Take Me Out to Wrigley

Nothing says Memorial Day weekend like a good ol’ trip down to Wrigley Field.  And freedom never seemed sweeter to a little boy who got to skip school and go cheer on the Cubbies with his papa.  Buy him some peanuts and Cracker Jacks, and he won’t care if he ever goes back to first grade:

Things I’ve Learned This Week

** There are seven days in a week?  Really?

** A boomerang does NOT belong on the kitchen counter.

** Nor does it belong on the toilet.

** My neighbor’s name is Pete, not Joe.  (Maybe that’s why he’s given me weird looks all these years?)

** I should stop buying dog biscuits & just give the dog what he really wants — dryer sheets.

** Ice cream makes everything better.

** Sunscreen is EXTREMELY important.  If only I’d learned this as a teenager….

** All I need is a whip and some elephants & this house would truly be a three-ring circus.

** Fitted sheets can kiss my ass — they’re just not meant to be folded.

** My kids STILL haven’t figured out that I’m not a morning person.

** I need to wear earplugs until at least 9 a.m.

** The male version of camel toe is called moose knuckle.

** The skateboards on my front porch are apparently permanent fixtures.

** My kids have no clue how to get toothpaste on their damn toothbrushes.

** I’m allergic to housework.

** There’s a whole forest of trees in my son’s backpack from all the homework papers he’s failed to turn in.

** Sometimes there IS crying in baseball.

** Bedtime is a foreign concept to me anymore.  < yawn >

** Parenting can break your heart.

** I should avoid Checkout Lane 5 at the grocery store at all possible costs.

** I can’t remember anything anymore.

** Crap, I forgot what I was gonna say.

** If stupid is as stupid does, then I am a complete idiot.

** Shit NEVER EVER gets done around here.

** Despite what I might think, God does not give me more than I can handle.

<<  WHAT DID YOU LEARN THIS WEEK??????  >>

Baseball Bummer

As a parent, there is nothing worse than seeing your child feel defeated.  And as much as you want to scoop them up and make it all better, you can’t always do that.  It’s just an unfortunate part of growing up.  My heart nearly broke into a thousand tiny pieces when I had to experience this agonizing part of parenting last night at my son’s Little League baseball game.

It was his second time at bat after being tagged out before even reaching first base in the first inning, and I was doing my motherly duty of cheering him on from the sidelines.  And after several missed swings, he finally made contact with the ball and got a decent hit.  However, the first baseman grabbed the ball a little too quickly and once again, tagged him out.  Dammit!  His little head turned in my direction, and I could instantly see the disappointment on his face.  He walked with his head down the whole way back to sit with his team and tried like hell not to cry.  I knew I shouldn’t baby him, but seeing him THAT down in the dumps was more than I could take.  So I quietly went over and whispered in his ear that I was very proud of him for trying his best.  A lump formed in my throat when I saw his little lip quivering and his eyes getting red.  Nevertheless, I forced myself to walk away, and I prayed that the next at-bat would be better for him.

Unfortunately, though, it only got worse from there.  The next time he hit the ball fairly hard, but it went right into the hands of a VERY tall short stop (seriously, I’m wondering if this kid was actually in 4th grade — he was THAT freakin’ tall!)  My heart literally sank into the pit of my stomach when the kid caught it, and I had to hold myself back from running onto the field and knocking it right out of his damn hands.  I just knew how upset my son was going to be.  And sure enough, he came back to sit on the bench with big tears welling up in his eyes.  After seeing this, even my tough-love husband couldn’t resist going over and squeezing him tight.  Sometimes, you just gotta say to hell with it and go with your gut, so we stood there in a big bear hug with our extremely bummed out little baseball player who kept saying over and over again, “I didn’t even get to first base.”  I wanted so badly to take away this feeling from him, but I couldn’t.  So, I did what any mom would do in that situation — I bought him whatever kind of ice cream he wanted after the game.

