Did I really just say that?

Occasionally I find myself saying something as a parent that I can’t even fathom. Something that makes my brain go “how on earth did you get to a place in life where that sentence is appropriate?” And I always think I should write them down, but those moments also usually require immediate action, like grabbing a child off the arm of the couch, changing the channel because Care Bears are terrifying, or shockingly often, poo. So by the time I’m done putting the juice into the cup that matches the underwear the kid’s wearing or putting the salad tongs back in the drawer because they shouldn’t be used to stop the fan, I’ve forgotten the bizarre thing I said and should have shared with others so you could all know the joy. Kind of like the bit by Louis Black about the time he heard the dumbest thing ever, and if he doesn’t share it with others his brain will EXPLODE. (Check that here if you haven’t. It’s way funnier than I make it sound, really.)

If it weren’t for my horse…

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to make that list here, and let you play along. What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said as a parent? Or heard your parents say? Here’s some of mine and the ones my friends contributed as well:

• Are you ready for lunch- woah. Please put your underwear back on.
• I know it makes a good echo but your face doesn’t go in the toilet.
• We don’t use the toilet brush on the dog.
• That’s it! I’m packing your room up if you won’t. Where’s the snow shovel?
• Most people don’t take their pants off while going for a car ride.
• I’m trying to make dinner, would you stop putting motorcycles in my butt?
• I don’t think the cat really enjoys superheroes in his ears.
• Please don’t lick the window. (She says this every. day.)
• You really don’t want too many spaceships in your mouth.
• Pacifiers don’t go in your eye.
• Making cake is a pants-on activity.
• We say “lick off” the spoon, not “suck it off.” Why? … um……….. …….. …..just because.

Add yours in the comments so we can all marvel at the awkward together!

Thought Collection #2

More thoughts! A collection of things I think while going about my mom-ly duties:

My son has decided that he cannot eat anything that has a “wrapper.” Blueberries, grapes, beans, corn, and peas all have wrappers. He will spit them out like Tom Hanks in Big.

I attempted once- ONCE- to remove said wrappers for him. I also tried once to bake something I saw on Pinterest, but I like to think I learn from my mistakes.

*****

I feel like, when you pay off your hospital birthing bills, you should get the title for your kid, like when you pay off your car. Frame that shit.

*****

That moment when your kids are so quiet it causes panic. You must check on them but if they catch you peeking it will break whatever mystical spell has made them silent and they’ll come get all up in your business. But you need to a) see what has them so focused to make sure that it is available at all times from this point forward and b) make sure they’re actually still alive. But oh my god it’s been a full five minutes since someone whined at you and no-one is clinging to your leg so if you wait another three minutes you could probably still resuscitate with minimal brain damage if that’s the situation. And then MOM-GUILT you scurry to the doorway and peeeeeek around with one eye and it was just a new Sesame Street but you’re busted and so is this toy and they need snacks and moooooOOOOOOOOooooom.

*****

One fun thing about having kids is getting to explain the subtleties of language to them. Like why we say we “lick off the spoon” not “suck it off.” Loudly. In public.

*****

Pretty sure the nicknames we’ve had for our kids demonstrate exactly how life has gone with them. First kid: Little Man, Bubbaloo, Sir. Second kid: Chica, Scooter, Destructo, Gozer.

*****

We are at a phase in the big kid’s life where he is learning to deal with frustration in more mature ways than wildly flailing around the house raining destruction on everyone else’s emotions. It’s going pretty well, actually, though when your starting point is sobbing because you took your pants off when you wanted to pee through them, I guess you have nowhere to go but up. Anyway, the other day I saw a break-down coming during teeth-brushing time, and told him I would guess what was wrong since he couldn’t use his words with a toothbrush in his mouth. My guesses:

Is it because the Beatles broke up? Was it Yoko? I bet it was Yoko.

Are you upset because Nick Jr replaced Marina on Fresh Beat Band without saying anything and acted like we wouldn’t notice? How were not going to notice? You’re a kid, not a marmot. We know faces.

