You Can't Say This on Television

Long before I ever became a mom, I knew that swearing would eventually be my downfall as a parent. It’s just so fun to do and it feels good in a way that saying ‘frick’ or ‘shoot’ will never ever achieve.

When I really think about it, I don’t mind if Thumper swears. You can’t tell me you don’t think it’s cute when babies swear. It’s so unexpected and hilarious, mostly because they don’t even know what they’re saying. It’s even better when they actually say it at the right time. Like when Thumper was trying and failing to put her shoes on by herself and grumbled emphatically, “ah, fuck.”  The kid is a genius! A foul mouthed genius, but still. The problem with babies swearing is that they tend to say it in front of the people who will judge you the most for it. So far, Thumper has only said bad words in front of me but I did get a nice death-stare from my mother-in-law when Dawson told her about the time I dropped a book and said ‘eff!’ and Thumper proved she knew what I didn’t say by saying it for me.

When you get down to it, we think swear words are bad because someone told us they were bad. Because really, what harm do they do? They can be hurtful, yes, but so can words that are not considered profanity. You could tell me I look fucking stupid when I wear my hair in a side ponytail and I would cry. Would I cry any less if you had simply said ‘you look stupid?’ Nope. Both are mean. And I understand that in most contexts, swear words are used to hurt people and that’s not okay to do. But you have to admit that, in instances when swearing is not intended to harass someone, it can be really funny. What would happen if everyone acknowledged swear words as socially acceptable? I don’t have an answer to this. But I highly doubt the world would implode or explode or that all the teenagers would start fornicating in the streets while people burned cars and stole candy from the grocery store. 

Do you know who doesn’t swear? No one. Do you know who does swear? Everyone. Yes, everyone. in. the. whole. world. Even my ninety-four year old, ultra-Catholic, old fashioned Grandma. Do you know what she told me she gave up for Lent this year? Saying the word ‘shit.’ TRUE STORY. And she didn’t even make it fifteen minutes without saying it, let alone forty days.  Maybe you say ‘oh fudge,’ or ‘what the dickens’ or even ‘that’s bloody ridiculous,’ but they’re all just substitutes for something worse.  Who was this person who deemed it okay to say ‘darn’ and not okay to say ‘damn,’ and how come he or she got all the power?

What I want Thumper to realize is that there are times when it’s okay to swear and there are times when it’s not. There is no need to swear when wishing someone a happy birthday – provided that you are not doing so sarcastically, in which case it may very well be appropriate to say “happy fucking birthday.” There isn’t really a need to swear when asking a friend to come over and hang out or when writing thank you notes after your wedding. However, if your boyfriend doesn’t come visit you in the hospital because he is busy cheating on you, it might actually do you some good to call him a douchebag and tell him to fuck off when he finally calls. (This actually happened to me once and I did not call him a d-bag or tell him to eff off, but in hindsight, I can tell you that I really, really should have.)

All of this isn’t to say that I am going to encourage Thumper’s potty mouth. Children don’t have the maturity or self-censorship to distinguish when it is or isn’t ‘appropriate’ to swear. Plus, like every other mom in the world, I don’t want to be judged for it. So don’t worry. My little Thumper won’t be the bad seed at school teaching your little Bambi to say motherfucker. I’m sure you can do that all on your own. Because despite how horrified you might be reading this, I know you swear too, bitch.

-Alice

Letters to Strangers who Suck

Being pregnant is like being a hot girl at a Star Trek convention. People stare at you, try to touch you and tell you lots of weird stuff that you don’t want or need to hear. Once you have the baby, public interest in you intensifies, although now it’s your baby getting all the attention. Except for when the baby is acting up, in which case the majority of the attention is back on you and it’s a lot more judge-y than when you were preggers. Actually, even when your baby isn’t acting up, people still manage to find all kinds of surprising ways to judge you, usually on days when you are already close to diving under the covers with a bottle of wine and a straw.

I’ve had my fair share of these incidents in the year and a half since I became a parent and apparently came under the watchful eye of the entire world. Unfortunately for me, I never seem to come up with any intelligent or witty responses during said incidents. I’m usually too busy feeling embarrassed or utterly stunned by someone else’s asshole-ish-ness. I end up spending 4,763,871 countless hours pondering what I could have and should have said. Since this takes up so much of my time, I figured I would share some of these experiences with you so I could at least tell someone what it is I really wish I had said.