As much as it killed us to see our boy so down on himself like that, we were at least thrilled to know that he’s finally found something about which he truly cares.  Before this season of baseball, we were convinced that the only real interest he had was in video games.  So, in an effort to support his baseball fever, my husband decided to finagle an extra ticket to the Cubs game tomorrow and take him out of school to have a father/son day at Wrigley Field.  Seeing his sweet face light up at this news was the perfect ending to a really crummy night.

** HOW COME NOBODY EVER TOLD ME PARENTING WOULD BE THIS HARD???!!! **

The Padded Bikini Top

What is it with kids’ clothing designers trying to make our little girls look like they should be turning tricks down on the corner?  The booty shorts, the microscopic skirts, the cut-down-to-there halter tops — they all scream “MINI HOOCHIE MAMA!!!!” Now call me crazy, but I prefer my little girl to actually LOOK like a little girl.  This is why I about flipped my lid over what I saw hanging at Gapkids yesterday afternoon in the swimsuit section.

The cashier must have recognized an impulse buyer when she spotted me cause she went right into her whole spiel about their big $15 swimsuit deal.  I couldn’t resist at least checking them out, so I moseyed on over to the girls’ section.  I rolled my eyes in disgust as I perused skanky little cutout suits and itty bitty bikinis, but when I came across a PADDED triangle bikini top, I literally gasped out loud.  Why in the hell would anyone in their right flippin’ mind think it’s appropriate for a seven year old child to pump up her knockers??!!  For God’s sakes, she doesn’t even HAVE knockers!

For the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone would want to make a child look older than she already is.  There are way too many perverts out there as it is without us wrapping our kids up with a big bow and presenting them like a gift.  Am I on a soapbox here?  Yes, I most certainly am, cause I am so sick of our culture trying to slutty up our girls.  I so badly wanted to grab all those ridiculous padded swimsuit tops and burn ’em like they used to in the 60’s.  But I didn’t feel like getting arrested, what with having to pick up my kids from school & all, so I simply huffed out of the store and immediately bitched to all my Twitter friends.

** So, what do YOU think about these padded bikini tops for little girls? **

Driving with my Eyes Closed

If I could bottle up and sell my amazingly crystal clear hindsight ability, I would be one rich mama.  Case in point?  This past weekend.  Am I really able to pretend like I’m still a 21 year old college kid for two straight nights in a row?  Not so much.  And should I really try to make a 6+ hour road trip on little to no sleep at all?  Probably not.  And is it a really good idea to take a Benadryl the night before taking said 6+ hour road trip?  Yeah, you get the picture.  It’s all much easier to see the stupidity in such decision making after the fact.

Over the weekend, I had the chance to get away from my motherly duties and hang out with some long-time friends from my hometown in Indiana.  And to say that I had fun would be a complete understatement, since I had SO much fun that I forgot all about the importance of sleep.  By Sunday, I was draggin’ some serious ass, not to mention suffering from a vicious allergy attack.  So before turning in for the night, I decided to pop a Benadryl in the hopes of waking up the next morning able to breathe more clearly for the long drive back to Chicago.  (HUGE mistake!)

I felt fairly decent when I woke up, but I still made sure to grab a Diet Coke for some extra go-go juice just in case.  I had my tunes, I had my caffeine, and I was ready to roll.  Unfortunately, though, neither of these made a lick of difference because I hadn’t been on the road for more than an hour before I started to completely zone out.  Holy shitcakes — I was nodding off on the frickin’ highway!  I wiggled my head, I smacked my face, and I guzzled my Diet Coke, but nothing was snapping me out of my haze.  I was certain that I was gonna end up in a ditch if I didn’t pull off the road.

So I found the nearest gas station and pulled into the parking lot.  I figured I’d just try to shut my eyes for a few little minutes and see if a quick cat nap helped at all.  I’d been dozing for probably five or so minutes before my phone rang and woke me up.  And as I answered my phone, I noticed a very perplexed truck driver staring intensely at me through the window.  I’m sure he was wondering if I was dead or cracked out on drugs cause who the hell sleeps in a gas station parking lot?  Nevertheless, though, the tiny little shut-eye actually helped get me back on track, so I set out once again on the long journey home.

