Oops, I crapped my pants. Seriously.

I ran a half marathon on Sunday. It was my first long distance race since before I got pregnant with The Quiet Contemplator. It was awesome. I am running another one next Sunday. Yes, I am an idiot.

I'm the bee-yotch on the right.

After I was finished the race (I crossed the finish line carrying both of my babies--best and worst decision ever), my friends and I decided to go out and eat a lot of horrible food and drink a lot of shitty beer. It was a wonderful Sunday. I went to bed early and slept like the dead. Until around midnight...

Suddenly I could no longer sleep and my stomach was cramping uncontrollably. This continued until around, well, hopefully it will let up any minute now... Yeah, I got food poisoning from that shitty food.

Needless to say, the last two days have been less-than-pleasant. There are two ends that food poisoning can come out of and mine always seems to head south.

Anyway. The POINT of this story is that parenting on your own (ADD Daddy has to work late the next two days) while you have food poisoning is not for the weak of heart...or stomach. I have spent a good portion of my last two days on the pot (and not the good kind). And, of course, none of that time was spent alone.

My son sees my weakened state as an excellent excuse for an all-you-can-read book fest that includes his own personal Mommy-on-a-throne.

My daughter thinks my current situation is the perfect time to practice her color commentary skills. I get an incredibly descriptive play-by-play of every noise and facial expression, along with a critique of the color and consistency of my poo plays.

So, yeah, I crapped my pants today. How was your day?

If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.

Why I want to drug Daniel Day-Lewis

So my girl Ilana over at Mommy Shorts went and got all famous on me. Instead of hanging out in the playground circuit, catching hand foot and mouth or some other lovely childhood malady, she is all up in the celebrity game swapping diaper blowout stories with the likes of Taye Diggs and Rachel Dratch via the Mommy Show.

WHATEVER! I totally have a slutty promiscuous friend from college who made out with G. Love AND the guy from Fastball. So take that, Ilana. Wait, never mind.

ANYWAY. Ilana asked me who I would want to drug, tie down and make watch me drink boxed wine for hours while I drone on about my stretch marks interview if I could interview anyone. Well, Ilana, I pick Daniel Day-Lewis.

Why?

• Because he is amaze balls, first of all. The guy could stand on stage in a hot dog costume while reading the phone book and still get an Oscar for it.
• Second of all, I would throw my husband in front of a bus just to have the chance to make out with him a little bit. Yeah, I know it is kind of weird, but it is true, none-the-less.
• Third? Who doesn't want to watch Bill The Butcher change their kid's shitty diaper. Also, I totally want to see the look on my daughter's face when Daniel Plainview tells her he drank her milkshake.
• Fourth: My Left Foot. Enough said.
• Fifth: He digs writer chicks. Hell, he married Arthur Miller's daughter!
• Sixth: They named their kids Ronan and Cashel. 

If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.

Life is hard.

Life is hard. Some days, the tiniest obstacle can seem insurmountable. An everyday task can stop you in your tracks and feel like a hurdle so large you can never overcome it.

But you are strong enough. To take that tiny task, and even the tremendous ones that may follow, and kick it in the balls and tell it who's boss. Because you are the only boss of you.

Because you were put here on this earth to do great things, whether big or small.

So let go of your insecurities. Stop downplaying your successes. Start shouting them from the rooftops.

Let life take you on a wild ride. Feel the wind in your hair. Feel the sun on your face.

Let go.

If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.

How to clean your house in three easy steps

 

Step one. 

 Hop your kids up on as much overly processed sugary goodness as humanly possible. Candy, soda, cookies, you name it. Stuff that sugary crap down their gullet faster than those adorable little midgets can say foie gras.

 

Step two. 

Now that your kids are so jacked up on refined sweetness that they make Ty Pennington look like the Dalai Lama, hand them some cleaning supplies. I suggest a cordless vacuum and a wet rag. These provide the least risk and the most profit.

 

Step three. 

Sit back and watch the magic happen. But before you do, be sure to pour yourself a nice glass of mommy juice so you can thoroughly enjoy the fruit of your labor's labor.

 

You're welcome.

If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.

How to promote good behavior while losing your marbles.

Lately our kids' problems with sharing, whining when asked to do simple chores, talking back, etc., have caused my husband and I to figuratively lose our marbles. My solution? To literally lose them. We have established a marble jar system to reward good behavior and the results have been amazing.