To the grandmother who told me to be firm and not always give in:

Thanks for the tip. I even agree with you. Sometimes you need to remember who the adult is and who the child is. But when it comes to whether my daughter sits in the orange or the white highchair at the food court, I don’t really care. So what if Thumper whined and pointed passionately at the orange one, shouting ‘Ojah! Ojah!’ when I tried to put her in the white chair? She apparently preferred the orange one. Big deal. Another lesson in parenting, which I am exercising right now with you, lady, is to pick your battles. If the orange one was taken already, then yes, I would have asserted my role as the parent and informed her that it wasn’t possible to sit in that particular chair, that she’d either have to wait or use another one.  But since there was no one around and the coveted orange chair was available, then why would I engage in what likely would’ve been an epic battle for the sole purpose of asserting my power over my kid? I appreciate the sentiment and the fact that you're not sneering at me but I can still hear the condescending tone behind your polite words. So let’s make a pact right here and now. You don’t talk to me about parenting again and I won’t kick you in the box. Deal?

To the elderly man who yelled at me in the doctor’s office:

You are a mean person. And no, I will not “get that thing [soother] OUT of her [Thumper’s] mouth.” Firstly, you don’t know me. You don’t know my parenting style just by looking down your snotty nose at me and seeing a soother in my child’s mouth. Come down off your high horse and treat me like the human being I am. Secondly, other than when she’s sleeping, I only give Thumper her soother in emergency situations. Case in point, trips to the doctor’s office because my kid hates the doctor’s office like I hate strapless bras. Which is A LOT. But you wouldn’t know that because you’re too busy being a Judgemental Jack. You have no idea the kind of misery we have suffered because of that clown operation doctor’s office. Or maybe you do, because you were leaving as I was entering and maybe your doctor was as much of a moron as mine was* and you had just spent an hour and a half being berated and judged just like I was about to be. But that doesn't give you the right to take your anger out on me. And for the record, after leaving the most unpleasant routine check-up in the history of the world, I didn’t yell at, reprimand or judge anyone based on situations I knew nothing about.

To the woman who judged me at the play center:

Listen, you Judy Attitude-y with the mocking eyes, read the above post. I only give Thumper her soother in emergency situations. And today, being at the playgroup qualifies as an emergency because if she throws one.more.tantrum I am going punch someone in the face and then start rocking in the corner while humming my happy song- which is Since U Been Gone, by the way. So before you roll your eyes at me again, maybe you could play nice for a minute, strike up a conversation and figure out that the reason my kid is sucking on a pacifier is not actually because I’m an inferior parent but because I am desperate for some peace and quiet. Or don’t strike up a conversation, I don’t care. Just stop rolling your eyes and thinking that you’re better than me or I will punch you in the face and you’ll be the one rocking in the corner singing your happy song.

There. *sigh* I feel much better now. I am also starting to identify with how Katie Holmes must feel.

I’m not going to pretend that I’ve never judged anyone. I’m so good at it that I was once part of a team of expert people judgers. We were called Team Judgement. However, all of this has taught me an important lesson. Although we might think we have something valid to say, unless you know the context of the situation you will just come off sounding like an asshole. It’s almost always better for you to keep quiet. And as Justin Timberlake so aptly put it, what goes around, goes around, goes around, comes all the way back around. So the next time you feel a case of the judgies coming on, just remember what the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air would tell you to do. Yo, back up! BACK UP! Mine ya bizness, that’s all. Juz.mine.ya.biz.ness.

*This doctor is not the one referenced in Curse of the Picky Eater. This is the sucky-pants, worst doctor in the history of ever that caused me months of stress and ultimately resulted in me having to find another practitioner. Which of course is the one mentioned in my other post, also known as the awesome-sauce, greatest doctor in the history of ever. More on that later.

-Alice

Why I No Longer Have It

There are many things that we swear we’ll never do once we become parents. One is refer to ourselves as Mommy in the third person. It took me all of five seconds before I broke this rule. Another was that I’d continue to do my hair and makeup, wear pretty clothes and still love my jewellery as much as I ever did. I told myself I’d be a hot mommy, that I would care and make an effort to not look as though I had aged 10 years just by having a child. Again, this took about five seconds before I was like ‘Yeah...Not happening.’