Is it because there’s no more Clearly Canadian? It was clearly the most Canadian soda, so I don’t blame you.

Wait, it’s because DiCaprio still doesn’t have an Oscar? Don’t jump on that bandwagon, man. He’s not all that.

I know. I know. It’s because your elbows are so pointy. Curse you elboooooows!

Is it because you have toothpaste in your nose from giggling so much? That would bother me, too. Stop giggling so much! You are SO weird.

*****

A lady’s body changes a lot after kids, mostly in ways that make you feel floppy and broken. Like now, having cramps is suddenly like implanting the garbage mashers from the first Death Star into my abdomen. Replete with thrashing tentacle monsters, metal poles propping up the walls, and a Wookie.

*****

And, just for good measure, an Awkward Baby. Sometimes, you just gotta see how a life-choice tastes before you can commit.

He who hesitates is sometimes licking paper

But if you do dive in, Awkward Baby applauds you.

Awkward Baby #7

It’s time for an awkward baby, yes?

The longer I have kids, the more I find myself getting REALLY excited about talking to other grown-ups. But I’m out of practice. I want to have philosophical discussions about religion and politics and Art the way I used to when I was young and had no fear of being seen as an insufferable ass-hat. Maybe something about Marxism or Dada. Something you heard about on NPR today where I actually use my brains and the many overpriced years of education I amassed and *GASP* learn something new by listening to other people. I really miss that.

But honestly, at this point, I just get really excited to see someone who is over three feet tall. Someone who can talk about Italian cuisine without pronouncing it “Pahsketti.” And I get a little over-enthusiastic about it. I feel my face getting all goofy smiley and I don’t have anything intelligent to add to the conversation but I WILL laugh a little too hard at everything that’s not another knock knock joke about bananas. Sometimes I try way too hard and it’s a little embarrassing. And sometimes I don’t care because even being in the same room as other grown-ups is such a nice change that I don’t care how out-of-touch I am, I’m just glad to have a new person as a part of my day.

What are you guys talking about!? AHAHAHAHA! Right?

Awkward Baby doesn’t judge- you keep on with that goofy smile.

You like movies? I like movies.

While ferrying the kids and cat to various schools and appointments the other day, I found myself contemplating actors. There is no significant “why” here, it just popped in my head and I created a dissertation on the merits of different actors and styles while driving from the groomer to the coffee drive-thru. Like ya’ do. So I put it to you, internet reader. Consider these theories:

There is a group of highly beloved actors and actresses that, in my opinion, are always themselves in every movie they play. You can’t blame them. When you are categorized as a Leading Man or Ingénue, that’s who you play, all the time. That’s your career. And that kind of character is pretty much just… you. So I get it. What I don’t get is when those actors are then touted as being the best in the business. They may be portraying their characters well, but those characters aren’t exactly difficult to create. This becomes even more irksome when the actor IS given different characters, but is just “actor as different character.” My two biggest offenders?

#1 Kevin Costner. I don’t care how monumental people wanted his movies to be. He is lifeless on screen, and every one of his movies is just Kevin Costner As ______. I will leave Robin Hood out of this one, because once you are no longer in middle school, the atrocity of that film is resoundingly clear. Side note: do not watch the movies you loved in middle school or risk life-shattering realizations over a tub of popcorn. Such hurt you’ve given me, Prince of Thieves. Anyway, Kevin Costner As _______. Behold:

Kevin Costner As Kevin with Natives

Hey.

Kevin Costner As Kevin Doing Baseball Stuff

Like being out-acted by corn

Kevin Costner As Kevin Being Serious in the 60’s

Hats.

Kevin Costner As Kevin Cowboy

pew pew

Kevin Costner As HOLY SHIT IS THAT TINA MAJORINO!? I didn’t even realize that! That’s kind of awesome. Anyway, there’s Kevin Costner again.

Would you like some of our home-woven handicrafts?

#2 Tom Cruise. He is just so easy to be disgusted with, isn’t he? Here he is, being easily repugnant, in many similar forms.

Tom Cruise As Tom in Action

This mah serious face

Tom Cruise As Tom being Kubricked

ACTING! Thank you! No, thank YOU!

