30 is the new 21....DEAL WITH IT!

So apparently the age of 21 is supposed to be some magical age in which the awesomeness of your life peaks. Well, if that's the case, then life really blows because when I think back on it, 21 was really not all that great.  Sure I could purchase alcohol and get into bars, but really people, all that ever got me in life was a hangover and  a couple of dates with some craptastic boyfriends. 

SO, as I approach my big 3-0 B-day, I've come up with reasons why 30 is so much better than 21. 

Do I look like my awesomeness has peaked.....no people, I get more awesome every DAY!

1. You have stopped giving a crap what people think about you.
Hence this blog. I never would have had enough gumption to write things like this and post them for the entire world (or my mother) to see when I was 21. When you are 21, you still think that everyone in the world will eventually like you if they get to know you. Well, by age 30 you have finally figured out that you are wrong. Some people are just A-holes and will never like you or anything you do. Its fine really, you don't need that many friends anyway.

2. Your friends have stopped moving all over the country

When I was 21, I had a great group of friends. Still love those people very much, however they are now spread all over creation, because we all met in college when we were trying to figure out what we were going to do with our lives. These people now have jobs and spouses that have moved some of them far far away. By the time you are 30, most of your close friends are people that live close to you and are not likely to be picking up and moving soon. There is something to say about no longer being in a "transitional" part of life. 

3. You don't have to worry about dating

Okay I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but these are my reasons why I think 30 rocks. Dating was about 2% fun and about 98% awful! I spent several years in my late teens and early twenties dating bunch of f&ckt@ards. As soon as I started dating my now husband, I realized he was the first non idiot I had ever dated. Needless to say, I went ahead and locked him in for the long haul. When you have spent the last 6 years with a bunch of 8 mile rejects, you know a decent one when you see em.

Sealed the deal:)

4. You actual have a little money

I know money isn't everything, but it sure helps. I was so very poor when I was 21, I couldn't have spent 6 dollars on a mixed drink at a bar even if I wanted to. In fact, every so often my mom would send me $5 dollars in the mail in a card so I could "get myself a treat." Hell, a treat... I got myself 5 nights worth of food from the Wendys $0.99 menu. I might be offensive and uncouth, but damn it,  I'm an industrious little b%tch. I'm glad to be in a point in my life that I no longer clam up and cry up over having to buy a bottle of Tide. (Okay. maybe I still do a little, that sh!t is $14)

5. You have accepted that your body could be alot worse
Your body probably wasn't perfect when you were 21. If it was, I hate you....actually, no I don't. If you were really skinny back then, it is unlikely you had nice boobs that were real...that's a known fact.  So, anyway, by the time you are 30, you probably still don't love you figure, but you have at least accepted that things could be way worse. Mostly because you go to Walmart once a week for a visual reaffirmation of that....enough said. Bodies were not designed to be perfect. How many funerals did you go to and look at the person an think that they were sure looking damn fine????? Morbid I know, but a life well lived does not usually end without some fat and wrinkles to show for it.  Skinny does not always equal sexy. You know what is sexy? CONFIDENCE!!! Also, covering up cellulite is also sexy. I'm not delusion, no one thinks cellulite is sexy, even when you are 30.

6. You no longer fear the unknown
One of my many irrational fears when I was younger was that I would turn 30 and be unmarried, without a good job, and living in a van down by the river. (Maybe we watched a little too much SNL?) So now that 30 has come and gone, I can get over the fear of being that VERY scary age and having nothing to show for it. In the event you are 30, without a life partner and are currently living in a mom-mobile down by the Ohio River, you have probably had time to adjust to the thought of that. The key to life is all about managing your expectations.

This was high quality television

7. Being at home in bed on Saturday night is no longer considered a defeat
ITS A PRIVILEGE!  There is nothing I would like to do more than stay home on the weekend,  never take off my pajamas,  and watch a movie. That's if we could ever actually watch a movie in this house. The last time I tried the movie was 1 hour and 47 mins....It took 3 days to watch it because my child would not stop with his incessant chatter. Nevertheless, I am so much less concerned on whether or not have something fun to do every weekend.

I literally have no idea what this movie was about, and I watched it for 3 days.

8. You don't live in an apartment anymore
From the ages of 18-25, I lived in either a dorm or an apartment. Actually I moved 6 times during those 7 years. For one of those years,  I lived in a room that I am pretty sure was initially meant to be used as a closet.  Apartments suck. White walls, nasty carpet, and a pad of concrete that's 4' x 5' to do all your outside activities. When we finally bought a house, I finally started feeling less like a nomad and more like a VERY POOR MORTGAGE PAYING MEMBER OF SOCIETY.  The American Dream.

So there you have it. Turns out life does not completely blow after the age of 21. 30 is still pretty good. I've got 10 years to think about 40, so I'll keep you posted on that one. So do not pity me,  you young, poor, skinny, little-boobed, single SUM BEACHES.

30 is the new 21, DEAL WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shut the front door...you did what?

There is nothing quite as special as the first time your kid decides to take a crap in the tub. Guarantee that it will happen to you at some point in your life as a parent. Actually, the first time that it happens, you should get your official "I'm an real parent" badge. Its an initiation of sorts, except at the end, there is no frat party and you may never be able to eat milk duds again without gagging a little bit.

He is the cutest little time bomb I have ever seen!

I remember when Tripp did it for the first time, he was about a year old. I was giving him a bath, and I turned my back to get a towel out of the closet to dry him off with. When I turned back around the next few seconds seemed to go in slow motion.

Here is what subconscious me said to actually me.
First- What is that brown stuff floating all in the water?????
Second- Did he have a toy or something that he ripped apart in 3 seconds- what, is he a rabid animal?
Third- Oh, No......It couldn't be.
Fourth- Oh Tripp, how could you?
Fifth- Please tell me that is not a sess pool of shit floating around my kid. 
MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very briefly, (only because it is human nature and not because you are a bad mom) you will try to think of an exit strategy. At my house the rule is "Finders Keepers." That is unless you are Josh.... his personal rule is "Finders Keepers, unless it's him that finds it, then he must think of a creative way to hide it until Tiffany finds it again."   Once you realize that you are indeed the finder of this glorious wastewater, you will quickly move onto acceptance.

