The Ridiculous

My absolute favorite things about Bean, without a shadow of a doubt, are the ridiculous things. I love absurdity in almost any form, and when you take a healthy dose of absurdity and add it to a heaping helping of my main man…well, folks. That’s just about perfection to me. His major milestones were amazing, don’t misunderstand. I cannot possibly forget his first, wobbly steps, watching him learn to crawl and climb and wiggle, and even the first time he held up a toy in his tiny, chubby fist. Milestones can be magic too. But the ridiculous things? These are the things I know I’ll really hold on to as time flies by. These are the things that just…count. You know? These are the things I cross my fingers and hope beyond hope that Bean remembers about his life when he’s older.

~ The Cart Hug. While pushing Bean down the aisles of a grocery store he will occasionally reach out for me and pull me close to him. I, of course, oblige and lean in and he gives me the greatest, biggest, most amazing little hug you could ever hope to get. From the front seat of a shopping cart. I don’t care if we’re backing up traffic in frozen foods. I don’t care how many people are watching and thinking I’ve lost my mind. My son just had a moment, totally unprompted, where he decided he just wanted to hug his mama. Not a normal hug, though. A ridiculous hug, from the seat of the shopping cart. This is definitely my new favorite hug. Hands down. And dare I say, I think this serves as proof that Bean has a bit of mama’s ridiculous gene himself.

~ A sunset dance, in the parking lot of Target. I don’t quite remember what prompted it, to be honest. We had just finished another round of Target shopping, Bean and me, and were unloading our wares into the car when it struck. The sudden and ridiculous need to dance. I picked him up out of the cart and we slow danced while I sang “You Are My Sunshine” about 47 times in a row. The sun was setting so I paused a moment to show him the beautiful bright pink sky that had been watching our dance, then gave him one more ridiculous twirl before, reluctantly, loading him into the car. Stares from strangers. Bedtime fast approaching. None of it was going to put a cramp in our style that night. No way mister.

~ Diddy Kisses and Hugs. Hubs will get down on the floor and call Bean over for a “Diddy Kiss” or a “Diddy Hug” and the result is always completely, ridiculously, amazing. Bean gets giddy as he scurries over to love on his Daddy, who happens to be one of his absolute most favorite people in the world. Bean even makes a game out of it at bedtime, giving Daddy kisses and hugs and cuddles while silly old Mama tries to do things like put on jammies and get him to sleep. Mama doesn’t get kisses while Daddy’s around, you know. And don’t you know Bean just laughs and giggles and squeals at how funny it is that mama wants a kiss, and he gives it away to Daddy instead. Watching Bean dive into Hubs’ open arms is just plain wonderful. To know that your two favorite people on Earth love each other that much…it just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and ridiculous inside.

~ Every time I walk outside into our backyard I see it. The ridiculousness. It’s just everywhere. A cooler I left in the sun to dry out is somehow filled with dandelion flowers, carefully and lovingly picked by clumsy, chubby, toddler hands. A sippy cup sits at the bottom of a flower pot for safe keeping. Big giant kiss marks on the sliding glass door. A kiddo who has stripped off his own diaper and is chasing the dog around the yard for a ridiculous, hilarious hug. A small boy, barely knee-high, yelling ridiculous, unintelligible things at his doggies every time they bark. The yard is one of our favorite ridiculous places.

~ Ridiculous, unwavering, totally boundless curiosity. It’s extraordinary, to tell you the truth. He has to learn everything and try it all himself and explore every single thing all the time. It is ridiculously exhausting and, at the same time, ridiculously beautiful to watch. We get out of the car at home and he has to go touch the light on the garage sensor. When the Tupperware falls out of the cabinet he cannot rest until he has tried every possible combination of lids and bowls. He could pet the dog’s ear for 45 straight minutes, switching hands back and forth, trying to pet it forwards and backwards and every way in between. He has to be the one to turn off his light switch every night on the way to his crib because otherwise, bedtime is completely ruined. His demands are ridiculous, and that tells me they’re all his very own creations. Ridiculously ridiculous. 

He is just perfection, that Bean. And by perfection, of course I mean Ridiculous. With a capital “R”. It doesn’t take but a minute, you know. It doesn’t have to be fancy or meticulously planned or even make much sense at all. But your child will eat it up, always coming back for seconds or thirds or even fourths. It’s good for the soul and the mind and the entire darn universe. The ridiculous is what it’s all about around here. Promise you’ll have a ridiculous moment of your own today, blog readers. Bonus points if you share a little bit of the ridiculousness with me back here. It can be ridiculously addicting.