Tom Cruise As… actually, probably just Tom Cruise

Yup

Tom Cruise As Tom Angry Soldier

EMPHASIS!

Tom Cruise As Tom in Fancy Goth

“This had better not awaken anything in me”

Tom Cruise As OMG I even hate him retroactively. Even young, full of potential Tom is punchable.

The smile of a man who will never know reality

And people will cite moments where these kinds of actors do something completely off book. But I disagree. Here is Tom Cruise As Tom Being Unpredictably Funny

It’s funny, because I will NEVER look like this. I’m funny.

Ugh. Just do SOMETHING that’s not you in different clothes, and I might ease up. A good example of what I want is comedians who make the transition to drama. The ones that do it well do it REALLY well. I believe comics make better dramatic actors than the other way around. Plenty of people do drama and can’t even begin to nail comedy.

Just… please stop

But the other way around? It comes from knowing how to play an audience, I think. You can’t make people laugh unless you have a firm understanding of what makes people tick- how to wait for just the right moment and give just the right cues to lead them to your punchline. Keenly perceiving the human condition. And if you can do THAT well, it’s just a small leap to taking them to deep psychologically scarring places as well. ….comedians may be diabolical mind-controlling super-villians you guys. Keep your eye on them. Anyway, whenever a great comedian jumps to a drama, I pop that puppy in my Netflix queue- cuz it’s probably gonna rock. Examples? There are dozens who deserve mention, and I encourage you to in the comments. But my brief musing over this and a quick google search give us these:

Robin Williams as a weird cocaine-fueled alien (ok, so not entirely a stretch… too soon?) and also as the guy you wish was your dad.

Mork and All the Feelings

Lily Tomlin as a ridiculous phone operator and a gilded lady you would not mess with.

But with the same hand in both. Just noticed that. Signature move?

Steve Carrell as every line you quoted in the early 2000’s and as a pitifully broken man.

I love lamp. I love… the boom guy..

This next one needs explanation as it is what made me realize this notion in the first place. I first noticed Sarah Paulson when she was on the short-lived show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. If you missed it, too bad because it was really funny. It was about an SNL-style late night variety show, and Sarah Paulson was hilarious.

Not a lot of choices of pics on something that tanked eight years ago, you know?

The next time I noticed her was when she did this in the movie Serenity, and I cried and cried.

Even transparent you are making all the feelings!

That was the moment I realized that comedians make FAR better dramatic actors than the other way around. In the interests of full disclosure, I did study Theatre, and I sucked at it. Can’t act my way out of a wet paper bag. But it did teach me how to appreciate when those things are done well, and also that people who consider themselves Serious Actors are often insufferable, but the funny people over there? Pretty rad.

Which brings me to my last thought: character actors. Now THESE are the people who deserve the Oscars. These are the people who make a living playing someone completely freaking different every time you see them. You may not even realize it’s them from film to film. They are the sidekicks, the comic relief, the neighbor or bit part, and they ARE creating a new character, completely other than themselves, every time. Honestly, I judge a piece of entertainment not by its leads, who are often static and pat, but by the side characters. The greatest shows are the ones with the greatest ensembles of “other” kinds of characters. One of my favorite shows from the past is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I honestly couldn’t have cared less about Buffy or her love interest Forehead. (Team Spike forever.) The leads were tiring. But the array of friends, sidekicks, and villains?! Now THAT’S a great show.

Some blond chick and the most incredible collection of characters on late 90’s tv

So anyway: character actors, or the real reason for the post. Two words. Christopher. Guest. If you aren’t going “ooooh, yeah. That’s right” then we need to chat. Just look at his IMDB page and count how many times you say Holy shit that was him!? I’ll do it for you.

Nigel Tufnel: Spinal Tap

The one in the middle, for anyone born after 1990

Dr. Stone: A Few Good Men

I think we just won at the Kevin Bacon game

Corky St. Clair: Waiting for Guffman

Jazz hands!