Okay self, I have to bathtub full of shit and a one year old that is sitting in it marinating.  Choke down the vomit and lets get down to BID-NES.  Once I have reached the acceptance stage,  I pull myself together and start operation DEFCON SHAT.

First and foremost- remove tiny human from the sewage. You will be distracted by all the poop floating around, but don't make any attempt to clean it yet. Turn on the shower and hold up Sir Poop-A-Lot like Simba on The Lion King. Use the shower to remove any solid poo from tiny human. As quickly as possible, move the above mentioned child to another bathroom or sink if necessary. Defunk your kid first, the bathtub can wait, believe me...no many how many times you close your eyes and wish that it would just go away, IT WILL STILL BE THERE.

At this point, see if you can get your partner to at least take care of rebathing the kid.
#1- The little turd (no pun intended) is unlikely to poo again, so partner gets one poo free bath duty
#2  Also, the other option is for you to clean up the baby and your spouse to take bathroom clean up duty.NOT GONNA HAPPEN MY FRIENDS. 

Now you have two options for the bathroom:
#1 You can burn it down

or

#2 You can man up and throw on your HAZMAT suit and get to work.

Mom, why the long face, I'm having lots of fun`

Assuming you have picked option 2- you will need bleach spray, lots of bleach.  This is not a job for 409 or Scrubbing Bubbles. We are talking about turds hanging out in your spa, you are gonna want to pull out the big guns. Unless its one big floater- you have to drain the water first. With any luck, some of it will go down the drain to NeverNever Land.  Next, the solid must be collected.  I got nothing for you on this one, anyway you do it, it will be disgusting. I would recommend a peppermint or something in your mouth to keep you from gagging and puking, mostly because at this point you would be forced to clean up your own vomit along with the turd festival already going on in the tub. Lastly, I would use multiple rounds of bleach-soaking of the tub to ensure eradication of the feces.

Anyway you spin it, it's gonna be a nasty job. Just suck it up, and get it done ASAP. I have found the longer it takes you, the more time you spend looking at the disaster and the more likely you are to have flashbacks later in life. Your kids will never appreciate all the disgusting things you do for them, but that's okay because being a mom is all guts, no glory.

I am taking a stand...MOMMY GUILT BE GONE!

Other than the occasional white lie, (No Josh, I didn't realize I drank the last cold Mt Dew we had....) I'm not much of a liar. I also don't cheat, break the law, spit, sweat, or do anything else unpleasant.
 Okay, I curse...just a little :)  Point of this story is that I have not spent a whole lot of my life feeling guilty about anything.


Then...I had kids. I don't know what it is about growing a tiny human in your uterus that flips some magical guilt switch in your body, but I have felt guilty for more things in the last 3 years I have had kids than in the 26 years before that,  COMBINED.

Look at her, probably thinking about how if I loved her enough I would hold her
 instead of making her sit in this bumbo seat

Actually it started in utero. If you are like me, you probably spent the better part of 9 months trying to choke down your own vomit instead of taking any good meds for nausea, in fear of hurting your baby. Then once you go into labor, you go back and forth in your head about getting an epidural, because you don't want to "drug" your baby. Well people, much like a colonoscopy, some things are best done under twilight sedation. I would dare say coming through the birth canal warrants some good drugs. After that, there is the immediate breastfeeding dilemma. There were various nipple Nazis that made me feel like giving my child Similac for ONE night-time feeding was the equivalent of a bottle full of antifreeze. The list just goes on and on.

I think you may spend the rest of your life feeling guilty about something in reference to your kids. If you go back to work, you will feel like dog doo for leaving your 6 week old infant with a sitter, or worse (GASP!) a daycare! If you stay at home, you will likely feel guilty at some point that they have not had enough exposure to other kids. How about, on Saturdays when you are actually home,  and instead of spending every minute playing with them you do something horrific like watch an episode of Vampire Dairies on Netflix. I bet when your child thinks back on his or her childhood, you will certainly only be remembered as a TV watching vegetable that could have stood to lose about 10 pounds. (When I get home from work to be with my kids, I then feel guilty that I didn't find a way to go to the gym to help get rid of the aforementioned 10 pounds of fat on my a$$ and stomach- Thanks baby #2!)

For some reason I have this complex, if I am not at work, I feel like I need to be home with my kids. So from the minute I get off, I feel immediately guilty until I get home with them. So although it would be so much easier to leave Tripp at daycare for an extra 30 minutes while I grocery shop, I never do. I don't know why I think that the minute I leave work he knows I am off and just haven't came and got him yet. I have this awful visual where he spends every minute that I am "off work" and not at the daycare thinking about what a CRAPTASTIC unloving mother I am. The truth of the matter is that he is so busy playing at daycare that he probably wouldn't notice if I waited 2 hours after work to pick him up. Sometimes when I get there for Pete's sake, he is "not ready to leave!" I think, that's just great, because I have just ran over 4 pedestrians trying to get here because I thought you were probably looking out the window wishing for a mommy that loved you enough to pick you up  before 5:30.


I don't even want to talk about the guilt trip if you have to leave your baby overnight at some point. I have a friend that had to be readmitted to the hospital for a couple of nights postpartum because of high blood pressure and a wound infection,  and she is convinced that this has permanently scared her baby. I really hate it for her that she managed to screw up her kid in the first 3 days of being a parent. Oh well, maybe next time! I hope one of these days the baby doesn't remember that for 48 hours you needed IV antibiotics, because I am sure she will likely spend the rest of her life in counselling for "abandonment issues." (I'm talking to you Torey, love ya!) The real deal is that my friend is an awesome mom, and sweet baby Caroline got to spend a few nights with her Dad and Grandma that love and cherish her very much. She will never remember it!

Here a typical day for me.....
Go to Walmart....feel guilty because I should be spending time with my kids.
Stay home with them...feel guilty I did not go to Walmart and plan for more nutritious meals.
No food in the house...End up feeding them a smorgasbord of hostess donettes and Lays potato chips for supper. 
Kids don't learn to eat healthy.....feel guilty because its my job to give them nutritious food choices. Imagine all the trouble they are going to have finding clothes for obese individuals because of the poor eating habits I have managed to instill in them.
Decide to take a stand and ask 3 year old to eat two bites of sweet potatoes... ends up in a screaming match and 3 year old is sent to bed without supper.
Feel guilty because I know 3 year old is hungry.... end up letting him have a sleeve of chips ahoy cookies for a bedtime snack.
 Should have just gone to Walmart for an hour after work....INSTEAD, you just spent the last 4 hours on a trip down guilty lane.

