I want pepper-spray as a baby shower gift now
Attended my sister's hard-core cooking group last night at the lovely Jeri's house (she of the redesigning my blog fame). Got to gasp in awe at the food storage bunker that came with the house, with its multitude of shelving. "Old people lived here before us," she said by way of explanation.
The theme was aphrodesiac foods, and we've decided that men had to have made the list of supposed aphrodesiacs, because only a man could imagine that looking at phallic-shaped foods would be a big turn-on for women. (You know, cuz we're all about those.) I could, however, absolutely imagine a guy seeing a cake shaped like boobs and having that work for them. Maybe I'm wrong. But I digress. The food was amazing, even if it did not result in us having one of those Victoria Secret pillow-fights that the commercials think we have.
Because most of the group consisted of women with small children, the conversation at one point turned to Insane Things Those Small Children Have Done. Have now resolved never to have little boys, because it turns out that they do things like shake out entire cartons of orange juice on the living room floor, and ruin people's vintage furniture, and dump out gallons of chocolate milk on living room carpets, and pee under couches, which, how is that even possible. Or maybe I should go ahead and have boys, but remove everything of beauty or value from my home first. And get disposable couches. Maybe the inflatable kind. And install carpet made of paper towels.
And then the conversation turned to People Who Walk up to One in Public and Criticize One's Parenting. Now, I'm sure there are lots of mommies who feel that I fall into that category. I don't, though. When I draw a parent's attention to something going on with their child it is either because a) Mom is busy using the public library computer and has seemingly forgotten that she owns a child and so said child is placing his body or life in danger, or b) the child is ruining my life, or the lives of others. Those are the only times. Also most of those times occur in the library where I'm just doing my dang job, people.
But Jeri talked about how she finally resorted to putting her likes-to-dart-into-traffic daughter into a kiddie harness so that she could keep her alive. And people would walk up and say things to her all the time about what a bad parent she is for doing such a thing. Some guy walked up and was all, "Do you really think it's appropriate to leash your daughter like some kind of animal?" And bless her, she replied, "No, what I think would be really appropriate is if I let her run into traffic and get killed." She should have kicked him in the face while she was at it, but she was trying to wrangle two kids at the time, including the kamikaze one. We thought another good idea would have been to say, "Do you really think it's appropriate to walk up to a complete stranger and offer unsolicited parenting advice about children you don't know at all?" (And then kick him in the face.) Or maybe, "Actually, this harness is just a screening device to see who the complete suckwads are. Congratulations!"
I came home and told GH that if he ever gets a call that I've been arrested, it'll be because I was out with our children and somebody talked smack to me. And then I stabbed them.
I'm Steph, a librarian and mom of 3 (not sure how that happened). Let's chat books, food, Sumptuous Literary Adaptations, poop, knitting and maybe some crazy Mormon Feminism.
20 comments:
hehehe! That makes me smile.
I promise to never say "I told you so" after you have kidlets. But I am SOOOOOO going to want to.
And my kids (touch wood) have never peed UNDER the couch or dumped out entire cartons of anything. There was that sharpie on the couch incident, but it was a used couch. And there was a girl going to EFY on the same plane with me and one of my cherubs who knocked and entire cup of Dr. Pepper all over her I'm-wanting-to-be-hot-even-though-I'm-only-14 outfit. Up to that point she'd been all, "you have the cutest baby I've ever seen!" After that she was very subdued; I figured it serves her right for ordering caffeine on the way to a church function. ;) Oh, and all of the stuffed animals have been hanged at least once from the bunkbeds/gallows. I can never find mated socks because if they do manage to match up they are used as grenades that lodge themselves into nooks and crannies all over the house.
I should stop now, though I could go on. Oh, I could.
Last night at my book group, I listened to a mom of teenagers go on about the content of the literature in her daughters AP Lit class. This moron gave "his" class of 16 year olds a rather lengthy article about the sexual libido in males and females and the fact that same gender attraction is no more than us living out our deepest natural fantasies. And the assignment was to write an essay about it. Her daugther refused and got an F. And so it goes.
There was supposed to be a point there about always having to stick up for your kids and yourself and so on and it gets different as they grow, not easier or harder, just different. Sorry.
Great recap of last night. Poor Jeri...
Here's another little scenario you can add to the awesome things little boys do
http://thinkingaudibly.blogspot.com/2009/01/smart.html
I need to add that poison control has now called 3 times to see if we have located said item and if so could be please it their way. Don't worry, they offered to send it back when they were done testing it.
Whew. I don't know if I could have slept at night with all the worry about having a misplaced, feces covered battery.
And that would have to be the night I couldn't come...
We use a leash, too. I'd rather deal with nasty comments than losing my daughter in JFK. (She really did runaway one time at JFK.)
What really amazed me is that people would ask why I didn't just strap her into a stroller. Because that's better! Happy child toddling along in her harness or screaming child restrained in stroller. You are a total stranger, after all. You must know better than me.
At least she wasn't wearing her pillowcase.