I have come to the realization that while I am only 25 years old, I simply No Longer Have It. It being a number of things: hotness, fashion sense, time, patience, nice boobs. You name it, I don’t have it. Allow me to give you some examples.

Last week, I went out for a girls’ night with some friends. I was excited to talk to people who are not my one year old daughter and to put on fancy shoes. No more than an hour had passed before I basically dislocated a toe just by standing in my yellow pumps. I tried to ignore the pain because the shoes are to die for, but I took one step and quickly realized that I do not actually want to die for a pair of shoes. I put on some flats.

Each of my ears is pierced three times, but most days I can’t be bothered to wear even one set. This is because I don’t want earrings to interfere with a possible afternoon nap by either having to take them out again or uncomfortably sleep with them in. Yes, that’s how lazy I am. I nap AND I don’t feel like taking my earrings out.

When my friends invite me to the bar, I don’t even want to go. Remember how I said I was a bit of a party girl in my former life? You can see how much things have changed when I’m the one campaigning to stay home so I can avoid having to wear a strapless bra. They’re just so evil and annoying.

I still wear skinny jeans, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out on the Mom Jeans. I’m starting to think it would be nice not to have to pull my pants up 683 times a day or worry about showing butt crack every time I sit down.

I’ve thought long and hard over this dilemma. Like I said, I am only 25. By my calculations, I should still have It for at least another 10-12 years. Dawson told me to either accept my fate or conquer It. But that seems so...final. Life would seem really long and boring if I just gave up on jewellery altogether. Plus I’ve spent a lot of time accumulating my extensive collection and I’m too greedy to let someone else enjoy it while I sit back and look like ass for the rest of my life. So am I really ready for Mom Jeans? The answer is maybe. There are days when I will wear the yellow pumps despite the fact that they steal my soul. And there are days when I will wear every freaking piece of jewellery that I own just because it makes me so damn happy. And then there are days when sweat pants and my Legally Blonde: the Musical T-shirt will make me just as happy. So I’ve decided that when I want to have It, I can.

While it’s unrealistic to spend two hours getting ready and trying on seventeen different outfits in the morning the way I could pre-baby, there are certain smaller things I can do to help the transformation along on days when I’m feeling ambitious. A couple of them are time-consuming, so they don’t all happen on the same day but doing at least one of them makes me feel pretty and happy. Like, Molly Ringwald-dancing-like-a-dork-in-The-Breakfast-Club-happy. Such as: shaving my legs, putting on mascara, blow-drying my hair, wearing cute underwear and oddly enough, making my bed. I know that last one doesn’t make sense, but for some reason making the bed makes me feel all productive and powerful and shout “Now I will be ruler of the sea!” like Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Okay, maybe that’s a little more evil than I intended, but I think you get my point.

The fact is, I don’t make an effort to have It for the benefit of anyone else. I do it for myself. When I’m feeling like a crappy parent because Thumper is biting kids at the library, blow-drying those stupid frizzies out of my hair feels nice. Or if I’m grumpy because this week’s episode of Glee is a re-run, then wearing pretty underwear is like my secret little pick-me-up. Those five simple things make me feel good. And when I feel good, I am a nicer person, so it’s worth it to spend a little extra time on myself some days.

I guess I should reconsider my earlier statement. It’s not that I Don’t Have It, it’s that I Only Have It Once or Twice a Week. The only thing left to worry about now is my boobs. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make them look as awesome as they did when I was 23 without getting a boob job, it would be much appreciated.

-Alice

How I Fell Down the Rabbit Hole

I feel that if you’re going to read my blog and be privy to all the details of my life, than you should know a little bit about how I got here. So in the spirit of ‘here-is-my-life-story-enjoy-it-bitches,’ I’ll tell you how I became the prince of town called Bel-Air fell down the rabbit hole into Mommyland.