Now does he look like he cares that its 5:15 and I haven't picked him up yet?

The truth of the matter is that you really don't have to feel guilty about not being with your kids 24/7. It takes a village to raise a child, and its good for them to have time away from you. Sometimes I have to remind myself that they need alone time with their Dad too. So,  maybe instead of feeling guilty for getting my hair cut on Saturday, I should treat it like an opportunity to let the kids bond with their Dad.
I also don't think they have the sense of time that we do as adults. Hell, most of them can't even tell time. Hours probably seem like minutes when you are playing with toys and crapping yourself at daycare.


So I propose that we all band together and make a vow to GET OVER THE MOMMY GUILT! No judgmental witchy super moms allowed up in here. We are all a species I like to call "human mommies."
We make mistakes, we need time alone, we make bad choices,  and we occasionally hide in a closet to eat a Little Debbie Cake so we don't have to share it with our kids.

My son wanted me to wear his noise cancelling headphones....I might have kept them on for awhile. Don't judge me!

So you don't like my blog, huh???

For those of you that may find what I write about offensive, let me reference you back to my very first posting "Readers Beware." If what I have to say offends you, then GET OFF MY BLOG!!!!
I mean, what did you think you were getting when you logged onto The Medical Momma UNCENSORED? You don't go to an R Rated movie, and then get all pissed about it being adult content? If you do, then you probably are the previously mentioned dipshidiots that I have been talking about.

Really people, do I have to spell it out for ya?

I started this blog as a fun way to vent my frustrations with day to day life as a busy working mom with small kids. For the last almost 4 years I have worked a full time job and had small babies, I have not really had a lot of time to do much of anything other than survive day to day life. Based on the awesome response I have gotten from people over the past couple of weeks, there must be lots more people out there like me. The difference is, I'm just putting it out there for everyone to see.

Thank you to my wonderful friends that always support me in anything I do and love the real me. Even if the real me is blunt, uncouth, and generally socially unacceptable sometimes. Some of my loved ones have been worried that people will "think less of me" if they read what I have to say. If you know me, than you already know what I'm like. I'm this person 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Its really shouldn't be a shocker. If you don't know me, then I suppose it doesn't matter if you think I'm tacky. Ever heard the saying, "Well behaved women rarely make history?"

Too many people live in constant fear of what others are going to think about them. Somewhere along the way, I have been able to get over that. I guess I realized that if people are going to think bad of you, they will find some reason to do it whether or not you have a blog with a little foul language in it. Let me translate that in hood rat, "Haters gonna hate!"

 Most of all, in 30 years time, I have finally learned to love myself and all my faults. I have stopped looking for approval from others and started looking within myself. I'm not perfect and I will never be. I am proud to say that whatever I do, I put 100% of my energy into it. I always try to do the right thing. I'm honest. I'm a hard worker. I not afraid to speak the truth. I try my best to be generous. I stand up for what I believe in. I take damn good care of my kids. I truly care about my patients. I try my best to always treat people like I would want to be treated. I believe in God, and do my best to use the strengths He gave me to make this world a better (and way more fun)  place.

Three is the New Two....Write That Down

The terrible twos....I think I have heard that phrase my whole life. So I had braced myself when Tripp was getting close to that age for a year of hell. When we made it to 3, I thought the worse was behind us. Yeah, not so much. Three has been about 100 times harder than 2.  It's not just my kid either, I know lots of moms that claim that the sheer awfulness of age 3 has drove them to start popping birth control pills like its their J-O-B!!  So here are some reasons that Age 3 is truly a special kind of awful.

Looks like he is hugging his monkey..WRONG!
The monkey apparently got mouthy
 and Tripp is showing him who is boss. 

1. Your kid has learned to argue.
When they are two- they don't listen. Not at all! They do whatever they want,  and they might throw a tantrum if they don't get their way. I was prepared for this. At age three, they still do the same things, except they want to argue with you about it too. You ever tried to argue with a drunk girl at a bar....its kind like that. Lots of crying and falling all over themselves. Blubbering things that don't make since. There is no reasoning with them either. I don't care if I have told my son l000 times that he is only going to have one glass of chocolate milk before bed, he starts in immediately to get another glass. It usually starts out with "but I need more, my mouth is thirsty." Then we digress into, "You can't tell me nothing about chocolate milk, don't talk about my chocolate milk." Like the fact that I don't him to drink 3 cups and then proceed to piss himself in the middle of the night is somehow and insult to his chocolate milk?

2. They are fast
Kids are pretty quick when they start to walk. They can be gone in a flash. By age 2, this is getting worse but their legs are short enough that you still have the advantage. By age 3, Tripp has turned into a F*cking Kenyan. I mean, it doesn't take 3 seconds now for him to be clear out of my reach. I have always thought those kid leashes were incredibly tacky, but now I totally get it. If using an electric collar was socially acceptable, I would be strapping that bad boy on him.

Olympic sprinter in training

3. They can remember everything
When Tripp was 2, he was a pretty smart little thing. He would remember things that I told him for periods of time, but usually I could distract him with other things if I needed to. Now at 3, he has got a steel trap up there. Months can literally pass between the time I tell him something and the time that he calls me out on it. "Hey momma, remember when you told me we could ride that train at the mall next time we went???" Well shit, that was 4 months ago. There is nothing I love more than paying 4 dollars a person (yes thanks for charging me too, because obviously I'm not going to put my 3 year old on the train that is driven by a 16 year pothead in the mall by himself) to squeeze my a$$ into the caboose of the mail train. The entire 10 minute ride, Tripp sings the train song LOUDLY, and waves at everyone like he is Ms America.

4. They start using their words to hurt you
When Tripp was 2, we went through a little biting spell along with a brief slapping spell. Those felt like pretty normal behaviors and although it was slightly embarrassing in public if your kid slapped you like a pimp, I felt like people understood. Now, he knows what will happen if he tries to bite or slap me (don't ask), so he chooses to try to hurt my feelings instead when he is mad at me. Whats so bad about that you say???? Sounds better than everyone thinking your kid is some sort of future wife beater...WRONG. You don't know embarrassment until your kid is pissed at you in a public place and they start slurring 3 year old vulgarities like some sort of midget with Tourette's. "Momma, you are a dumb butt. And I'm not going to play with your anymore. I'm NOT going to be your best POKEY BOY anymore. And if you are not nice to me, I'm gonna spank your butt, you fart knocker!" So not only is my kid going to be a wife beater, he is also going to be a little dbag too.