And even though I wasn’t technically asleep, I guess I was still pretty out of it.  I discovered this when I decided to stop and pick up a sandwich for lunch.  So I walked into what I thought was a sub place, only to discover that I was actually in an Army recruitment office.  Oops!  Not exactly what I had in mind for my mid-day meal since I certainly didn’t feel like being all I could be.  (To my defense though, this particular Jimmy John’s was in a damn strip mall, which I despise.  I mean, seriously, all the stores look the same — do they not?!)

Surprisingly, by nothing short of a sheer miracle, I somehow made it back home in one piece without harming myself or anyone else in the process.  My super fun weekend definitely came with a high price cause I will be playing catch up now for a good solid week.  It seems that I don’t snap back like I used to < ahem >.  Despite the extra long recovery process, though, it was absolutely worth every sleepless minute of it.  Every mama needs time to recharge her batteries and feel like a person again.

Things I’ve Learned This Week

** Judgmental moms can suck it.

** My kids coined the phrase, “Save the drama for your mama.”

** Fingernail clippings do NOT belong on the kitchen table.

** Dirt floors would better serve this household.

** If a door says “PULL” to open, you probably shouldn’t push it.

** Watching a YouTube video of lice crawling in someone’s hair can scar you for life.

** I really shouldn’t have to keep saying, “Don’t eat your boogers.”

** Moth balls should be illegal. Pee-eww.

** I have a cooler with a baseball bat and a shovel in my backyard.

** I am classy.

** Children only want to sleep in on school days.

** Our foyer looks like a shoe factory had the runs.

** We should’ve named the dog “Asshole.”

** My son is obsessed with timers.

** Nobody truly lives on Perfect Mountain.

**”Jack and Jill” is one dumb-ass nursery rhyme.

** BP stands for “Big Pussies.”

** Google is my friend.

** It’s beyond bizarre that my waxing lady leaves the room for me to remove my pants before a bikini wax.  Hello…lady bits in your face!

** I’ll be dead before I finally feel rested.

** There are WAY too many grumpy people in this world.

** I could really use a personal assistant.

** Despite what I might think, God does not give me more than I can handle.

<< WHAT DID YOU LEARN THIS WEEK?????? >>

Dr. Nucking Futs

I swear I should have been a psychiatrist or some kind of therapist or something.  People are always spilling their beans to me, whether I want them to or not.  However, I don’t even know how to deal with my own shit, so it’s probably best that I don’t try and tackle other people’s shit as well.

For instance, just last week I had some woman following me around the Nordstrom shoe department telling me about what kind of shoes she prefers, as well as her bunions and arch problems.  I have no freaking clue what possessed this chick to think that I gave a damn about her nasty feet.  I tried like hell to ditch her, but every time I turned around, there she was yapping away.  And to make matters worse, she was not only a REALLY loud talker, but she was also a close talker.  I felt truly violated by the time I left the store and went right home to take a shower.

And then there was the woman at the gym last week who struck up a conversation with me about what kind of undies I wear under my workout pants.  Now, granted, her kids go to the same school as mine, but still, talking to a complete stranger about your thong can be a little awkward, to say the least.  She did at least have the common decency to introduce herself to me properly after we’d talked in great detail about our skivvies.  She felt it was just the right thing to do, since we knew so much about each other by that point.

The grocery store is another place where I should start charging people by the hour.  I can’t ever seem to get in and out of there without somebody bearing their poor, pitiful soul to me.  I cringe every time I go through the checkout line when this one particular cashier is working it.  I know WAY more about her financial woes and family drama than I even know about my own.  I don’t know what makes her think I want to hear all about her kid’s boogers when all I want to do is buy my damn bananas.