Just like my namesake in Alice in Wonderland, my surroundings changed very quickly. Three years ago, I was a twenty-three year old waitress doing nothing with my college diploma except dreaming of moving to California. Then I blinked and I was pregnant. I blinked again and found myself living in suburbia- in a house with a backyard- with my common-law husband and brand new baby girl. And then I was all like, ‘I’m not moving to California anymore, am I?’ Now, once we get into the details, this story will sound pretty sketchy, like something off of Teen Mom (except that our version would be called Recent College Graduate Mom). But in its entirety, it’s actually pretty sweet. So I’m asking you to hold your judgement until the end. Well, I’d love it if you could just hold your judgement completely, but I’ll take what I can get. Anyway.

Dawson and I met while I was working as a waitress. He sat in my section and we struck up a friendly conversation; nothing really flirty, just a pleasant banter. When I came by to see how his food was, I used the typical waitress phrase, ‘Is there anything else I can get for you?’ Other waitresses can attest to the hundreds of witty, lame, weird or downright creepy responses that this phrase seems to elicit from people, though the most popular is usually, ‘A million dollars!’Dawson, being the nerd he is, came back with ‘A helicopter.’ He claims he doesn’t know why he said it, and I don’t know why I went along with it, but I went back to the server station in search of something resembling a helicopter. All I could find was a butterfly paperclip, which I presented to him. It sounds super lame, and it was, but it became a running joke for the rest of his stay. I was then secretly hoping he’d ask for my number and secretly disappointed when he didn’t until I discovered a note in his billfold that said, “If you find my helicopter, give me a call,” with his name and number underneath. I never found the helicopter, but I did contact him the next day, and we began dating.

Fast-forward two months to the bathroom of my friend’s apartment. It’s 1 a.m. and I’ve just peed on four pregnancy tests – Yes. I peed on. all. four. – and I’m on the phone with Dawson, telling him that we’re pregnant. After the shock and our swearing subsides a bit, we discover that, despite the fact that our relationship moved a lot faster than we had anticipated, not only do we both really want to have the baby, we both really want to do it together. And so began the process of us telling our families and friends, which provided some hilarious moments but we’ll leave that for another blog post.

If you knew me before all of this, you’d know that I was the last person anyone wanted to see get pregnant, aside from like, Paris Hilton or Kate Gosselin. I was known for my very questionable cooking skills and making un-ladylike comments to strangers while intoxicated. Suffice it to say, home-making and mothering didn’t, and doesn’t, come naturally to me. When Thumper was six weeks old, I remember thinking how bizarre it was that I, the under-achieving party girl, had been in charge of another human being’s life for two whole months and the baby was still breathing. Now it’s been a year and a half and she’s still alive, happy, healthy and smarter than I am, so I must be doing something right. Right? (Right??) Because despite my lacking ability to keep a clean house or sew wearable Halloween costumes, I love my kid and I try really hard to be a good mom, and that’s all anyone can ask of me.  

I know. It sounds completely unrealistic that Dawson and I, who only knew each other for two months, would be able to co-exist and raise a child together, let alone also maintain a successful romantic relationship. And while we’re far from perfect, if you met us, you would probably never guess that we have only been together for such a short period of time. Truthfully, we would still be together even if there had never been a baby. That was something I knew from the beginning, though I’d have never said it in the early months of my pregnancy. I knew it would only make me seem like I had my head in the clouds. So we just went about our lives, doing all the normal things couples do in preparation of a baby, which for us, included moving in together. Pretty soon, the people around us who had (rightfully) been skeptical began to see that we were taking our pregnancy seriously and that we were together because we genuinely wanted to be.

Although our relationship became super serious super fast because of the pregnancy, it felt like the most natural thing in the world for us to be doing together. And now, in spite of our unusual beginning, we are just like any other young couple, except that our daughter will be able to say that she was the flower girl at her parents’ wedding.

I’ll say it again. It was a strange way to start our life together, and not exactly ideal, but that doesn’t make it any less authentic. I certainly never anticipated that it would happen the way it did. I also didn’t know that as tough as it can be, I’d actually like being a stay at home mom or that I’d be lucky enough to have the love of my life and the father of my child be the same person.

So unlike the real Alice, I’m going to stay inside this wonderful, whacky world I’ve found myself in. It might be not be California, and I might need a break every now and then, but Mommyland is exactly where I’m supposed to be. 