Tripp please don't use those stamps as stickers...
"Momma, don't talk about my stickers or I will cut you"

5. They are bigger and stronger.
From the very first day I took Tripp to daycare- he cried. I figured he would get over it. Well he didn't, 3 years later, he still cries. At least when he was 2, I could usually hand him over to his teacher and tell him goodbye. It was hard to leave a crying baby, but I knew he would calm down shortly after I left. At age 3, he has become a stage 3 clinger. Sometimes he requires surgical removal from me in the mornings when I try to leave. If you are not careful, once you get him detached, he will pull a fast one on you and get a hold of you again only to start the process over. Now instead of feeling like I am in control of the drop off, as soon as they get the barnacle off me, I make a break for it. Sometimes knocking down other parents with more well adjusted children on their way in. "Sorry no time for chatting, I'm in stealth mode"

So, if you think 2 is a hard age, your in for a real treat at 3. Honestly at this point, I can't think about 4. I would like to think that it gets better, but I'm not going to count on it. Hopefully at that point, he will have become more reasonable, or I will have found a way to get my hands on a higher dose of Prozac.

Was I drunk when we got married?????

There is nothing quite like having a baby to really highlight the fact that sometimes

YOUR HUSBAND IS A REAL DIPSHIT!

Now before you go all Kayne West on me, just think about it for a minute. I don't care how wonderful of a guy you think you married, you have never before had to judge him based on his abilities to take care of a tiny human without bowel control.

He is really hoping I know what the hell I am doing with this baby

This being said, I do admit that I have a good husband. He is hardworking, honest, loyal, and a good dad. I think he tries hard to help me with the kids most days. Occasionally though,  he pulls some crap that makes me want to drop kick him into next century.

The funny thing is, I polled my friends and co-workers on this subject. I promised ahead of time to not use any names or specifics so that no ones husband would get their camo up their ass about it. Turns out, I don't even have to be anonymous about it, they can all be f&cktards! Every single story and example I got from these girls, WHERE THE EXACT THINGS MY OWN HUSBAND DOES!!!!  Maybe they have a group that meets up and decides what dumb thing they are going to pull next. It probably meets right after the "Tiffany is an unsavory bitch club"- My husband sometimes serves as president, treasurer, and head of marketing for this group!

So I have comes up with a list of ways that having a baby really highlights what a dipshit your husband can be. (Obviously honey, none of these are about you)

Seriously, was I drunk when we got married????

1. After the baby cries for more then about 5 secs, they just look at you like you are supposed to do something. Or they same something along the lines of, "You are going to have to do something'" Well CHIEF, don't you think that if I knew what was wrong with the baby or what to do about it, I would have already done it. I don't generally save that info for a rainy day.

2. When you are at home, he does whatever he can to have minimal responsibility for the above mentioned screaming tiny human, but Shepherd of Judea, when you are in public suddenly he is Father of the Friggin Year. Sure honey, you carry the baby into the restaurant, I'll just pack the diaper bag, my purse, and the car seat. When people stop him with the cute tiny human, he pretends this is not the first time he has held the baby all day.

3. He pulls the infamous opposite gender card.... "I cant change a little girls diaper, It just ain't right." Oh, so now he has no idea what a vagina looks like. Hmmm....funny I was thinking that might have been how we got into this little situation to start with.

4. Your husband can sit on the couch for 8 hours straight and watch Breaking Bad, but when he asked to babysit, "You know he just cant stay in the house all day, it will drive him crazy." Well Buckwheat,  do you think I like staying home all weekend with Osama Bin Laden and The Taliban? Well, NO I DON'T. But you are so busy "running to town to get gas" or "working on the duckblind" that I cant leave this hellhole. Here is my thoughts on that, charity starts at home boys. You want to do some work on a Saturday, I have 2 toilets you can clean and stack of laundry that needs folding. Next time I hear him say, "We are having a work day at the duckblind" I am literally going to go bat shit crazy because EVERYDAY AT MY HOUSE IS A WORKDAY!

He cant ever seem to stay awake when he is charge of the baby??

5. Someone asks how the baby is sleeping and your husband answers "pretty good." Well, as far as he knows that must be true because apparently it would take a MACK truck running through our bedroom to wake sleeping beauty at night. He can hear a dear piss from 150ft away in the dark, but the kids can be in the bed next to him screaming and he "just can't hear them."

6. On the off chance he does take the baby off your hands so you can lets say, pee or shower perhaps..... he will stand about 10 feet away from you at all times. When crib midget cries it will be your fault "because you spoil the baby".






So in order to make up for this unfair advantage that guys seem to have in the playing stupid department, I have come up with tricks of my own. I encourage you to use them frequently.

-When i got pregnant 4 years ago I told Josh he had to take over scooping the cats litter box. Every time he implies that I could start doing that again I just tell him that your not supposed to do that once your have had a baby.
-I absolutely refuse to touch the garbage, that is strictly a man job in my house. It pisses him off that I will walk by the trashcan with it overflowing. He will say, "Are you just going to let the trash run over into the kitchen floor?"  WHAT, ME NO SPEAKA NO ENGLISH?????????
- As far as he knows, I can only lift about 4 pounds without assistance. In the event I have to help lift something, I whine...A LOT!
-I have refused to learn how to operate the zero turn mower. When I do something outside, I always make sure and do a half ass job of it because I know it will irritate him. He usually never asks me to do it again.

So there.  Child rearing will probably never truly be a 50/50 deal, but I'm at least getting my 80/20.
Even though I know I give my husband a hard time, I truly do appreciate the things he does for our family. Without him we would be living in a pile of garbage, surrounded by cat shit, with a lawn that was cut without diagonal lines in it.  Love ya Honey!!!!! :)

Confession Time: I Don't Like to Play with My Kids

So before you get all judgmental on me, hear me out. I do, in fact, play with my kids. I just don't really like to. This makes me feel incredibly guilty. I wonder sometimes if I am the only parent that feels this way, or are there other people out there that just dread the thought of bellying up for a 101st game of Candy land?