So maybe I missed my calling in life, and I was really supposed to be a Freudian mastermind or something.  Who knows.  I certainly seem to attract the cuckoos though, which is totally ironic, don’t ya think?  They clearly don’t know just how nucking futs I am.

The Sleepwalking Pisser

You know those days when you think, “Wow, things couldn’t possibly get worse” and then suddenly they do? Well, that pretty much summed up Monday for us here on the Nucking Futs homefront. Yes, it was just a series of one sucky thing right after another, starting with a lice scare at school (I itch just thinking about it), capped off by a big ol’ pile of piss (literally).

It’s never fun to discover that your child has peed the bed when all you wanna do is crawl into your own bed and pass the hell out. And it never seems to fail that this little event ALWAYS takes place right after you just put fresh sheets on said child’s bed. So, you can probably imagine how thrilled we were to find out that we had to once again put clean sheets on our daughter’s bed at freaking 11:30 at night. Nothin’ like a little midnight laundering to really get your mojo goin’.

So after tucking our newly-pj’d daughter back into her freshly-made sleep nest, my husband popped into the boy’s room to drag his little booty to the john for one last tinkle. He’d no sooner stepped two feet through the door when I heard, “What the hell is this??!!” I tried REALLY hard to play it off like I didn’t hear him, but he was apparently under the impression that we were in this whole parenting thing together since he repeatedly called my name over and over again till I made my way back down the hall. I begged God to please, please, please not let me find a room full of gut soup.

Turns out that the kid had sleepwalked his way into what he thought was the bathroom, when in actuality, it was really just his dresser. There was a trail of piss all over the floor, right into which my hubby had managed to step, and a sprinkling of tinkling all over the drawer that, ironically, holds his undies. So, once again we rolled up our sleeves and set out to clean up yet another late night mess.

I was seriously beginning to believe that I do, in fact, live in a damn fraternity house. I mean, really, between my ripped-to-shreds couch and now the pissing on the floor, it’s getting to the point where I should just pick out our Greek letter symbols and start hazing the pledges. Luckily, last night, though, my son reassured me that this is nowhere near as bad as “Animal House.” The kid actually had the naivete’ to bust his own self for sneaking a cookie out of the pantry at 4 a.m. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not thinkin’ too many frat dudes would ever admit to stealing from the friggin’ cookie jar….

Ten Things That Make Me Happy

So you may or may not know that I generally HATE it when people send me chain letters that I’m supposed to forward on to ten people immediately or suffer the lightning bolt that’s sure to strike me down. I mean, for shit’s sakes, I already have enough to worry about without wondering when God’s gonna plow me over with a fleet of semis when I least expect it! However, I was recently “tagged” by my friend @jterzieff on Twitter to share ten things that make me happy, and I was surprisingly interested in playing along. So, here goes:

1. A clean house — Lame? Perhaps, but you have to understand that my house is truly clean maybe twice a month and that’s as soon as my cleaning ladies shut the door behind them. The floors are sparkly, the toilet seats are free of piss splatters, I can actually see my kitchen countertops, and everybody’s crap is shoved into their perspective corners. All is right with the world…at least until the dog chews up the rug, the hubby piles up six pairs of shoes in the foyer, and the kids shoot Nerf bullets all over the damn dining room.

2. A prompt Thursday delivery of my Us magazine — So, yeah, maybe I don’t always know the state of the union or how much the Dow rose, but by gosh, I can certainly tell you “Who Wore It Best” on most weekends if my stinkin’ magazine arrives in a timely fashion. And since my children prevent me from EVER finishing a frickin’ article in one sitting, it tends to take me at least an entire weekend to get through an issue. So, a Thursday arrival is totally key.

3. Sleeping in when it rains — Ok, so maybe this is just a pipe dream of mine since we all know that being a parent makes it impossible to EVER sleep in, whether it’s raining or not, but the tiny sliver of memory that I do still have left in my brain tells me that this once made me VERY happy.