Lightbulb Moment

Ever have those? Something brilliant comes flying into your head at a totally random moment? Like when you're in the shower or driving in traffic or, um, cuddling with your significant other (or cuddling with someone else entirely. Who am I to judge?) I had one of those moments yesterday while filing my toenails, and after talking to a friend today, it confirms it. My idea is brilliant.


I want YOU, blog fans, to write to me about your lives. Specifically, I want to hear all the things you can't vent about on your own. Maybe your mother-in-law stalks your Facebook feed so you can't vent about her always leaving your toilet seat up. (What the hell?) Perhaps you have something to get off your chest about your husband who, after deciding it was totally kosher to leave the baby in the car while he ran into Goody Goody Liquor, has just been declared as child savvy as a fruit bat. Maybe you have something to confess about your own parenting and you just don't have another outlet. I'm serious. I want to provide that outlet. No questions asked. Here's the deal:


I was speaking to a super awesome mama friend of mine a while back, and throughout the course of our conversation it became quite clear to me that she had very few outlets through which to vent her motherly frustrations. Those in her inner circle might judge her for, say, having the nerve to not love every stinkin' minute of motherhood. She didn't dare bitch in a public forum (like Facebook) about her exhaustion (both mental and physical) because that would be too negative and wouldn't accurately portray how grateful she is for her family. She felt like she wasn't allowed to convey all the craziness that her job as a mama entails because she didn't have a safe place to unload all of it. My heart broke for her. (Jen has a heart?!) Seriously. I felt for her.

Mamas (and daddies) need an outlet. This job is tough stuff, my friends. If a waitress or a lawyer or a hooker or a garbageman is allowed to go home at the end of a tough day and complain about how crummy his shift was, why can't us parents do the same thing about our jobs? It's okay to complain. It's okay to vent. It's okay to piss and moan and bitch about how much this job can suck, and you know what? It doesn't mean you aren't good at it. It doesn't mean you don't love your kiddo. It means you are human, and this gig is taxing, to say the least. Shouldn't the most important job in the world also be the most challenging? And if so, shouldn't the most challenging thing you'll ever do in your life come with at least a few free passes to complain and let off steam?


I get wanting to be anonymous. I get putting on a brave face. I understand not wanting to be judged for feeling the way you feel about your life/ kids/ marriage/ etc. It isn't fair, but it's true. Your Facebook status is being judged. Someone at the park is dissecting every word you have to say about your little ones. Your play group/ library time/ music class/ baby palm reading group has at least one or two bums sitting there waiting for you to complain about your baby so they can pounce on your for being so ungrateful. So negative. So....whatever.


Not here, ladies and gents. I come here and vent at will. I say what I want with only a mild regard for what others might think (I am only human, after all.) You should be afforded to same opportunity. So send it to me. The good. The bad. The ugly. (Especially the Ugly.) I swear I will keep you anonymous. Whatever your vent/ gripe/ funny or sad story is to tell, I will tell it here. It will get it off your chest. It will prove cathartic. It will be hilarious for you to jump on a blog and see that story about that stupid thing your mother/ husband/ wife/ uncle/ babysitter did the other day and know that no one will ever connect it to you. But it's out there. And you feel better. And you have been granted your inalienable right to complain, like any good parent should. A Post Secret for parenting, if you will. 

Send it to PeaceLoveAndSpiderSpray at Gmail dot com

Feel free to sign it, or remain anonymous. Send it from an account I recognize, or an account no one even knows you have. I will get your story out there (with my own fancy little Jen-like spin on it, of course.) I don't make a nickel off this blog (as of yet, anyway) so it's not like I gain anything from telling what you need told. I just know how important it is for a parent to have a good outlet. Some stories are too funny to keep to yourselves. Some burdens are just too heavy to bear alone. Sometimes you just need to let it all out. 


Let me have it. I can handle it. Promise.


And...go!

Weekend Wrap-up

How was everyone's weekend, blog fans? Ours was decidedly lame, which is something we're getting used to around here. No rockin' party for St. Patrick's Day. No green beer (or beer of any color for that matter.) No keg-stands or toga parties to be had, folks. (I never was cool enough, by the way, to get invited to the toga parties in high school. Were you? I was always so bummed. I mean, a high school party is okay, but a party with a bunch of toga-clad people = awesomeness. Anywho...)