Here's how you can too:

Things needed:
Two small jars (we got ours from the Dollar Tree)
One small bag of marbles (we used flat glass stones from the Dollar Tree)

How it works:

• Show your child(ren) the two jars and the marbles.
• Explain to your child(ren) that when they do something good from now on, they will get a marble in their "Superstar Jar".
• Let them help you pour the marbles into the starter jar.
• Talk to them about a reward they would like once they move all the marbles to the Superstar Jar (it should be something small, like going out for ice cream or getting a small toy).
• Get started: when your kid does something good, move a marble from the starter jar to the Superstar Jar.
• Once the Superstar Jar is filled, give your child their reward and talk about how proud you are of them.
• Talk with your child about what they would like their next reward to be.
• Have them help you move the marbles back to the starter jar.
• Lather, rinse, repeat.

Side notes:

• Reward good behavior often. Being stingy with the rewards makes your kid get bored of the whole thing with a quickness. Aim to empty the jar within a week or two so they stay excited about it.
• No Indian giving on the marbles. Once they are earned, they can not be taken back for bad behavior.
• Kids are not allowed to ask for marbles if they do something good. They have to be earned without asking.

This is a great way to encourage sharing and relationships between siblings. It also helps older children feel special when they get to do something their younger sibling can't. It has encouraged our daughter to be nicer to her younger brother, share more and help around the house--all without being asked! It can also help with potty training and breaking bad habits.

Two glass jars: $2
One bag of glass stones: $1
Maintaining your will to live all the way through bedtime: Priceless


If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.

Parenting: Silly vs. Serious

Before I got knee-deep into this whole parenting thing, I thought I would be a different type of mom. I also thought ADD Daddy would be a different type of dad. I thought I would be the silly and crazy one that threw caution to the wind and made silly faces while ADD Daddy was the one who would stop all the horsing around and make sure shit actually got done. Boy was I wrong.

The way it really works in our house is that daddy is the silly one and mommy is the one that makes sure the ship stays afloat. Some days, I get tired of being the mommy. I want to be the crazy one that gets to throw the kids around and let them eat ice cream for dinner. But most days, I relish my role as the authoritarian because it means that I am making sure my kids needs are met. I know that they are healthy, and well fed and emotionally sound, because I make sure that they are.

Now, don't get me wrong, I also play and roughhouse and have fun with my kids, but that is not my primary roll. Where daddy is the instigator of epic tickle fights and general craziness, I am the instigator of Drs appointments and clean teeth. I'm the boss, applesauce. And I'm OK with that. At least most days I am. Some days I would pay a drunk monkey to take the reigns for a bit so I can just be fun and free with my kids.

Why so serious? Because I have to be. Not because my husband refuses to be, but because I need to know that my children are growing up right and that they don't think that life is all puppy dogs and rainbows. Because it's not. Life is hard. And I want them to be as prepared for what life will throw at them as I can make them. People will hurt their feelings. And break their hearts. Bad things will happen to them. There is just no stopping that. I want them to know balance in life. To know that even when the shit hits the fan, that they are strong enough to clean themselves up and start over again. That no matter how much pain there is in the moment, there is still joy to be had in the future.

If both my husband and I were happy, happy, joy, joy all the time, our kids would have a skewed view of reality. If we were both rules and repercussions all the time, they would have the same. Balance in parenting is hard, but it is important. I often have a hard time with that. I beat myself up for not being as "fun" as I this I should be or as "strict". There is often no winning for me when it comes to me. But more and more every day, I realize that it is OK to be a little bit of both. That just because other moms don't lose their shit in public like I often do doesn't mean that they never lose their shit at all. They may just store it all up under their veil of perfect parenting until they explode. Just because I am the serious parent most of the time doesn't mean that that is the only way my kids see me.

So what about you? Are you the silly or the serious parent? Or the perfect blend of both?

If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.

My toddler and my cat might actually be the same person/cat

I am starting to think that The Cool Cucumber and Fatty might actually be the same person/cat.

Why, you ask, would I be confused at whether my toddler son and my obese cat are the same person? Well, the similarities between the two are uncanny (or uncatty, if you will).

They both howl in agony when you take their milk away.
The Cucumber LOVES him some milk, as does Fatty. Duh, she's a cat and he's a baby. But try to get said milk away from them, even if the vessel is empty, and you will find yourself in a shitstorm of titanic proportions. Claws out. Hissing. Fur flying. And that's just the baby. Don't even get me started on how Fatty reacts...

They both have no sense of personal space.
Though they have their own personal method of getting all up in your grill, Fatty prefers to sit on my neck while The Cucumber prefers my lap, both Fatty and The Cucumber will always make sure you are without personal space. Ever. They both like to watch me in the bathroom, both of them are usually under foot when I am making dinner and they both are somehow attached to me from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep. Fatty doesn't even let me do that alone.