Alan Barrows: A Mighty Wind

He looks like NPR sounds

Harlan Pepper: Best in Show

He’s the one on the left

Ivan the Terrible: Night at the Museum

Wait- really!?

And the pièce de résistance? The Six Fingered Man: The Princess Bride. Whaaaaaaaaaat!?

Leading the pack of villains you train your whole life to fight since 1987

He is my hero. My Hollywood hot-damn. I can’t get enough of that guy, and neither should anyone else. People are all up in arms that DiCaprio hasn’t gotten an Oscar. But which DiCaprio?

Boat man, Rich man, or Rich Boat man?

But this Christopher Guest guy, people. THIS guy you should look out for. It occurs to me that my endorsement is probably not something he needs, or would even want based on my prolific love of swearing, but I just wanted to let you all know because he is pretty neat.

So these are my movie thoughts as I do my soccer-mom-ish tasks of my day. Next time you’re getting all film buff-y, quit swooning over the mega-stars, ignore the leads, and look for the side-kicks. That’s where it’s at.

Edit: Oh! Oh! Patton Oswald. If you haven’t seen Young Adult, do it. Seriously. That movie is DARK and his performance was outstanding. I’m just going to keep adding people I think of as the week goes on because this is IMPORTANT.

Thought collection #1

Modern social media has changed the way I think. Rather than have actual ponder-y thoughts, I find myself planning out how to relay my musings in a witty status update. This happens multiple times per day. And then, the moment is gone, I completely forget what I was thinking about, and it never makes it past my noggin.

Until now!

Tell ’em what they’ve won!

(p.s. This is the first image when you Google the phrase “tell them what they’ve won.” It’s like I got you a pony! But I didn’t. I just got you this marvelous image, which is frankly almost as good.)

I’m going to collect all those daily thoughts and flop them down haphazardly here! For your reading enjoyment! You’re welcome!

First installment: car seats to gay porn. Hooray!

1) The way to test to see if you’re ready to be a parent is to install two car seats, in the dark, while it’s sleeting rain/snow. If you can do it without hurling something across the yard, slamming the car doors more than six times, or screaming obscenities at innocent latch hooks, then you may be ready to parent. For the record, I am not ready to parent.

2) Realized I am only two years away from my TWENTY FREAKING YEAR high school reunion. This led to three thoughts. Thought one: holy. shit. Thought two: Pretty sure you have to identify as adult when you commemorate twenty years of the end of something. So… I’m a grown-up now, I guess. Thought three: I have two years to get my shit together so I can pretend I never got super fat.

Thanks, Pinterest

3) Got the Big Kid his first Shamrock shake. “Mom… this is the most amazing drink ever. It’s so… green.” We’re all right there with ya, kid.

4) How I know I am an adult: I do not pull off chips of peeling paint from my walls or ceiling; I consider when I will be able to scrape and repaint. How I know I will never be fully adult: god DAMMIT I want to pull off that chunk of paint SO bad.

5) Had an odd moment today where I realized a lot of the things I hear as a parent would, in a different context, not be out of place on the set of a gay porn movie. Consider these actual moments from this week:

“Batman will ride the Batmobile and Robin will ride this cucumber.”

“I kind of prefer you don’t kiss me directly on the butt.”

“Aww, look at all those bears piled up on your face!”

And, the old stand-by: “Look how flexible my penis is!”

Til next time, keep it awkward, friends.

We now return to our program

Well… hi. Look at that last post’s date. Look at this one. Whoops. Some life happened there, it seems. But I’m back! I still don’t know what this blog is going to be. But I know I want to give it another shot.

You know, when I started, I had these grand plans that I would create this visually stunning documentary on the life of a writer- everything I had ever done, from preschool to now. All organized by topic and date. It would be monumental….ly pretentious. So I ditched it. Then I thought I’d write the next hilarious mom-blog to go triple viral (because I don’t know how the internet works) and I’d get reposted by both The Bloggess AND George Takei and it would crash my site and I’d be instantly famous. But I was trying way too hard and gave up when I wasn’t rolling in Bitcoins within a month.