-Alice

(Disclaimer: This story was not meant to be overly-cheesy or condescending, nor intended to glamourize casual sexual relationships or unplanned pregnancies. I was not paid six figures to write this and you won’t be seeing a reality show about my life on MTV any time soon. I am humbly aware that the positive outcome of this story is not necessarily the norm, so I must give a shout-out to the most hard-core, amazing and kick-ass people on the planet: single parents. Holla!)

The Biting Truth

It happened on a cold spring day. There was still snow on the ground, so I took Thumper to the library for some indoor fun. It was there, in the little wooden play house in the children’s section that she got into a tug of war with an older child over whose turn it was to play with the toy barbeque. Just as I was about to intervene, I saw the little boy reach his arm in front of Thumper in order to block her from the toy and that’s when I saw her do it. She didn’t bat an eye or have even a second’s hesitation. As soon as his arm was in front of her face, she bit him.

Just the day before, I had read a headline in a parent magazine about what to do if your child bites another kid, but I didn’t read it because Thumper had never bitten anyone before. Stupid me! Why didn’t I read what to do when my kid morphs into a vampire?!

Well, obviously I charged into the play house to get Thumper away from him, telling her “we don’t bite our friends” and “that’s not how we tell someone we would like to play with a toy.” Then I made her say sorry to the boy, which didn’t sound like sorry at all because she’s only 18 months old and just learning to talk, so no doubt the little boy thought ‘wtf kind of apology was that?’ Then I asked if he was okay, and told him he could play with the BBQ. I briefly considered finding his guardian to tell them what happened, but decided against it because I really didn’t know what to say. ‘Hi. This is my daughter. She bit your son. I made her apologize.’ (Awkward silence) ‘I hope it doesn’t scar. Have a nice day!’ And all the while, all of the kids in the play house were watching me, probably thinking, ‘oooh, she’s an adult. What WILL she do?’ when in reality I felt as clueless as them, and I know the only difference between us is the fact that I’m taller and can legally drink.

So I grabbed Thumper and started putting on her coat, continuing to tell her I wasn’t impressed with her behavior and all those other things you say partially because you mean them and partially because you know other people are listening. Then I hear the little boy telling his mom that “that little girl over there bit me” and I think, ‘why didn’t I just tell her myself? WHY DIDN’T I READ THE ARTICLE?’ I turned around to tell the mom that it was my kid who took a chunk out of her kid’s arm after they were fighting over the BBQ and apologized. I felt guilty and scolded, like the only reason I said anything was because her son did first. And really, that IS the only reason I said something, but not because I was trying to be sneaky. I was just genuinely mortified, and completely caught off-guard, and wishing really bad that I had read the freaking article.

But the truth is the article only would have told me things I already knew. Like the fact that biting is a natural response for young toddlers who simply can’t understand the complexities of sharing and taking turns, and that there’s really no way around it. You just have to remind them that it’s not an acceptable response to frustration and keep showing them more appropriate behavior (help them to take turns, redirect them to another toy, etc.) What I really needed to know was what to do/say to the other parent without sounding like an idiot or a prick.

I replayed the situation in my head over and over on the way home and I figured out what I would have/should have done after ‘the bite.’ After dealing with Thumper and checking on the wounded boy, I would’ve found his mom and said ‘Hi, I’m sorry but our kids were fighting over the BBQ and my daughter bit your son. I just wanted to let you know so you weren’t wondering what happened or where the mark came from. I’m really sorry.’

That sounds like something a responsible adult would do. And next time (which hopefully there won’t be, but let’s be honest, there will be) I’ll know what to do and what to say and I’ll show all the people who’ve stopped to stare at me and my delinquent vampire that I AM, in fact, an adult.


-Alice

Adventures in Babysitting

Before I start this horribly embarrassing list, let’s get some background information out of the way. I have this friend, Wendy. She and I have only been friends for a few months, so there is still a lot for us to learn about each other’s lives. And houses. Recently, Wendy signed up to help with a local play. This required her services in the evenings, Tuesday through Friday for two weeks. Since she had to leave before her husband, Edward, could make it home from work, I stepped in to watch her sons - three year old Prince and one year old Simba - during the in-between time.