Playdough- invented by some Jackass without kids

To be fair, my mom says I never liked to play. Even when I was a kid. For any of you that know my mother, if she says it, then it must be true :) (Hi Karen)  Seriously though, even at age 3, I was like...."Can cut this Barbie crap...seems kinda counterproductive, lets learn about algebra instead." Side note: I really did want to learn about algebra when I was about 6. I knew it involved substituting letters for numbers in equations. I kept asking my mom to give me some algebra problems to solve. I just would need to know "what number those letters stood for" and I would be able to give her an answer in a hot second. She tried to tell me that it was more complicated than that. Touche Karen! Touche!

Tripp pretending to transform into a bulldozer 

Then, it hit me. The reason that I don't jump with joy when my kid finds that power rangers sword AGAIN,(Damn, I'm going to have to hide that a little better.) is that I am a 29 year old with a Masters Degree. Frankly, I feel like y'all oughtt to be concerned about me if at the sheer mention of Hungry Hippo, I shit myself with excitement. Why am I bored out of my ever-loving mind when he wants me to help him have a war with his transformers, because they are created to entertain 3 year-olds. I'm not saying that if you enjoy playing with your kids your automatically some dipshit, I just think that its probably normal that its not highly entertaining for me.


Now that Tripp can play board games, it's become slightly more tolerable, because I like the competition. I do, however, make him play the game right. He is not real fond of losing either. In fact, he cried in a corner of my living room the other night when I opened up a can of whoop ass on him in Candy land. 3-0 baby! There is no way I am going to encourage just letting him win. My job as a parent is to prepare him for the world,and I seriously doubt him throwing himself in the floor if someone gets a better deal than him at K-mart one day is really going to serve him well. It not really my fault that I marched through Cupcake Commons like a boss, now, is it????

Sometimes to mix it up, Gunner plays a game with us

I love my kids more than I even thought was possible. I feed them, hug them, snuggle them, read to them, and (GAG) play with them. I would be lying through my teeth if I told you that the thought of coming home from a long day at work and playing hide and seek with them didn't make me want to jump off a bridge just a little bit. I get just as excited about that as I do when I hear my husband yell "Come in here and look what the cat left you."

So,  next time you see me owning a game of Chutes and Ladders, just know its not for me. Then again, if you are a mom, nothing really is?

Friday Night with the Excorist, the Nudist, and Chris Brown

Sometimes we forget that as parents, certain activities are not as easy to accomplish as they once were. An example of this was what I liked to call "The Disaster That We Call, Friday Night"

So seems a little off topic, but you wanna know what my favorite meal is???? You'll never guess......

Its any meal that I don't have to cook myself. I'm not saying that I don't cook. I do, occasionally. I, however, derive absolutely no pleasure from eating something I have had to slave over. Maybe its just a mental thing, but by the time I finish cutting and chopping and baking and mixing, I don't even want to look at it anymore, less alone eat it. My mom used to fix us a big dinner all the time and barely eat any of it, and now I know why.

So when my husband offered to meet me in Paducah after work Friday night and go out to eat, I was pretty excited.  I still haven't figured out his angle, but he also offered to take the kids home with him after we got done so I could go by myself and finish up some shopping. Hmmmmm.... he's probably up to something.

Look at this charmer...wonder what he's up to?

Well we should have known by the fact that it was pouring down rain that the odds were against us, but I was blinded by the thought of hot food that I didn't have to look at raw. So first we meet up at Sears to look at some washer and dryers for a few minutes. Even though we had told Tripp about 15 times to quit running around the store, he continued to run around like he was jacked up on Mountain Dew. While we were trying to talk to the salesman, Tripp had a high speed collision with an unfortunate Maytag dryer. To be more specific, his face took the brunt of the impact. The salesman gasp in horror. Josh quickly assured the salesman that the "dryer was okay." Even more horrified at our parenting skills, the salesman say, "well I was actually worried about your kid."



So, at this point we decided that we needed to find something to eat. Considering we were in Paducah and had more restaurant choices that usual, Josh wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse for a steak.  Since it was pouring down rain, he dropped us off at the door and went to park about a mile away. So I have a baby in a car seat, a untrustworthy 3 year old and a giant diaper bag that I am trying to lug into Texas Roadhouse in the rain. As soon as I walk in, I am greeted by standing room only crowd. At this point Piper is also whaling because it is time for her to eat as well. I ask how long for a table for 4, and get "45 minutes at least." Needless to say, that wasn't going to work for us, I go to call Josh to tell him to pick us back up at the door, only to realize that I had left my phone in the car, that was a mile away.  So we have no choice to just wait until Josh gets up there to tell him we are going to have to go somewhere else. I don't know if Tripp just saw all the shit on the floor at Texas Roadhouse and it reminded him of home or what, but he decided at that moment would be a good time for him to take off his coat, shoes, and SOCKS and throw them down on the floor like we lived there.



So, there I am with crying baby, half naked toddler, and wet hungry husband, and at this point we are way too far into this thing to abort mission. It was 6:30.

Tripp doesn't typically eat at school because he doesn't care for the cuisine. After 3 years, the little shit is still on hunger strike. So he probably hadn't eaten anything since the nutritious breakfast of Hostess mini chocolate donuts I had gave him that morning. We figured out when he was about 15 months old that when he was hungry, instead of just telling us that he was, he will go into these fits of rage. One day he did this in the grocery store and out of sheer desperation I grabbed a Kit Kat bar to distract him and once he ate it, he turned into a different person in about 5 secs.
We both knew that we were dangerously close to Tripp meltdown mode. We had to truck on.


At this point, I just suggested Arbys. Josh however, was determined for steak, so he ignored my suggestion and pulled into Applebees. Things seems to calm down for awhile. We only waiting about 15 mins for a table. I got to feed the hungry screaming rugrat and we got our drinks pretty quickly. The main problem was, Applebees doesn't have chips or rolls or anything at all to snack on while we waited. At this point we were at about hour 12 for Tripp with no food.  So I pulled the waitress aside and begged her to go ahead and bring Tripps meal out, even if ours were not ready yet. Since my husband likes his meat burned beyond recognition, you can always count on a 30 minute wait for his medium well done steak. Well, in mommy speak, apparently our server needed a new set of listening ears, because she proceeded to ignore my request and almost 40 minutes later Tripp's food came out with ours. Josh spent that 40 minutes attempting to not go Chris Brown on me or the kids, but I could tell it was all he could do to choke down a tantrum himself.  At this point, I had given Tripp a bolus of Mountain Dew, hoping to hold off the hypoglycemic fit,and he was wired for sound.