So that brings us to today. Two kids, a job I occasionally do, not a hell of a lot of time, but dammit, I started this and I want to keep trying. We all have these “shoulds” and “want tos” and I don’t know about you, but I know I avoid eye-contact with all of mine for fear of failure. But all you can really do is give SOMETHING a shot every once in a while, right? So all the stuff I would normally put on Facebook? The stuff that made a whole four people say I should start a blog? It’s going here. All the stuff I have scribbled on grocery receipts and random pages of notebooks? Here. If nothing else, it still makes ME laugh, so I’ve got that to look forward to. No clue what this blog will actually be, but it’s going to be… something.

Welcome back to the new and improved blog you never knew existed in the first place. Here we go again, awkwardly diving in.

That’s the spirit

Awkward Baby #6

I’m going to a bachelorette party tonight. It should be pretty fun, and I haven’t been out in a long time. But I’m a lightweight now, the kind that goes out at 7 and comes home by 10:30. I can remember when I wouldn’t set foot in a bar before 10- that’s when the old people leave. Sigh. I’m not even going to drink, because the whole “providing sustenance for my child” thing is something I still find amusing. So I wonder what it would be like if I DID go out and get white-girl crazy. What’s my tolerance like anymore? Would I be three sheets after two drinks? Would I be doing the “who has two fingers and lotsa shots” routine?

This guy!!!!!

 

Awkward Baby- hic. Awkward Baby- no, really this is serious. This is serious now. Listen, listen- Awkward Baby loves me anyway. Hug it out, man.

Optimistic thoughts- parenting edition

What I’ve posted so far on this blog are my attempts at being entertainingly witty, but that’s not entirely what I wanted this blog to be. Also, when you try to always be entertainingly witty, it gets forced, really quick. So I’m going to stop digging for the Sally Fields “you like me,” and just do what I came here to do: have some thoughts, write them down, hope others read and respond, and if not…. eh, at least I’m improving my typing skills. (This one even has handy links to things I’ve read, though they don’t appear to be a different color like links usually are. Hmmm… it’s like a link treasure hunt for you!)

I saw a Salon article the other day about a woman who was arrested and got 100 hours of community service, plus a mandatory parenting class, for leaving her son in the car while she did a short errand. The kid was happily playing his Ipad, and a passerby took a video of him alone in the car which he then sent to the police. Let’s get this out of the way right now. There are definitely circumstances where you should NOT leave kids alone in the car. If it’s warm enough for the car to get hot (and they do get unthinkably hot, much sooner than you’d expect) then no, take your kids out. Or maybe it’s too cold, or a bad neighborhood, or you’ll be gone long enough for them to get upset, then yeah: you gotta take your kids with you. It’s a pain sometimes, but there are some circumstances that legitimately are too risky for children to be left alone.

The extremely well written Salon article (seriously- worth the read; I think I ended up echoing many of her sentiments here) and another Huffpost Parent article about it address those concerns and refocus on the idea that, you know what? Sometimes it’s ok for kids to be alone. You’re not a bad parent for leaving your kid sitting in a public place by himself for a minute. Frankly, I think sometimes it’s a BETTER idea to leave them in the car. If I need to run in and grab some food for dinner and both of my kids are dozing in their car seats, it will take me maybe 6 1/2 minutes in that store by myself, and they will sleep blissfully unaware of their position while I do it. But if I decide to take them in, I will have to wake up the big kid, who will be an unholy exhausted terror in the store and you KNOW what people say about kids who act up in a store (and their parents, too). It will take me almost a half hour to seat-navigate-juggle-manage everyone and my shopping, and we will all be miserable the whole time. Or I could just skip buying food- AGAIN- because I couldn’t get everyone in the store, awake, at the appropriate time.  I think this becomes exponentially harder with every subsequent kid you have, because that’s one more little body  with a tiny stride who you have to pull along past displays designed to distract them with plastic junk and sugary food-bombs they now desperately need. Sometimes it is better not just for the parent, but also for the kids AND the general populace to let them chill happily in the mom-mobile while adult life happens around them.