Dawson was home early the first night and therefore made looking after all three kids incredibly easy. The second night, I had a previous engagement and was unable to babysit. The third night, Edward showed up just as Wendy was dropping the boys off, so no one even made it inside my house. To avoid all of the running around for nothing, we decided I would babysit at Wendy’s house for the duration. You are about to see how all of these incidents and factors led me to be completely unprepared for the shit-show that was The Fourth Night. So here goes the list of things I wish I knew before babysitting for Wendy:

1. Prince’s language:  As kids learn to talk, they each tend to speak in their own little language, where only their parents are able to tell that ‘Manny Potah’ means Mary Poppins and ‘bapooter’ is actually a computer.  Prince is no exception, which wouldn’t be a problem except that I wasn’t fast enough to figure out what he was trying to say before he threw up all over the carpeted basement stairs. And don’t forget that there were two other children in the house. So while I was trying to deal with Prince, Simba and Thumper were trying to drown one another in the inflatable mini-ball pit. Nice.

2. Where the carpet cleaner is kept:  Not only would I need the carpet cleaner for the aforementioned incident, but I’d need it an hour later when Prince threw up even more all over the landing at the top of the second floor. I couldn’t find the appropriate cleaning products, and didn’t know if the ones I was looking for were even there to find. So I used soap and water, which sometimes can actually get a stain out. But not that day, because that would’ve made my life easy.

3. Where the pyjamas are kept:  Moments before Prince threw up the second time (and third, and fourth, consecutively), I was trying to put Simba to bed. I spent at least 15 minutes searching for pyjamas. I didn’t see PJs with footie’s, nor could I find any comfy looking pants. I eventually found a onesie, and just as I snapped the final button closed, I heard Prince on his way upstairs, with that familiar uncomfortable whimpering of a child who is about to be sick again. See the dilemma? In those particular 15 minutes I carelessly wasted looking for PJs, I could have had Simba already asleep, therefore freeing my arms to carry Prince to the bathroom before any mess was made. Instead, I ended up with Simba on one hip screaming as if I had just kicked a puppy, with my free hand helplessly holding Prince’s as he threw up on the steps. And himself. And me. And the baby gate that Thumper had knocked down seconds earlier. (Note: They don’t even have a puppy, so no dogs were harmed during this babysitting session.)

4. Where the pyjamas are kept: Again, this comes into play a half an hour later, after Simba was finally in bed and I was trying to dress Prince, who had patiently waited all that time in the bathroom in his underwear, hovering near the toilet. Now you might wonder why I didn’t deal with Prince first and put Simba to bed after all was settled, but see, I’m stupid and thought I could get Simba (who had been up in arms since the puking) to sleep rather quickly. I greatly underestimated. Or overestimated. Either way, I was wrong. So anyway, I finally got back to Prince, and again, I couldn’t find the freaking pyjamas. I figured that as a three year old, he could probably direct me to them, but in his distressed state, the poor little guy started crying and said he didn’t know. I pulled open the top drawers and found a T-shirt. Good Enough. Then I found a pair of swimming trunks, and for lack of other options, tried to put them on Prince. But he’s no dummy, and rather loudly explained that “those (sniffle) are for (sniffle) SWWIIIIIMMMMMMINNNNNG!” When I finally found a pair of comfy pants, he deemed them unacceptable as well and demanded to sleep without pants. I considered the possibility of him having an accident, as he is only recently potty trained, but hey, if the kid is gonna pee, he will pee with or without pants. So he climbed into bed with no pants on. Nice.
 

Now before continuing, I’ll mention that while all this is going on, I stashed my own kid on the main floor in a playpen full of toys. So while my little rabbit was playing away, blissfully unaware of the chaos upstairs, Edward came home. This was during the time that Prince was basically naked in the bathroom, and I was trying to get Simba to sleep. So in comes Edward to an eerily quiet house, with my daughter alone in a playpen and refusing to look at him, since she has entered a phase of being shy around men. He came upstairs and tentatively hopped over the massive heap of puke at the top of the stairs, and he peeked into Simba’s room to find me sitting in the rocking chair, holding the somewhat calm baby.

Edward: stares wide-eyed, blinking once, mouth open but no words coming out

Alice: Uh, it’s been a little crazy. You should probably go deal with Prince.

Edward: (blink) Um...Where...is he?

