parenting

Just Call Me Dr. Evil

July 22, 2010 By Blonde Mom 17 Comments

The other night I jokingly posted to Twitter that I was curious if the girls would ever notice if I moved all the clocks in our house 15 minutes ahead and alluded to the Dr. Evil pink to lips pose.

I was cranky.

They were cranked up.

I may or may not have been under the influence of raging once a month hormones. Ahem.

When Miss C was little and could not yet read I’d sometimes skip over entire sections of a particularly monotonously painful to read bedtime book. (Think Hop On Pop by Dr. Seuss.)

I may or may not have told the girls a certain kids’ show just disappeared from our DVR.

Just wondering if you ever have these Dr. Evil parenting moments.

I can’t be the only one.

Filed Under: Parenting 17 Comments

The Fun Mom

February 18, 2010 By Blonde Mom 14 Comments

On Tuesday rather than become annoyed at the fact that I was not going to be able to be productive because both girls were home (Miss C had a snow day and although Miss A’s daycare was open she gleefully said “YES!” when I asked her if she wanted to stay home) I decided to just roll with it. Plus they were gone two nights last weekend with our parents and I was perhaps feeling a bit of mommy guilt.

Snow days, although fun when they are a rare novelty, get old quickly and it’s tough because although schools are closed the rest of the world keeps on ticking and my office is always open and my husband still has to work. Maybe I’m just a wee bit high strung or OCD about the way our schedule should be. Any way, it is a weird balancing act to have the ability to plug in your laptop and work from home. Kids don’t always understand why you can’t make sock puppets and play board games all day because they have the day off.

Not wanting to be a total killjoy, I told the girls we’d go to the park for lunch at noon and sled. By then they’d already watched so much Disney Channel that their brain cells were starting to die and OH MY LORD I actually know all the words to that new Selena Gomez song.

Our neighbor’s little girl had just gotten a new sled so she headed to the park with us and as we were walking I noticed the snow had already melted considerably. Brown patches of grass and dirt mottled the once pristine snow. It didn’t look very promising for sledding but we’d already spent a good 10 minutes or more getting dressed for it so we headed to a little sloped area. We ended up sledding on the “snud,” a mixture of snow and mud, for an hour walking home the girls started making little snowballs from what little snow still remained. I scooped up some snow, threw it at Miss C and as we started a game of snow tag she looked at her friend and said, “See? My mom can be fun!”

Do you consider yourself a fun mom? While I’ve actually embarrassed Miss C singing Party in the USA and I’ve let the girls turn their rooms into stuffed animal jungles, more often than not I am the “let’s go we’re running late, please pick that up, quit fighting, apologize to your sister right now” mom.

Filed Under: My Girls, Parenting 14 Comments

Show Me The Funny

December 10, 2008 By Blonde Mom 5 Comments

I’m very excited to post my first author interview and delighted that it’s about one wickedly funny parenting book. Mary K. Moore, a successful magazine writer and editor, has written “The Unexpected When You’re Expecting,” a parody of the pregnancy Bible that women either love or hate.

Your book is completely hilarious, irreverent, and made me laugh out loud. Even my husband read portions of it, although I suspect it’s because I told him you were a babe. I love that it makes fun of that uber guide to pregnancy, What To Expect… (i.e. What To Expect To Freak The Hell Out About During Your Pregnancy.) There are several humorous pregnancy and motherhood books on the market, though. What makes yours different?

I’m glad you—and your husband—enjoyed the book. I always like to stress we’re less about making fun of What to Expect as using it as a familiar format to lampoon pregnancy and motherhood. I don’t really have anything against the book per se. It was a little homespun for my taste, but I went out and bought it. My mom is a little homespun, too, but I keep her around. As for The Unexpected, we’ve gotten a surprisingly huge response to the book—we went into a second printing a month after its release—so I’m thrilled we’ve hit a nerve. I think what makes it different is, unlike a lot of pregnancy or motherhood books, it’s not experience specific. In other words, you don’t have to have someone marinating in your uterus to be in on the joke. The humor is less about girlfriend empathy as it is just funny for funny sake.

What would you say to people who might find your humor offensive?

Well, it’s a parody so I’m always a little surprised when someone takes it seriously. We’re supposed to be over-the-top and in the case of The Unexpected, a little snarky. But as for being offensive, I don’t think it’s worse than anything you see on prime-time television. Just because you lose your ability to menstruate, doesn’t mean you lose your edge. I didn’t want the typical ice cream-and-pickles punch lines; I was aiming for Daily Show with a due date.

What’s the most idiotic thing someone said to you while you were pregnant?

“Is it twins?” It wasn’t. I hated that.

What made you take the leap from successful magazine writer and editor to author?

I was working in New York magazines for about 10 years, and like a lot of high-octane careers, there’s a burnout factor. I loved magazines, but I was either covering a vicious murder or the best spa treatments—and the pendulum swing was disorienting. Also, any good magazine writer is a mimic of sorts. You are trained to duplicate each magazine’s voice to keep the brand consistent. Writing books was a way to explore my own voice. Or I should say, a very extreme version of my own voice. I had to project on the negative stuff. I actually had an idyllic pregnancy and thought motherhood was a cinch. I always say anyone who thinks having a baby is hard has never worked in publishing. And unlike publishing, with real babies, there’s less crying.

Red or white wine or tequila?

Oddly enough, I rarely drink. Although I wish I could pin some of the material on writing under the influence.

So, you’re the mother of a 3-year-old daughter. Do you think you’ll have any more children?

I’m not sure. I go back and forth. I’m at that stage where she’s incredibly easy now, and I’m starting to get that nature’s amnesia that makes you forget they had to ride backward in a car seat for the first year. Who knows, maybe I’ll let my guard down at some point in my reproductive years—perhaps tequila would help.

Do you have any final words of wisdom to first time moms out there?

Motherhood isn’t one size fits all. Read the pregnancy and parenting books you want and then cherry pick the advice that works for you. And when you’re done with the homework and obsessively googling words like “placenta previa”, we’ll be here.

The Unexpected When You’re Expecting is available at bookstores nationwide, including Amazon.com.

If you need more pregnancy humor, go visit my latest Deep South Moms post, “Divine Secrets of the Mesh Panties Sisterhood.”