Sidebar: Did you know in Europe this is a fairly common thing? There are actually places set aside to leave your stroller, with the baby in it, while you go inside and eat or shop. (Yup, that’s a Cracked humor article. Don’t knock the Cracked. It’s my favorite.) You can give your kids alone time and you won’t be arrested like you would in America. It’s just assumed that people are going to be human beings to each other and we’ll all keep an eye on the kid’s well-being. Grown-ups do grown-up things and kids chillax while they do. At least this is what I’ve heard. It sounds like Narnia to me. Back to the point-

Yet there is story after story of parents being reported and even arrested for leaving their kids for short times in safe conditions. Yes, there are many stories of very real neglect out there as well. I could be misguided on some of these. But it’s the larger fear of being branded a “bad parent” that I’m trying to address, so let’s focus on the cases where there was no evidence of any harm to the children. These are people who let their kids play unsupervised on their own street. Or left their kids in the car for just a minute. Or, god forbid, let them walk to school alone. These parents are criminals, according to our current social standards, for being grossly negligent and endangering their children.

What is it we are “supposed” to be afraid of in these situations? What is the danger exactly? Sure, kids are accident magnets and can find ways to get hurt while wrapped in cotton in a pillow room. Sometimes shit happens- whether we’re there or not. But I feel like the main fear is that someone will take your kids. From your locked car. Or right in front of your house. And that I find, frankly, ridiculous.  I had hoped to find some recent statistics on this, but it looks like the last time a decent study was done was 1999. So I’ll take some liberties here, sorry fact-checkers. Let’s focus on the leaving-in-cars thing.  In an extensive Google search (I mean, I went to like, the twelfth page of results. Who goes past page two?!) I found a grand total of three cases where kids were taken from cars, and two of them were when an adult guardian was standing RIGHT NEXT TO THE CAR. Situation was shady, is what I’m saying. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this really doesn’t happen as often as our fears want us to think. We seem to have this perception that any child left alone will be physically hurt by horrible lurking men, or kidnapped and brainwashed by horrible unstable women. But the fact is that stranger abductions are incredibly rare. The latest stats from the U.S. Department of Justice (this is the 1999 one, btw) say it’s only one hundred fifteen out of EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND missing children reports. That’s a huge margin, you guys. Your kid is more likely to get hit by a car walking through the parking lot than he is to get kidnapped while hanging out in it. And when you combine that with crime statistics in general? Our national crime rates are at a 35 year low. If we are talking in terms of hypothetical threat possibilities, statistically? We are super-safe, you guys.

Now, you may argue that we’re super-safe BECAUSE we are so hyper-vigilant. When people are constantly on the look-out for bad guys, there isn’t much room for crime to wiggle in. I will concede that. However, I think it still proves my point. People are hyper-aware. So chances are, people are looking out for your kids, not looking to hurt them. Which brings me to my next point fairly nicely (ahhh, transitions!)

At my kid’s preschool this year, they did a parent book-club reading of “Free Range Kids.” Full disclosure: I didn’t read the book. I just had a baby. I can barely get through One Fish Two Fish and the directions on a box of pasta before I pass out from over-exertion. But they helpfully provided a TLDR version for us in the form of a smart little blog post that sums the whole thing up thusly: Stop. Worrying.

Our kids need to learn some independence. We need to let them enjoy the freedom and safety we have that is fairly unique to this modern world. There are so many places, yes even in our own country, where it is NOT safe to walk alone. Where you can’t be out after dark, where you do live in fear of militias and war and disease. But for those of us who live in unprecedented wealth and security, in community-oriented suburbs and increasingly safe cities- please, act like it. Feel guilty for our magical levels of first-worldliness if you need, but allow yourself to realize that this life IS a privelage, and you CAN enjoy it. The people around you are mostly very fine human beings.