Tripp Bailey is a terrible eater. Terrible I tell you, but he went at that plate of chicken strips and fries like it was a Hostess Donette sampler platter. About 2/3 of the way into my meal, Piper starts screaming. Not whining or crying, but screaming! At that point we just decided to cut our losses and head home. Problem was, I she was so upset, I couldn't get her in her car,seat. So Josh took Tripp out the car, and I was going to stay at our table long enough to calm her down and get her in the seat. While I'm trying to accomplish that, the two guys next to me were giving me death stares the whole time. They looked a whole lot like the cast of Jersey Shore close to T-shirt time just to give you a visual. I rocked, I burped, I walked, I bounced, to no avail. At this point, Thing 1 and Thing 2 were obviously very irritated. I would have gone outside with said Psycho Baby, but it was still pouring rain. Finally a grown man sized burp came out of my daughter and she piped down long enough to get in her seat. On my way out the door, I stopped by The Situations table and told them to "make sure and use condoms because kids were a real buzzkill."

Round 2 of screaming started in the car, so I just let Josh and Tripp go on home while I took her with me. I had several places I wanted to go, but the thought of trying to do that with the exorcist was too daunting. I ended up walking around Kohls for an hour trying to get her to calm down. She ended up puking once and crapping herself twice. I didn't buy anything, because I was too tired to stand in line. (Maybe Josh put her up to that?)


So my Friday night was just pretty much like I thought it would be.  Sometimes we forget that life is just different once you have kids. Eating out is so much more a chore than it is a privilege anymore.Important life lesson...find teenage babysitter STAT!

Generic Items that Just Don't Fly at My House

So, I’m at Walmart the other day and trying to wade through the sea of freakshows to get my much needed weekly groceries, and I notice that some things I am good with getting the generic version, other things, NO FREAKING WAY!  This being said, I grew up with Karen Teresa O’Nan Martin- and that woman doesn’t believe in generic anything.   So since I haven’t officially lived with her for about 12 years now, I consulted with her on this topic again for this blog.

So what things can you buy generic? And what things do you need to stick with the real stuff?

“You cant buy anything generic, that generic crap is all garbage”-The one and only Karen



This is how we roll in Walmart

I will have to admit, I don’t feel great joy when I put my Equate brand items on the checkout.  I look at their sad plain little boxes and wonder if maybe Karen is right.  First of all, why do they make these boxes so damn homily?  I will have to say, I am your average consumer and I am attracted to sparkly packing. Well, I guess that’s what you get for buying generic- sad, unsparkly, homily little boxes. So I have compiled a list of items that I think there is no time ever that it is accepted to buy the generic version. Now I am sure some d- bag will get on here an post a comment about how they use the generic version and it works just fine and it’s stupid to spend more money on the brand name. Well, please refer to my very first blog post “Readers Beware” on that subject matter. If I cared what your list was, I would be reading your blog now wouldn’t I?????   J

Absolutely, Positively, No Generics people-“They are all crap”

1.       Q-tips-   Take my word on this one. I pull a lot of shit, out of a lot of people’s ears. Actually I actually take great pleasure in doing so. Its kinda that rush you get when you pop a really big pimple. (yeah, you know what I am talking about) I have pulled more than one Equate brand q-tip end out of someone’s ear. Here’s a tip people, if you stick one in your ear and only half of it comes back out…..you’re  not doing it right.

2.       Tampons- Okay ladies (or brave men that would actually buy these for your ladies. I think my husband would just soon fashion one out of a cotton ball and some fishing line before he would be caught dead at the store with some Tampax in his cart). You’re putting these in your Jay-Jay. I know some of you are not very selective about what you shove up there, considering your choice of significant other, but I am. Stick with Tampax please. Plus,  the generic kind are bad about getting the string wrapped around the tampon.  Unfortunately in my line of work, I am often the retriever of such lost items. No one really wants to fish up in your bidness to retrieve….well anything really.

3.        Chocolate Chips- I am a cookie connoisseur.   Ask anyone lucky enough to get me to make my brownie cookies for them. You want consistently awesome chocolate chipness everytime- Go with Tollhouse.  You F up some cookies using some cheap ingredients- that’s on you!  Also, I cant give away all my secrets- but the one freebie I’ll give you is don’t overbake them. Actually take however long you thought you were going to bake your cookies and take 2 mins off that, at least.

4.       Baby wipes- This one should be pretty self explanatory, but for those of you who are certified idiots-I’ll lay this one out for you. This thin little wet peace of paper is the only thing that lies between you and a big handful of shit. Are you really that hard up for money that you want to go cheap in that department? Stick with Huggies. Pampers diapers are tolerable. Pampers wipes suck.

5.       Snack cakes- I was personally devastated when Hostess went out of business. Thank goodness they have got their shit together and got back to making delicious mini donuts and cupcakes.  Even my 3 year old refuses to eat chocolate donuts that are not Hostess. ATTENTION OTHER BRANDS- Your doing it wrong!

6.       Tennis Shoes- Well, I took that survey the other day I found on Facebook about dialect, and discovered that I actually call these "Tennashoes", but you get my drift. For those of you that don’t speak Western Kentucky- those would be the equivalent of sneakers or perhaps athletic shoes.  Well, there is a reason that these companies and sell these shoes for $150 dollars, its because they are so much more comfortable. I used to wear Nikes, but then I got turned on to Asics. I’m not going back. I walk almost 5 miles a day- and you can bet your sweet ass you wont find any walmart special on my feet.

7.       Makeup brushes- I’m going to claim ignorance on this one. I used to wear Clinique makeup, which is not cheap. Just because I didn’t know any better, I used those sad little brushes that came with the makeup. WRONG!!!!  Then I got introduced to MAC makeup and I’m in love. MAC doesn’t come with any crappy little brushes, which at first kind of irritated me. Then once I purchased some MAC brushes and started to use those, I realized that I had been so dumb all these years. It makes all the difference in the world. The brushes are expensive- mentally prepare yourself (and don’t tell Josh.)