As I was saying, super low-key at Casa de The Jen. A baby cutting eight teeth at once (yes. Eight. Karma is a biatch.) means we were pretty well housebound the last few days. Not because that sort of thing is contagious, but because cutting teeth causes The Bean to resemble something straight out of Paranormal Activity. You aren't ever totally sure what you just witnessed, but you know darn well you'll be sleeping with the lights on for at least the next three days. Know what I mean? Thanks to Bean's "new" normal behavior (i.e. toddlerhood), even on a good day lately I'm hesitant to leave the house with him unless I have packed some tranquilizer darts strong enough to take down a charging wildebeest. You add in some seriously heinous teething and forget it. We're on lock-down, with the dogs standing guard at all entrances and exits to be sure Bean doesn't get out and mix with the general population. We armed ourselves with mini frozen waffles, Orajel, and a steady rotation of ice cold, wet washcloths and that's all she wrote. A whole weekend eaten up by one unpleasant, teething, baby monster.


While on lock-down, however, I had plenty of time to think about all the important things in life, and how so many things just don't make any sense at all. Please take a moment to step into the head of Jen, and see what I had whirling around in the ol' brain the last two days.


*In The Little Mermaid, Ariel is supposed to be 16. Um, what the hell is a 16 year old doing running (swimming?) around all day wearing nothing but two tiny seashells to cover her mer-nipples? Furthermore, why on earth is the father happy that she winds up married at the end of the movie? She's 16, people! She hasn't even graduated from underwater high school yet. In fact, now that I mention it, I don't think she was even attending school in the first place. Sebastian was wrong. It isn't all better Under the Sea. It's all one big fat saltwatery episode of "16 and Pregnant".


*The Orajel package says not to use it more than 4 times per day. Okay, what if I need to apply it to, say, 6 different teeth at once? Am I already over the allotted number of uses for the day? What if I pick only four of the teeth, and then it turns out I picked the wrong four? More importantly, why do I always forget I just applied Orajel to Bean's mouth, and inevitably stick my finger in my own mouth, numbing up my lips and/or tongue for at least fifteen minutes?


*Back to beloved children's characters for a moment - I had no idea growing up that Pretty Woman was a hooker. (I know this isn't technically a children's movie, but I watched it as a child so to me at least, it is a classic children's film.) Seriously. I didn't understand the scene where Richard Gere refers to Julia's "office", and then Julia starts laughing. Why is it so funny that a woman would have an office? I was pretty sure Richard Gere was being sexist and that he just felt like Julia Roberts shouldn't be working outside the home or something. Guess I was off on that just a lil' bit, huh?

*Why did it take me until B was almost 15 months old to think to feed him spinach, but I made sure he'd tried french fries and ice cream about six months earlier?


*A baby Snuggie would be hilarious. Plus, tripping over the front of the thing would probably slow the little beast down, you know?


Okay folks. I'm off to bed. This weekend full of spending time with my child and being his parent has me wiped out. I'll see you back here later this week for some...wait for it...product reviews! Woohoo!

For the Dads

I ran across this post today from another blog, and I was hooked. It spoke to a topic about which I am incredibly passionate - the need for dads to wake up and realize what an incredible impact they can have on their children, good or bad. This man speaks to the fact that you can quite literally change and shape your child's future with the choices you make as a dad. He says that it's not only okay for dads to cuddle and kiss and love on their kiddos, but it is in fact quite necessary. 


I sat down multiple times trying to write a post about this very thing, and have yet to come up with anything quite as eloquent as this, so on this topic for now, I'm directing you to his blog. This cannot be ignored. It must be discussed. Dads are NOT background noise in their children's lives - they share an equal part of the main event. Dads are too damned important to be taken lightly. We need good dads out there, and I think this starts by driving home the following point with dads: you matter. Your child hears you. Maybe more importantly, he sees you. Every single day. Whatever you spend your time doing from 9-5 at some office is not half as important as what you spend your time doing during bath time. Or story time. The most extraordinary parts of your child's upbringing can very well occur sometime between sitting down to eat dinner and zipping up footed pajamas at bed time. Why would you want to be absent for that? Show up. Be involved. Do NOT defer to mom because it's easier or because she's trying to push you out of the way. You are in this too. 


I cannot begin to express how grateful I am that my son has a strong man in his life. A man who shows him every single day what matters - his family. Bean sees his dad open doors for mama, but also people we've never even met.. Bean watches his dad offer to run a load of dishes when mom is wiped out. Bean knows that bath time with dad can be just as fun as it is with mom (usually better!) Bean knows that hugs and kisses and cuddles aren't relegated to mama. Bean hears his dad say "I love you" no less than a thousand times per week. And I can already tell, at barely more than a year spent on this planet, Bean knows that if he's ever sad, or scared, or hurt, or unsure of himself, he will always find Daddy's arms open and waiting. This, my friends, is pure gold.

