all hell will break loose. There will be whistle-register shrieking and gnashing (instead of fixing) of the teeth. She watches as the hygienist straps the laughing-gas mask on the child. The gal bites her lip as the hygienest begins detailing for the child what she’s up to, showing off the parts of the machinery and such. Here it comes, the gal thinks. She’s going to say That Word. A thin line of sweat comes trickling over the gal’s eyebrow and into her eye. She’s filled with the dread and with the regret of not having properly warned the staff. Oh, sure they’ve seen “afraid of shots” before, but they’ve never seen it quite like this. Eardrums will be ruptured. The windows will shatter.

Panicked as the hygienist continues explaining the steps to come, the gal grabs a large piece of scrap paper from her purse, rummages out a pen, and quickly scribbles a request. She casually walks over to the hygienist and clears her throat.

“I need you to just take a quick look at this,” the gal says. She shoves the scrap of paper under the hygienist’s nose. The hygienist looks confused, affronted. Is this really so much to ask? the gal wonders. She can already feel the brush-off, the certainty of being dismissed. More aggressively now, she sort of shakes the paper at the hygienist. And with her eyes, not her mouth, she says, Look, honey, register what I’m telling you and heed me before you do something you regret.

Then the gal realizes what she’s used for scrap paper, and that she needs to rotate it counter-clockwise to reveal her handwritten secret message:

At least there was a smiley face on it.

“Ahhh,” says the hygienist to the gal, laughing a little. “We never do that here, not even with the older patients.”

And yes, that gal was me.

Originally posted 2009
Copyright 2009 JLF and the Momplex Blog.