Last but not least…..

8.       Furniture- I will say ole Karen was right on this one. I have regretted every cheap piece of furniture I have every purchased.  My husband hates it when I get a wild hair to go furniture shopping, because he knows that pricetag is going to be high. Although I accuse him of being cheap, I guess that is not actually true. He is actually willing to spend money,  real money,  on certain things….by that,  I mean THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO HIM. Like lets say- duck hunting gear, toilet paper, electronics, etc… When it comes to things like home décor, my clothes, makeup, tampons, etc- that wallet gets pretty tight.

This list is not all inclusive, but just a public service announcement. So okay Mom, I guess you weren’t wrong about everything. Sometimes you do, in fact, get what ya pay for!

Tripp is shocked- all Tampons are not created equal

Three Day Potty Training...My A$$

Here are some information I am not going to be able to provide you in this blog today
1. How to make your kid stop crapping in their pants in 3 days
2. How to make yourself not vomit a little in your mouth as you scrape shit out of  "big boy" underwear
3. How to make potty training a worry free parent/child experience

Let me clarify for you if your not great at reading between the lines...Potty training my son was the SINGLE MOST DIFFICULT THING I HAVE DONE SO FAR AS A PARENT! Granted, I have only been at this for 3 years. I think what got me off to a rough start was erroneous information on the internet like "Potty training made simple" and "How to potty train your toddler in 3 days." These articles really set me up an epic failure. Couple this with a mother (Hi Karen!) that claimed I popped out at birth and immediately asked if I could use the nearest lady's room and other unnamed relatives that would make commentary such as "All my kids were potty trained by 2."  Well good for them. I guess they had some magic shit stick that could shake at there precious little 18 month olds and make them defecate on command or something. Well friends, NOT ME!  

Meet Tripp Bailey. Stubborn as the day is long. I always new it would be hard to potty train him because he never seemed to care that his diaper was dirty from the beginning. As he got older, he never attempted to tell me that he was wet or dirty. He never took off his own diaper in an attempt to change himself. NOTHING, NADA, NO SIGNS OF READINESS, but like the anal retentive, overachieving perfectionist that I am, I decided that we would not be a "late bloomer" in this area.  This kid is mine, I don't late bloom in anything. I eat that sh*t for breakfast. Well not really a good symbolize in a potty post, but you get my drift. 

So at 2, we started pullups. We sat on the potty. We sang potty songs and told potty stories. We watched "Elmos potty time," which by the way is really disturbing from the front seat of a GMC Acadia. Somewhere around age 3, we finally started to attempt to pee in the potty and not just at our leisure in our diaper in between potties. The only way I accomplished this task was to literally take him to the bathroom about once an hour. Mind you, most of the time he would scream that he didn't want to go potty and it would end in a fight. I learned in that year though, that Pull-ups are glorified diapers. Actually, NO, they are worse- more expensive, leak more, and require a full wardrobe change of your kids to get off and on (shoes and all.)

Finally about 1 year in, my husband and I both decided that we were going to have to switch to "big boy underwear." We had put this off for a long time because of the strong desire we both had to never be found scraping feces out of underwear over the toilet, but alas, we did it anyway.  It took another 6 months of trying before we got the pooping consistently in the potty.  

We tried, potty charts, stickers, M&Ms all without any luck. Finally I bought Tripp a high dollar Rescue Bot at the toy store and put it up on a shelf in the bathroom. Everyday we would go in there are look at it and talk about how cool of a toy it was, but then I would tell him he could only have it if he got 10 poop stickers on his chart. (Yes our chart had a poop and a pee side.)
Kind of cruel, I know. Its like dangling a $25 dollar carrot in front of a mule, but it was the only thing that really seemed to get his attention. Important info- do not let them touch the toy. They can talk about it, YOU can touch it...but touching rights only go to those that put there shit in the pot. 

Eventually we got our 10 stickers and earned the Rescue Bot. It took 10 more stickers in a row to buy Tripp his first ever visit to the St Louis Zoo. (Thanks Tripp for waiting until I was 33 weeks pregnant with your sister in July to make that happen buddy!) 

After that we got to start preschool and we only had about 2 more weeks of accidents intermittent until something just hit him that he was going to do it.  

One of his defining moments though, was when his poor Poppa was babysitting him for us in a pinch one day. Tripp and him had "a talk" about using the potty and he thought they were set. Well Tripp has the attention span of a goldfish, so about 10 mins later, he crapped himself for old Pops. The clean up effort (sans Grammy) involved a waterhose...we will just leave it at that. Something about disappointing Poppa really seemed to throw things on course. So note, YOUR KID DOES NOT CARE IF YOU HAVE TO SCRAPE TURDS OUT OF HIS UNDERWEAR. You are his momma (or daddy) and that is part of your job. Other people....well that is cause for concern. 

So there you go. I could write an article and entitle it "How to potty train your kid in 547.5 days, and almost give up at the end and just accept that at some point size 6 diapers are not going to fit your 13 year old." But, ya'll people just keep thinking you can get er done in 3 days and we will see how that works out for ya!

Home Remedies...Karen Style

As I write this, I know my mother will claim that she knows nothing about any of this information I am about to type. That's okay Kar-on because we all know how things used to go down when we were little. There was a general lack of what I would call "preventative medical care."  I do remember going to the doctor occasionally, but most medical dilemmas were addressed by the one and only Dr. Karen.

She only had a few different treatments, but no matter what your disease was they always could be treated in one of the following ways.

1. A cold wet rag to the head and neck- Generally she would supply this for you and rewet it as tolerated. This was often the treatment for symptoms like nausea, vomiting, fever, or overheating. Important note, once your rag became the same temperature as your skin, it was no longer effective.

2. Take a bath- This was the prescription you got if you were feeling whiny or achy perhaps. Usually you would get in there only to find that there were 15 empty bottles of shampoo and absolutely no soap or conditioner within a 10 mile radius of the house.

3. Get some sunshine- So advances in medicine would probably disagree with Dr. Karen on this one considering the huge anti-sunshine campaign right now. She frequently recommended this treatment for general malaise. Maybe you just had a lead ass that day or were feeling kind of down in the dumps, leave it to her to push you out the door for a session of sunshine. Thanks mom, my dermatologist thanks you too. He just built a giant house that I am helping him pay for with all my mole removals.