MOTY

As my writing unquestionably takes on a sort of condescending quality from time to time, it’s no wonder that people feel I’m sitting here on my shiny pedestal, admonishing others for their subpar behavior, and patting myself on the back for my MOTY-esque perfection. (That’s Mother of the Year, for all you non-interweb addicts.) This could not be farther from the truth. If and when I refer to myself as MOTY it is, I assure you, only in jest. I do things on a daily basis that in hindsight always make me cringe. On many, many, many occasions I have found myself extremely grateful no one was around to see something stupid I did or hear something stupid that was said. Every single day I cross my fingers and hope that Bean has yet to reach the age where he’ll actually begin to remember the things I do day in and day out. If anything, this blog actually serves as a sort of refuge for all of us non-MOTY candidates, myself being the ring leader of this bunch of misfits, to be sure.

As proof of my well-deserved nomination into the MOTY Hall of Fame, allow me to provide you with some fodder from our daily goings on around here.

* Completely out of love and as a sign of affection (really. I swear.) I oftentimes refer to Bean as “Bad Baby.” It’s always “Bad Baby want a snack?” or “Bad Baby, where did you get those batteries from??” This is all fun and games, of course, until the little turd starts to repeat what I say. The other day it was “Bad Baby, why is there a full sippy cup and a magnet in the drawer below the oven?” Next thing I know, a sweet chubby little face is staring up at me, opens his mouth, and in a questioning tone asks “Baah Bay?” Crap. He’s going to repeat “bad baby” in public, and people are going to think I’m a monster. Perfect. 

* We ran out of most of the Bean-friendly foods the other day, and it was lunch time. We could have gone to the store and picked up something wholesome, sure. Or we could have gone to Taco Bueno and split a bag of bean burritos. I’ll let you guess which one of those options this MOTY chose.

*There is a red streak on the couch cushion from a particularly exhausting Tylenol-related struggle the other night. Any day now I’ll mosey on over there and try to clean it off.

*My number one reason for agreeing with extended rear-facing car seats is simple: when your child is facing the back of the car, he can’t see you consume your delicious cinnamon swirl coffee cake and iced vanilla latte, all the while wondering when his lazy mother is going to feed him his own breakfast.

*However, as beneficial as I felt rear-facing was, (for both safety and Starbucks-related reasons), Bean went forward facing at about a year. Something about having to jam my elbow into his chest to get him to cooperate and get buckled in for every single car trip just stop being funny, and once turned forward facing, those fights stopped. 


::This is probably a good place to post this link and remind everyone that, although I am clearly a terrible parent and allow my child to be forward facing, current recommendations state you should leave your kid to face the trunk until two years old. There. Now you can't sue me.::

 Still not convinced I’m MOTY material? Let’s see…

*One of his first five table foods was a French fry.

*It’s not a matter of “if” he will repeat an embarrassing swear word in public, it’s more a matter of “when” and “how offensive a word will he choose?”

*He spent the better part of a whole week being bathed in a bathtub with a pretty obvious grunge ring because I couldn’t find the time to clean it. A grunge ring that slightly resembled a mix of motor oil and Crisco. No idea where it came from, but it didn’t seem to ruin any of his bath time fun. (Including, of course, drinking some of his own bath water.)

*I’ve given serious thought to getting him one of those dog toys where the dog has to work really hard to get the snack out, leading to hours of entertainment. Or, in the case of a toddler, at least a half hour of me getting something done while Bean teams up with one of our pups to try to figure out how to get his Elmo crackers out. Perhaps a trip to Petsmart is in order?

*I quite possibly “encouraged” Bean to take a nap he maybe didn’t really need in order to sit here and write this post.

In all seriousness though. I totally embrace my flaws as a mama. And, as long as we’re laying it all out there, I totally dig any mama who is willing to do the same. The mamas I judge (yes, I admit it. I judge.) are the ones who either 1) are completely convinced they are flawless, or 2) don’t know the difference between a harmless fault (cup of vanilla pudding and five Elmo crackers for dinner), and a dangerous fault (strapped into a car with no car seat, left alone in the tub, etc.)

Make me feel better, blog readers. What is one of your favorite MOTY moments from your own life? I promise when your kid is old enough, I will not out you to them. Cross my heart.

Gender Neutral

I find myself becoming more and more aware, lately, as to how incredibly impossible this concept is for some parents. Sure, most parents are likely to dress their boys in blue and their girls in pink. Girls wear bows in their hair/ have them plastered to their heads, and boys wear sneakers and baseball caps. Girls might have a pink blankie or car seat and a boy will probably tote a GI Joe instead of a Barbie. My son, admittedly, wears sweatpants instead of sparkly purple tights, and “boyish” brown shoes instead of anything with Dora on them, so I get this concept, to some degree.