Alice: Oh, just in the bathroom. In his underwear. (Weak smile)

So then we kind of awkwardly tag-teamed the situation for awhile, switching off between checking on all three kids and cleaning up puke. Keep in mind, this was the second time we’d ever met, and I was desperately trying and failing to look like a competent adult, and Edward was trying to decide whether to laugh or call Child Protective Services. Finally, things calmed down and I collected my daughter to go home for a shower. I went for a quick bathroom break and this is where I realized the fifth thing I wish I knew before babysitting for Wendy.

5. That my tank top was see-through:  Now, to my credit, my tank top was meant to be covered by a long sleeve shirt. But after the second puking, my left sleeve took a major hit. In my frenzy of taking off all of Prince’s stained clothing, I also discarded my top, leaving myself in a plain white tank. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so embarrassed if my bra didn’t have blue flowers all over it, or if, you know, we hadn’t basically just met. I tried to make light of the situation by saying nonchalantly, “Just so you know, I don’t normally parade around in see-through shirts, haha....but....your son puked on me...Ha...” He just nodded with a smirk and walked away. Nice.

So basically, this all adds up to one epic FAIL on my part. Luckily this happened after I started this blog, so I was able to find the humour in it quite quickly. And I think it actually made us better friends. The only thing that can bring you closer than puking on each other is getting puked on by each other’s kids. The next time I babysat for Wendy (which I’m surprised she let me do) I made sure to bring my own set of cleaning products. And an extra shirt.

-Alice  

Curse of the Picky Eater

My mother swears that for the first three years of my life, I lived off popsicles and Mac n Cheese. Dawson claims that his cousin’s skin literally turned orange as a child because he only ate carrots. Everyone seems to have a story about someone whose eating habits were pure crap as a kid, all of who grew up to be normal. But for some reason, it doesn’t make me feel better. I still stare in complete awe when I see other people's kids scarfing down broccoli. Or salmon. Or chicken. OR ANY FREAKING THING THEY PUT IN FRONT OF THEM. All I want to know is why. Why me? Why is my kid the picky eater?

Is it karmic retribution for my refusal to eat peas until I was 23? Is it because of the time I was so mad at my brothers that I dumped salt in their milk? Because I thought I paid for that when they found out and punched me. Is it because I spent years talking smack about peppers only to find out that they are actually amazing?

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bad cook. In the kitchen, I’m like Molly Ringwald in a movie not directed by John Hughes. It just isn’t right. But I try, I really try to make things that are at least moderately good. And I hate reading all the expert advice about how to get toddlers to eat. It always says, “Just give them what you’re having for dinner.” But no one ever says what to do when that won’t work. What about when your kid continually refuses what you put in front of her?

Do you know what I want? I want someone with credentials to tell me the truth. That it’s okay that my one year old eats a limited amount veggies and meat. Because I know it’s okay, but when I don’t actually hear anyone say it, I worry that I’m delusional, like the one kid who is still clinging to the hope that Santa Claus is real when it’s clearly his parents’ handwriting on the gift tag. I want someone with credentials to tell me it’s okay so that I won’t freak the freak on a daily basis or go to sleep feeling like a failure when Thumper eats a pancake for dinner.

It’s not uncommon for Thumper and I to have a three day stand-off about soup. Or any food that doesn’t come from the diary, wheat or fruit food groups. I know I shouldn’t turn mealtime into a battlefield, but sometimes I can’t help it. Sometimes the worry and the crazy just take over and all I can think is that if she doesn’t eat a carrot right. this. instant. then she will grow up to be some sort of wild, obese rabbit with diabetes who can’t hold a job or a relationship or make a peanut butter sandwich without squishing ketchup chips and Skittles inside of it.

I was *this close* to ripping out my own hair when miraculously, my wish came true. At a routine check-up with the doctor, Thumper’s horrible eating habits came up. I reluctantly said the only meat she eats is chicken nuggets. And do you know what the doctor told me? (I’m getting giddy all over again just writing this!) She admitted that her son ate chicken nuggets religiously as a small child. I told her how embarrassed I felt by it, but she said at least it’s something. Do you hear that? That’s the sound of an EXPERT telling me that it’s okay. Take what I can get. Start sleeping again.

