Today at a local indoor playground, video surveillance picked up footage of this two-year-old girl standing next to a toy car, actively preventing other children from playing with it.
“She looks like she’s going to cut a bitch,” a bystander remarked.
“Look at that side eye,” said the mother of an unnamed victim. “I told my kids to stay away from her! She’s dangerous.”
“I’ve always bragged about how sweet she is,” her mother wailed. “But clearly those days are over.”
The perpetrator allegedly dragged another child out of the play vehicle while screaming “MY CAR!” The victim ran away in tears.
Later, she terrorized a group of children playing in a pretend grocery store, taking plastic bananas and apples from their toy shopping carts without apology.
In her final act of abomination, the toddler climbed up the slides until her mother finally lured her away with promises of Goldfish crackers.
The perp with her siblings.
If you or someone you know has been affected by this tiny tyrant, please call the Save Me From This Toddler hotline at 888-888-HELL.
(If you liked this post, then you NEED to follow me on Facebook and Twitter!)
My uterus has served me well. 4 pregnancies, 1 miscarriage, 3 healthy babies.
All of my deliveries were relatively uncomplicated, I recovered quickly, and my uterus went right back to business. She did her job dutifully and predictably. I respected her for her hard work. We were partners.
But somewhere along the line, between the miscarriage and having my last two children very close together, my uterus and I stopped getting along. You know what it’s like to be stuck with a cranky bitch who makes everything miserable? That’s what it was like hanging out with my uterus.
After almost 2 years of issues, my husband begged me to go see what could be done about her. I sheepishly made my postpartum follow-up appointment … two years late.
“Your uterus is irritable,” the doctor said.
“Just like her owner,” I replied.
My uterus didn’t like that one bit.
My doctor ruled out every possible cause and finally said that my uterus was “unremarkable” (in addition to being irritable — she was really pissed off now) and I am otherwise perfectly healthy. He recommended an endometrial ablation. In layman’s terms: they go in there and laser off the uterine lining so there is nothing to slough off. No more periods.
Sold.
This isn’t a method of birth control, but it doesn’t matter because Robbie had a vasectomy as part of our agreement during The Great Negotiation For Our Third Child. The nurse who was in charge of me yesterday couldn’t BELIEVE that my doctor would trust me not to get a side piece of man meat.
“Your tubes aren’t tied?!” she gasped. “You know … if you … you know (looking at my husband to see if he was paying attention) with someone else, you could still get pregnant and you would have a bad outcome. Your doctor must trust you a lot.”
“Of course he trusts me,” I said. “I’m a writer.”
I gave her a business card.
Seriously considering changing the name of this blog to “Modern Mommy Medness.”
With all of my kids squirreled away, and under the effects of some amazing drugs, I had a really good time in the hospital. I’ve never been under any kind of sedation and have never seen the inside of an operating room, so it was a whole new experience. I was sad because they made me take my contacts out, and then remove my glasses before they wheeled me back, so I couldn’t see anything in the O.R. and I knew there was a lot to see.
I had a lot of questions.
I think they knocked me out early just so I would shut up.
Robbie reports as they were wheeling me back into my room the following conversation happened between me and a group of nurses:
Me: “I have a question. Do I have to wear pads after this?”
Nurses: “Yes, you will need to wear them.”
Me: (yelling) “I don’t have any pads! FUCK THAT! I burned them all after my third child!”
Nurses: “Well, Mrs. Hobbs … that’s why they sell them in stores.”
I have no recollection of this.
While Robbie did not manage to get that exchange on video, he did get manage to capture a really weird conversation which ended with me trying — and failing — to open a pack of crackers. And yes, the “spaceships” were actually the big lights in the operating room.
Enjoy.
(If you liked this post, then you NEED to follow me on Facebook and Twitter!)
Me: Why do you want to bring your composition book camping this weekend?
6-year-old: So I can write down all of the things I observe, like the flowers and the birds …
Me: (silently listening)
6-year-old: I have to keep my brain operating at an advanced level, or the “summer slide” will happen. That’s when you forget everything you learned over the summer.
Me: (silently listening)
6-year-old: The only “slide” I want to experience is a slide at the playground.
That’s my boy … 6 going on middle age.
WHEN DID HE GROW UP?!
(If you liked this post, then you NEED to follow me on Facebook and Twitter!)
After giving birth to two wild boys, I was elated to finally have the chance to parent a little girl. I remember the day we found out we were having a daughter. I spent the remainder of my pregnancy too excited to care about the fact that my nether regions were turning blue, and that’s saying a LOT.
Yes, you heard me right. Blue vagina. You can read all about it here … or not.
So far, it has been even more fun and amazing than I imagined it would be, although dealing with her hair is a lot harder than I’d expected. It’s so slippery, and she’s so wiggly. She has a lot of fine, thick hair, and she likes to chew on it. She pulls out all of her cute barrettes and bows.
Okay, FINE. She’s a hot mess, and it’s totally my fault.
I try to keep her neat and clean, with every hair in place, but it’s harder than I expected to keep a little girl looking put together. It’s hard enough keeping myself put together. So, more often than not, I end up saying JUST FORGET IT — let’s throw on a tiara and call it a day.