4. Wine — Settle down now. There’s no need to go contacting that A&E “Intervention” show or anything. I just so happen to totally dig smashed grapes, so sue me. I have a feeling that in another life I lived on a vineyard.

5. Holding my kids’ hands — I know that soon enough they’re gonna be ordering me to pick them up a mile away to avoid being seen with me, so I cherish every single moment that I get to nestle their little hands in mine. Pure and simple bliss.

6. A parking meter with time still left on it — It’s a total pain in the ass to dig through my black hole of a purse to try and locate some spare change among all the damn Legos, Polly Pockets, and granola bars, so finding a meter that has a spare ten minutes on it is like barely making a green light for this lady.

7. Working out — Breaking a sweat is both physically and mentally good for me. It’s either that or I’m forced to open up a can of Whoop Ass on the entire world around me, and I just really don’t think the neighbors would go for that.

8. Professional massages — When I don’t have to bribe my kids with a quarter to rub my back or nudge my nodding off hubby to knead my aching shoulders, it’s all good in the hood. Hell, I don’t even need a flippin’ happy ending or anything — I just need someone to stay awake while they’re rubbing me down.

9. “Modern Family” — Don’t tell me you haven’t seen this show! It’s absolutely hysterical! And there really aren’t that many funny sitcoms left on t.v. these days, in my opinion, so finding one that has SUCH good writing is like coming across a diamond in the rough. Life is a whole lot more bearable if you can laugh your way through it.

10. Finishing this list — My brain is tired, people! Too much thinking can be dangerous to your health — at least to mine anyway.

** I’m supposed to pass this on to ten other bloggers who I think will play along, which I’m hesitant to do since I’m not a big fan of death threats. That being said, here are just a few who I hope will humor me (or at least go easy on me when they kill me):

Why Is Daddy Crying

Hoo-dee-Hoo

Sex and the Single Dad

Angry Working Mom

Loulou’s Views

Date Night

They say there’s nothing quite like the special bond between a son and his mama. And this just so happens to be one stereotype which I am more than happy to be a part of. Yes, my little man totally digs hangin’ out with the woman who brought him into this world and was happier than a fly on shit when we got to have our own little date night this past weekend with just the two of us.

Since my daughter went to a daddy/daughter campout with my husband on Saturday, my son and I were able to have some rare quality one-on-one time. The kid’s face truly lit up like a jack-o-lantern when he found out that he was gonna get me all to himself. You see, normally, he has to compete with his twin sister for my full and undivided attention, and we all know that my last brain cell can only stretch so far. So this little scenario was a-ok with him. He even turned down a playdate with a neighborhood friend so that he could just chill with his mama. Is that true love or what?! I told him that we could do anything he wanted — go out to dinner and movie or order a pizza and play Wii at home. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which option he went with, given that the kid has a borderline psychotic obsession with all things video games.

So we had a little family room “picnic” on the floor with our pizza and a couple of unbelievably irritating episodes of Spongebob. (Are you submitting your “Mother of the Century” recommendations yet?) And then, it was the moment he’d been waiting for — it was Mario time. I swear to you that I played so many freakin’ Mario games that I began speaking in an Italian accent and was quite certain that a mustache was forming on my upper lip as the night went on. And it clearly didn’t make a rat’s ass of difference to my son that I had no earthly clue what the hell I was doing while playing these games. The kid refused to explain the rules of any game to me, and instead, just let me fend for myself. Actually, I think it was all part of his secret master plan to beat the ever-loving crap out of me.

I may have been confused out of my flippin’ mind as well as silently wishing that my exhausted head was on my pillow upstairs, but I would not have traded that date for anything in this world. If you could’ve seen just how unbelievably happy my mini man was, you would understand why I prayed to God that I could just bottle that moment up forever. The fact that he chose to be with ME over anyone else AND that the only ass I had to give up was in Super Mario Brothers defines an absolute picture perfect evening in my mind.