I left that appointment feeling better than I had in a long time. Someone with credentials finally cut the BS and told me the mother-effing truth, which is that as long as I’m trying, it’s enough. The results aren’t perfect but it’s something. And I’m not saying the “expert advice” is BS because it doesn’t work -because I fully believe it can and does, I’ve seen proof of it in other children. I’m just saying it doesn’t work for everyone. I’m saying that the experts shouldn’t be afraid to say “Just give them what you’re having for dinner. But if all you can do is get one measly green pea inside your kid, than that’s okay. It’s one pea in the right direction.” Trust me when I say that my doctor revolutionized my life with her simple confession, in fact she probably added a few years back onto my life span.

And I swear to God, I was so happy I’d have proposed to her right there, but I figure it’s probably poor form to be engaged to two people at the same time.

-Alice

This Shit is Only Partially Bananas

I was sane, once. I had normal-person worries, and I worried about them in normal amounts. You know, like in high school I worried about cute things. Whether cute boys liked me or if I was cute enough or if my prom dress was too cute when it should be hot, dumb things like that. And then in college, every Sunday morning I worried how I was going to serve tables with such a killer hangover, and every Monday I worried how I was going to hand in a project that I had started at 3 a.m. that morning.

This kind of normal behaviour continued after college, and well into my pregnancy with Thumper. I mean, there were a few extra demands (“Get. Me. A. Smore.Pop-tart.NOW!”), but for the most part, I still managed to resemble a rational person. It wasn’t until after Thumper was born that the crazy began.

In the beginning, it seemed typical enough. Like every mom, I got my case of the guilties. Am I rocking her to sleep too much? No, they say a baby under six months can’t be spoiled. Uh-oh, she’s over six months now and I’m still rocking her. Am I setting up horrible sleeping habits that won’t be broken even when she’s an ADULT and if I use the car to get to her to sleep too much will she chronically fall asleep while DRIVING when she gets her license? Yeah, you know you’ve had that conversation with yourself. I wasn’t alarmed because I could use the excuse of sleep deprivation and baby blues to explain my over the top behaviour.

I always assumed the guilties would be like a bad one-hit wonder: very annoying at the time, but it’s not long before the song has vanished from your radar. Instead, I’m finding it’s more like a Ke$ha track. You know, popping up everywhere you go, hitting you over the head with its sing-talk verses and auto tune, and then Jedi-mind tricking you into thinking it’s not that bad until you finally start bopping along to the beat.  It kinda makes you throw up in your mouth a little when you think about what you’ve become.

You see, as the months went on, life with a baby calmed down, but I never did. And this is when I realized I had gone from a completely sane, functional woman, to a bat-shit crazy mama. Because I feel guilty and worry about everything. I worry about big things, like not having enough money for future dentist bills. I worry about small things, like if the coat I chose for Thumper today was warm enough. I turn the small things into big things, and the big things into bigger things. I had to stop watching Til Debt Do Us Part because it either made me cry or hyperventilate.

It’s just so easy to second-guess myself. I mean, how am I ever supposed to know if I’m on the right track? I feel like the best indicator is the kind of person your kid grows up to be, and well, at that point if you fucked it up, there’s no turning back, so really that doesn’t help.  I suspect that big bottles of wine would clam my nerves, but then I figure it’s not the most constructive approach. It’s just this incessant little cycle. When the worrying reaches its peak, I mope around for a day, feeling dumb and whiny for being so dumb and whiny. Then I cry in bed and rant out all my rational and irrational fears to Dawson, and he spends the next few hours talking me down from the madness. Then I get to spend at least a week being relatively normal before it starts all over. It’s kind of like a twisted, psychological version of a menstrual cycle, only no cramps. At least I have the comfort of knowing that my shit isn’t totally bananas – I know this because in my most frenzied moments, I’m aware of how demented I sound. And if Charlie Sheen has taught me anything, it’s that the true lunatics have no idea how off their rocker they actually are.

I guess I’ll never be as sane as I once was, but I’m as sane now as I’m ever going to get. Because there is regular -people sane, and then there’s mommy-sane. We’re always going to worry about the present and the future, and how the present will affect the future. And then there are mommies like me, who will take it to another level, but what do you expect when you hand us tiny humans and say, “Here. Take care of this for the next 18 years. Don’t fuck it up.”

-Alice