What I struggle to understand, however, is when parents appear not only hesitant to allow their child to mix with the stereotypical icons of the opposite gender, but outright terrified. It never crossed my mind that a boy parent might go so far as to take away a toy that is “too girly” or outright ban the toy from the house entirely. I’m serious. I truly had no idea parents (most often, parents of boys) were so concerned with keeping their children tucked safely into their opposite gender corners, never to mix or mingle for fear of…what, exactly?  From what I’ve heard, it can be anything from “He’ll get made fun of!” to “He needs to be more tough and manly”. Seriously?! I promise you, no toy or book or hair bow is going to change your child’s gender, sexual preference, or whatever the hell “manliness” looks like in a toddler. 

So what, I ask you, is the big deal? Bean is in a tight-knit playgroup consisting of a whopping three babies: Bean, Boy Baby, and Girl Baby. We meet at each other’s houses or parks or malls, and, especially now that the kids are toddlers, they trade toys like mad. Bean is just as likely to get his hands on the flower Girl Baby wears in her hair as she is to snatch up his dinosaur toy. And us three mommies just don’t care. In fact, I kind of love when Bean gets to play with Girl Baby’s toys since she is likely to have things B never plays with on a regular basis: purple, pink, glitter…Poor Bean just doesn’t have much of it. (Bean and Boy Baby, on the other hand, seem to have many toys in common.) And from a tactile and cognitive developmental standpoint, it’s probably good for the kid to experience a variety of textures and colors. Plus, glitter is pretty rad. The boys in the group will, over the years, get to sit at a Princess table and sip fake tea from tiny cups and drag dolls around by their hair. On the flipside, Girl Baby will have no shortage of Tonka trucks dragging Spiderman action figures through the dirt on the way to meet up with a pile of dinosaurs. I love it. (And I am far from being a totallygender-neutral maniac, just for the record.)

Being a child is all about discovery and exploration. Getting a chance to see all the cool things the world has to offer, learning new things, and stretching creative muscles. In one afternoon your kiddo can practice walking on the moon (thanks to Astronaut Barbie), tuck a baby doll in for a nap, mold Playdough into the form of your family dog (or is that a turtle?), stack blocks into the shape of a tall building, and inside have a meeting going on between three Star Wars action figures, Elmo, and a T-rex. How freaking awesome is that?! And, more importantly, who the hell wants to take that away, just because all those toys weren’t “gender appropriate”?

My sister-in-law passed down some books to Bean and, as she has a daughter and a son, some of the books were more “girly” than others. So what did I do? I read B the Barbie book this afternoon. And you know what? He loved it. None of his books have sparkles or rhinestones. None of his books have bright pink dresses or hot blondes. We read the book, then two from Dr. Seuss and part of a nursery rhyme book before he, fairly abruptly, told me it was time to dump out his blocks and put them in his sock drawer. (Like any good mama I followed his lead and didn’t ask any questions.)Rest assured, blog fans. I have checked three times since the Book Incident and, so far, I am happy to report that his penis has not actually fallen off. His voice isn’t higher and he has expressed absolutely no desire to work as a commentator on The View when he grows up. With any luck we will walk away from this whole Barbie book fiasco unscathed.

Honestly, though. Not only do I see no harm in crossing stereotype lines, I see nothing but benefit from it. Why should a girl sit in a corner and dress her dolls and paint her nails if what she really wants to be doing is throwing the football around with the boys? Why do people get so up in arms over a little boy asking his mommy to paint his toe nails? What do they think will happen? Bean could be described by most as “all boy” (or as someone who would make a very unattractive girl). He shows many tendencies toward the stereotypical male side of things already. And, if tomorrow while putting on my lip gloss Bean reaches for it and wants me to put some on him, I won’t hesitate (unless it’s my MAC gloss. Mama doesn’t share the good stuff.) I would let him carry my purse around the house and should we ever decide to spawn again (ha!), I would probably run out and buy him a baby doll in practice for a new sibling. Also if I were ever to find myself a parent to a newborn again, I would likely run out and do my best to obtain a Xanax prescription, but only for me. Again, Mama doesn’t share the good stuff. 

Your child was born exactly the person he or she was meant to be. Be a good parent, and don’t screw that up with your petty biases, stereotypes, and unfounded fears. You’re only getting in the way of the beautiful child your kiddo is trying to become.

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to check B's estrogen level again, as I have every hour, since I let him read that terrible, trouble-making book. Barbie is just not to be trusted.