They both love food more than anything in the world.
Dear sweet baby Jesus do these two love food. They would both eat until food came out of their eye holes or they suffocated to death on chocolate pudding. It is both disgusting and fascinating how much this dynamic duo can cram down their gullets. And expensive. And did I mention disgusting?

They both sound like Darth Vader having an asthma attack. 
When The Cucumber and Fatty breathe, it sounds like a plastic bag being sucked into a vacuum cleaner. And not just after they have both finished a rousing game of flashlight tag. They sound like that all. the. time. Try sitting on the couch and trying to enjoy a movie with the mesothelioma twins at your side. Not fun.

They both find the grass greener on the other side. If they stand at the door and beg to go play outside, they will be happy for about two seconds once you let them out there. They will then stand on the other side of the door and beg to be let back inside. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

They both loved to have their bellies rubbed.
Seriously. Both of them. All. Day. Long.

They both sleep more than seems humanly/catly possible.
Of the 24 hours that are in a day, both Fatty and The Cool Cucumber sleep over half of them. They love sleep. Love it. It is like they actually live to sleep. And they are both equally awesome at it. A dump truck could drive through a nitroglycerine plant next door and they would open one eye to investigate, decide it isn't worth getting up for and go back to dreaming about tuna fish and pancakes. Assholes.


If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.

Why I am cooler now than before I had kids

I can multitask like a mother

Before I had kids, the mere thought of working out, getting my hair cut and buying an outfit for a party, all in one day, would make me a little anxious. Now? Carry a toddler, my purse, diaper bag, infant seat and unlock the car? Done. Wrangle both children, hand over my insurance card, sign the co-pay receipt and wipe a yucky nose? No problem. Switch the TV to video, open the bag of Goldfish, refill the milk and start Yo Gabba Gabba, all while guarding my glass of chardonnay? I'm on it.

I embrace alternative art

Before I had unprotected sex, my view of art was so narrow-minded. Monet, Beethoven and Poe may all be awesome, but they got nothing on my toddler with a crayon and a tambourine. Though my favorite medium remains macaroni, I have explored the diverse and colorful world glitter has to offer and also embraced the tactile sensations that painting via finger can provide.

I go to a raging party every night
Parties now aren't much different than before we had kids. Sure, it may be in my basement instead of a club and sponsored by Sesame Street and not some trendy vodka, but that shit is off the hook. People throwing things, dancing like they are having a seizure, drinking straight from the bottle, staying up way past bedtime, drinking 'til they pee their pants? Every. Single. Night. Throw in the occasional pile of puke and you know how we roll…straight to nap time. We know how to party hard at our pad.

I've expanded my culinary palate

Long gone are the days of sushi and expensive bottles of wine, but my culinary offerings have grown, none-the-less. Slightly soggy cereal offered via spoon by my toddler? Sure. Mystery nuggets served at my kids' Family Picnic at school? Why not. Macaroni and cheese leftover from my preschooler''s dinner? Don't mind if I do. A Skittle found on a mission to locate a lost toy under the couch? Come on. Of course I am going to taste the rainbow.

I rock the latest trends
Move over Dolce. You too, Gabbana. Dr. Brown and Petunia Pickle Bottom are all up in this hizzy now. Long gone are the days of sporting the latest fashions, but I am most certainly up on the hottest mommy trends. Red 40? I don't think so. Dye- and preservative-free is what all the cool kids are doing this year. And don't even talk to me about BPA. Please. That was so 2010.

I don't sweat the small stuff

Before I procreated, I would worry if my apartment was in disarray before guests came over for a civilized gathering. It takes a lot to make my eye twitch nowadays. My toddler once crawled across our new white carpet with two fistfuls of blackberries during a party. Blink. I then spilled an entire glass of red wine down the stairs, splattering the freshly painted cream walls with a Pollock-esque pattern. Blink blink. I then entered our basement to see that the toddlers had done this to it: (remind me to provide pic) Blink Blink. Twitch.

I think music is awesome
Yo Gabba Gabba may not be the hot new band on the scene, but that shit is catchy. Tell me you can listen to Music Is Awesome without singing, "I like bugs, baby, how 'bout you?" all day? Don't lie. You can't. Because my name is Julie, J-Julie, J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J Julie, J-Julie. 

I know the hotspots
A little-know-club hidden in an alley that you need a password to enter? Not quiet. Now, I know when to hit Gymboree for the best sales, where the least disgusting public restrooms are in the mall, which park is populated with the least heathenistic children and where to get the cheapest boxes of wine (Trader Joe's, FYI). I may not know which restaurant is trending at the moment, but I sho 'nuff got coups for Steak 'n Shake. Kids eat free on weekends, yo. Put that scoop in your cup and shake it.


If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.