Using the oven as a mirror.
She does adorable things like walk up to me and wordlessly hand over her patent leather shoes or her brother’s cowboy hat, smiling up with her big, blue eyes until I do whatever it is that she wants me to do. She laughs and claps and is just learning how to hop up and down, which is adorable of course.
She uses our oven as a mirror, running to look at herself every time we change her clothes or fix her hair. Then she stands there and watches herself slooooowly pull out the pigtails I just spent half of my life painstakingly putting in.
Captain Cook to the rescue!
She’s really easy going, especially for a toddler.
Except when she’s not.
Pepper threw her first real temper tantrum yesterday in the kitchen as I watched with my mouth hanging open. She was playing with her brother’s Angry Bird slippers, and I don’t know what pissed her off, but it must have been bad.
She carefully arranged herself on the floor — there’s none of the hurling her body to the ground or smacking her head repeatedly that I’ve grown accustomed to from the boys — and paused for a moment, letting her rage brew.
One she was ready to begin, after she made sure that I was watching, she proceeded to throw her first epic tantrum.
I can’t tell if it’s that I’m desensitized from going through this two times already with really violent tantrum-throwers, or if I’m just out of fucks to give. Either way, instead of feeling super stressed out by it, I was absolutely captivated by the theatrics of her little girl tantrum.
It was the prissiest, angriest thing I’ve ever seen.
So much rage.
Careful not to look too ugly as she screamed.
Just crazy enough to hold my attention.
Precisely scary enough to keep me at a distance.
A lot of angst.
It reminded me of … me.
(If you liked this post, then you will LOVE I Still Just Want To Pee Alone! Click here to find out more!)
Have you ever noticed that when it comes to raising children, other people are always full of good ideas?
Grandma gently suggests that your toddler is too old to have a pacifier, and honestly, you agree. You gather all the pacifiers in the house and toss them, fighting the urge to dive into the garbage can to get them back. WHAT HAVE I DONE?! You wring your hands with worry.
“Now we can see her sweet faces in pictures,” exclaims Grandma. “Those silly pacifiers were always in the way.” You nod in agreement. Yes, this was the right thing to do.
Hello! It’s Happy Hour in my house right now — the kids are snuggled in front of a movie and I am enjoying peace for the first time in nearly 7 straight days.
This week, I guested on Mom Cave TV and it was terrifying and fun all at once. A lot like that ride at Six Flags where they ratchet you up 30 stories and then drop you and you feel like you may die … but in the end it was fun and you lived to see another day.
If you missed it, you can click on the video above to check out all the action!
This week I also got into fight with my husband because I am so overwhelmed with my life and I’m having a really hard time keeping up with everything. “What’s so hard about selling books?” he asked.
But seriously, I never understood when moms talked about being overwhelmed and not having time to shower until I had three kids, a husband, a shitload of laundry, a blog, and a book to sell (in addition to being the worst Room Mom there ever was). I told my husband that I can’t remember anything, and he didn’t seem to believe me … that is, until I jumped through hoops to arrange childcare so I could see the OBGYN for the first time since our youngest child was born almost two years ago.
I got up at the asscrack of dawn to groom and scrub like we all do before we have to spread eagle on the exam table, dropped off my kids, went to the doctor’s office … and was told that my appointment was actually LAST Thursday. I missed my appointment. I showed up a full week late.
I wanted to laugh and cry and scream and do all the things, but instead I calmly said “adulting is hard. And I rescheduled.
You might as well laugh.
If you liked this post, then you will LOVE I Still Just Want To Pee Alone! Click here to find out more!
Sometimes people call me a “mommy blogger,” a term that makes my skin crawl ONLY because I get lumped together with women who claim to lead perfectly well-mannered lives with their perfectly well-mannered children.
You know, the very same women who shudder to be categorized with women like me.
It’s cool. I get it. “Mommy blogger” can mean a lot of things, which is why I prefer to simply think of myself as a writer who enjoys irreverent humor and the PBS show Peg + Cat because they do math at my (very basic) level.
I could see their wheels turning: Look at those sweet-faced mommy bloggers over there. I bet they would love nothing more than to pimp out my book and counseling services. Together, we can make a difference.
I hope they weren’t too disappointed when they got close enough to hear our riotous discussion of anal sex.
The thing is, I’m totally excited about making a difference in the world. I want to make it okay for moms to just be OKAY.
I have an obscene amount of trash in my van.
THAT IS OKAY.
I wear makeup even when I’m not going anywhere.
THAT IS OKAY.
I have an obsession with making sure my children have trimmed fingernails, but I refuse to clean baseboards.
THAT IS OKAY.
I love my husband and kids but not my thighs.
THAT IS OKAY.
I don’t want anyone to help or change me. I am fine just the way I am, and so are you. Sometimes the simple acknowledgement of needing nothing but acceptance is enough.
My first-ever book signing was today. I’m probably supposed to be all, It was so amazing to see everyone! But actually I’m all, I am so proud of myself for not vomiting! My friend Audrey of Sass Mouth, who shared … Continue reading →
Modern Mommy Madness 