4. Take a nap- This one was quite a rare suggestion. Not sure why, considering most of the above complaints were fatigue related.  Often this one was reserved for truly sick kids (ones that had some bodily fluid projecting from them spontaneously). Lots of times, this nap would take place on a floor vent while the heater was running. We would set up shop with a pillow and blanket and make ourselves a little heat cocoon. In the event the heat kicked off, we would usually go crank it up so it would come back on. Yeah that really pissed my dad off. Oops, guess I shouldn't have spilled the beans but how else do you think the thermostat got turned up to 92 degrees?

5. As an absolute last resort- One Tylenol. If all other above methods had failed, you were dispensed one of these bad boys. It could have possible been from a bottle from the early 80's but when she got down to this, you know there was some desperation there. So rather than just die, you took it against your better judgment. It also didn't matter what dose of Tylenol your age or weight recommended. You only got 1. Any more than 1 was "Too much medicine."

With all that in mind, I guess I did live. If anything, natural selection didn't get me so I think I'm probably better for it.  So one day when my kids are making fun of my remedies, what are they going to say I used to do for them?????

1. Lansinoh Butt Cream- comes in a purple tube. Will heal a red monkey butt like no ones business.

2. A hot shower- I mean seriously, tell me on one occasion that you didn't feel better after a hot shower.

3. A heating pad- My 3 year old already refers to it as "the hot, " and tries to argue with me that I am not sharing it equally with him.

4. Applying Vicks Vapor rub to the feet for a cough. I literally have no medical explanation for this one, it just works.

So I'm pretty much turning into my mom. I guess it was bound to happen eventually.

I'm losing my mind (and my hair)

Well lets talk about something near and dear to my heart, my hair. In my almost 30 years, we have had a hate/tolerate relationship. The real issue was that I did not realize that my hair was curly until I was about 16. I was just sitting at home watching a stellar episode of Gilmore Girls and on the show it showed someone blowdrying there hair upside down while scrunching it. So my frizzy head thought to myself, "Self, why would anyone do that to their hair? Hell, maybe I should do that to my hair." And BAM! I'll be damned if it wasn't curly all along. So things got a bit better for awhile after that.

That was until I had my first baby...and then about 3 months after he was born my hair started going kamikaze on me and jumping off of my head faster than I could comb it.  So, I really wasn't prepared for this, although through my extensive research on Google, I found out that this can be normal for some women. What I did not find out in all the vague articles I read was at what point do you start to panic. A few strands on your hairbrush is one thing, handfuls in the shower everyday for 2 or 3 months is another.  I consulted my friends, my hairdresser, my mom, my cousins and just about anyone I could get to talk about it. Everyone told me not to worry because it would grow back eventually. Well excuse me if my sudden male patterned baldness has my britches in a twist. It was bad, and I'm not talking Michael Jackson Bad. I'm talking buy a wig and start a doo rag trend bad.

To conceal it, I tried to keep my hair cut short (it was less traumatic to see the shorter strands falling out) and used about $500 dollars worth of hair products. (Hopefully Josh is not reading this because he is a cheap a$$) None of them really seemed to help a whole lot, but I had to do something. It wasn't until Tripp's first birthday party that I could look at pictures of myself and not cringe.

So this time I was prepared! I was 6 weeks postpartum with my daughter and I knew what was about to go down. Everyone always told me that "Maybe it wont happen this time." Where there wasn't a chance in hell of that happening, because I hadn't lost one strand of hair on my head since I was 7 weeks pregnant. So I went and get my hair cut and colored and looking pretty good and I braced myself for it.  It started about 8 weeks postpartum this time. At first I was brave. I would brush my hair before I got in the shower and get all the hair out I could. I would say in my head "F U Hair. You don't want to stay on my head, that's fine. You never looked good anyway!"  Then as my hair has dwindled, the bravery has subsided. Now I comb it and say "Well, if some of y'all wanna hang around for awhile, that would be fan-friggin-tastc!"

Instead of falling out in clumps to make me seems like I have a legit medical condition, it has kinda fallen out all over and more so at my temples. This gives me the appearance of a middle aged hippy man that has not accepted that his days of rollin doobies and hanging at Woodstock are over. What is worse, is that when I bring it up, people are like "Yeah, I noticed after you had Tripp and thought something was wrong with you." NO Assholes, you aren't supposed to tell someone that you noticed there postpartum hair loss made them look like a wet dog with mange. You are supposed to keep your mouth shut, then you can talk about your friends hair on your blog, that God bless her heart I hope she doesn't read.

So here are my tips for surviving the trauma.
#1. Although I don't really know if it helped or not, but I ended up really liking Nioxin shampoo and have continued to use it
#2 Keep your hair cut short
#3Change your part for awhile which gives the illusion of some volume.
#4 Brush your hair BEFORE you get in the shower to get the extra hair out. If you have just had a baby, you are already way to flabby and vulnerable when you are naked in the shower.
#5 There is no way to keep the hair from falling out, the quicker it gets out, the sooner a new hair will grow in behind it
#6 Don't ask your friends if they notice how bad your hair looks. They are not blind and its not nice for them to have to lie.
#7 In all honesty, your husband probably doesn't notice, unless its just to gripe at you for clogging up the drain. Most heterosexual men are really THAT dense when it comes to all things beauty.

So there you go. I'm going bald and I know it. Piper is almost 4 months old and I think the shedding has peaked and now I just have to wait and see what grows back.  Hopefully in the meantime no one will try to quarantine me at the pound.

Readers Beware

Okay so about 85% of the time I am a responsible, reasonable, proper upstanding lady. This blog is for the other 15% of the time. Until the invention of the internet, if you didn't have anything nice, positive, or just generally ladylike to say....you were told to shut your mouth. Now we can just say whatever the hell we want to say and pretend that everyone in cyberspace cares. If you don't care, then get off my blog.  Try to refrain from posting any douchebag comments as well, if you want to do that you should just get your own blog and pretend that people care about it too. This is going to be my spot to post my thoughts about pretty much anything I want. If you know me at all, there is probably going to be a fair amount of language (sorry mom) and offensive subject matter. Hopefully you will enjoy, if not I am going to be pretending in my head that everyone is enjoying it anyway!