And the last point of that post is the one I really want to look at: why do we feel like we can’t trust our neighbors? The people we pass in our community? Because the news shows us the most horrible stories it can find? Those things, and those frightening people, are lightning rare.  We start to realize that the more we get to know people. Lenore Skenazy, who is the driving force behind much of the sentiment on this Free Range Kids movement (and author of some of the links above), gives some common-sense advice that is dumb-foundingly hard to swallow these days. Talk to your neighbors. (What!? Strangers?! Yes. Strangers.) Chat with the people in shops. Become familiar. And suddenly, the town isn’t full of potential danger, it’s full of humans, just like you, who want to live in a nice place. It reminded me of one last article I saw about the dreaded “Mommy Wars.”

For those who don’t live by internet hype, the Mommy Wars is the ridiculous name for parents giving each other a hard time. Stay-at-home-moms versus working moms. Tiger Mothers versus Kangaroo Care. Buzzword for one extreme versus slanderous term for the other. People are inundated with parenting methods and told that if you seem to be failing because this other person seems to be succeeding more, there must be feelings of animosity because your methods are at war with theirs. So judge them whilst self-aggrandizing yourself. The whole thing is borne of self-doubt and the worry that every parent has that we’re not good enough. But as long as we’re not like THAT loser, we’re ok, right? Anyway, the point of this article is, again: Stop it. Stop worrying. Stop nitpicking. We will all be better off as a society of parents when we stop pitting us against them. Find the “we” instead. According to this philosophy, when you see that mom with dark circles under her eyes glued to her phone, don’t assume she’s a terrible mother for ignoring her kids, and that you are the superior creature. Assume she’s had six hours sleep in the last three days and needs to email the doctor and a new babysitter and desperately needs a break. Have your kids play with her kids. Give her a wave and a smile. Find out her name, offer a bottle of water, and lend a hand.  Be a neighbor, because we’re all in this together.

When you see those kids walking unaccompanied on the street, don’t wonder why their parents let them walk “dangerously” alone- make the way safe for them. Drive safely. Keep an eye on them. Be a neighbor. When you see that kid in the car, don’t call the police. Hang around for a bit. Wave and smile. Be a neighbor. (I suddenly recognize this is not as easy for men as for women. You could get creeper status really quick this way. Sorry guys- I wish my version of a better world could suddenly appear so you could be the nice gentlemen you are and not creepers. I’ll work on that for ya.)

I truly believe that the world becomes what we see in it. The kindness we put out there, just like the fear it is replacing, is contagious. If we can all admit that people are a little more trustworthy than we think, then we can all be a little more trusting, as well. Instead of  finding fault and blame, find common ground and ways to support each others’ needs. It starts with not being afraid. Not afraid of what-ifs, not afraid of what others will say, and not afraid to live right along side the people around you. They’re not that bad, turns out. And we can, actually, all be in this together.

Awkward Baby #5

Have you ever been in the middle of a really animated conversation when suddenly a little blob of spit comes arcing out of your face hole toward the person you’re talking to? And you pray they don’t notice or, holy gods, please don’t let it hit them. And you just keep talking, pretending that you didn’t notice, and then pretending you didn’t notice they noticed. And hoping that if they DID notice, you can both just pretend it never happened?

Maintain eye contact….

Awkward Baby sympathizes.

Awkward Baby #4

Do your kids hate tummy time? My kids HATE tummy time. I mean despise it. Vocally. They both declared that tummy time is completely beneath them. (Heh. Punny!) I don’t do it nearly as often as helpful websites say I should. But I’m not too concerned for my kids deficient gross motor skills, the way those helpful websites say I should be. Both of my kids came out of the womb holding their heads up freakishly well, like they had some new mutant neck-muscles previously unrecorded in newborns. They both decided around two months old that being held vertically on their feet was far superior to any of that pedestrian swaddling or lying down The Man tells babies to do. They both stood up long before they sat up. Big kid walked before he crawled and Little Kid is following in his footsteps. (heh heh! More wordplay!) They both figured out that being held in a standing position where they can participate in the world is resoundingly better than being stuck face down on the floor. I mean, duh. So when I say my kids HATE tummy time, please know that I mean they vehemently hate it, the way I hate celebrity gossip being treated like actual news.

Who decided to pay attention to Kardashians?

And why aren’t you covering the net neutrality voting?!

Awkward babies just have better things to do with their time.