Pepper spray and steal-toed boots to kick them incase the spray doesn't work quite as efficiently as one would hope!! And the only time I ever say anything to a parent is when I see them leave a small child in a SUPER hot car for any amount of time...saw mother go into the library once, be in there for half an hour, with her 2 year old bawling in a car that was probably reaching 100 degrees! THAT I cannot stand!
I find it fascinating what some people say to other parents. Then again, I'm of the opinion that parents ought to leash their children into their teens. Probably beyond.
My walls are colored on. I have sharpie on my couch (at least it is a deep crimson couch, so it does not stand out too much). My son has had stiches 3-4 times (I lost count). I have play dough, melted crayon (long story), stamp pad turned upside down, and kiddie bright pink finger nail polish on my carpet! I touched up the walls once and my 4 year old drew a self-portrait on it the next day... I think she thought it needed something. I fixed up and painted an entire 2300 sq foot house and have yet to paint any of the rooms of MY OWN house besides touching up the construction flat paint until my kids are older because they will DESTROY it!
And boys are disgusting! They just are! I need to tile the walls around my toilet... that is all I am saying!
And babies of any gender often go through a phase where when they poop they want to check it themselves by sticking their own hand down their diaper.
I could go on and on and make you re-think ever replenishing the earth... or at least just adopting kids older than 3 and already potty trained!
I never had pee under the couch though...that's talent!
One day when my two year olds are in Kindergarten I will paint a room a week, and clean my house, and do my dishes without finding out the babies dumped every puzzle we had into one big pile and are jumping in it as I am loading the dishwasher. One day...
I would like to point out that those horrible things that children have done are not a collection of all our experiences but simply the collection of JUST MY experiences.
It's a good thing I love my children and they are beautiful because they have DESTROYED EVERYTHING I OWN.
*sob*
It's not just boys - my daughter peed under the ironing board and pooped in the backyard. The backyard incident is among the funniest things I have ever witnessed - I watched the whole thing out the back window. She held on to the carport support, pooped in the snow on the back lawn, and then used a handful of snow to wipe. Some day, when she is Miss Utah and a PhD candidate, we'll sit back and laugh, but no one will believe it!
I have a friend who spanked his four-year-old in Walmart last year. A woman came up to him and started scolding him. She asked him "what makes you think it is appropriate to use that correction on a child?"
His response was- with a straight face- "Lady, what makes you think it's safe to come up to me and tell me how to raise my kid?" and then something about about kicking her in the face. Seriously, and wanted to be like- Ya, Suck It!
Dave, when I hear someone spanking their kids in the middle of Wal-Mart, I get a stomach ulcer. I wouldn't engage in conversation with said person because my first thought is that they are white trash if they can't even wait until they get back to the car where other people won't have to listen to the beatings.
Oh, my. I don't think it's just boys, either. Some of my friends with girls have even worse horror stories. Also knocking on the wood, in that we've never had pee anywhere but accidentally in the undies during training, and yes, on the wall behind the toilet. I insist that his father do that bit of cleaning, since he gave his son that appendage. It's only fair.
And, here's the thing--while I've dealt with my share of retarded people commenting on my parenting, I've also chewed other kids out for riding bikes in the street, etc., which is in fact, me critiquing someone else's parenting. So, even though it's totally different in that I'm right thinking and all and that lady talking to your friend is obviously not....sometimes I wonder if it's really different at all and if we don't ALL just have lots of opinions about how other people ought to be doing it.
"You always think your way is right!"
"Um, yeah. That's why I have chosen it to be MY WAY!"
Dave, I hope you don't have too many friends who spank their children in walmart. Could there be a more white trash, stupid thing to do to a child in walmart?
Just have to say that I laughed until tears came again as I read Science Teacher Mommy's comment.
Also Audra, while your tiling don't forget the ceiling, opposite wall, and the shower curtain, or maybe that is just my boys. Love them.
And I did one time scream at a lady in Shopko that she'd feel worse if I lost my child, when she had the audacity to criticize my use of a child leash. The best time to criticize me is when my nerves and patients are already drained by my kids in a large store.
Happy Parenting.
You seriously crack me up! I've never had my parenting critiqued by any strangers, however I do have my grandmother telling me as often as she can that she feels horrible for my 6 month old because I can't keep up a good enough routine with the eczema he has. Unfortunately for him, his eczema is quite horrible and we're in the process of trying to pinpoint why he has it so bad (allergies?) and how to make it better without permanently ruining his skin. At this point we've tried two different strengths of steroid creams, both of which didn't help along with basic remedies such as Aveeno baby lotion or Aquaphor... and so on. I literally cream this poor child up every hour on the hour so his poor little body with at least feel comfortable, but my grandmother asks everyone she knows what I should be doing to make him better and reports back to me with the news. What's funny is, people think that dry skin and eczema are the same and she thinks that their advice is sound due to their kids not having bright red patches all over their bodies which in turn makes me a bad mother. It's really quite the event to even have a conversation with the woman. What's fun is she now has text messaging so she can tell me immediately when she gets a new tip. How fun
Z's wife, welcome! And is it bad that I'm maybe smiling a tiny bit at the thought of your grandmother texting you night and day? It's a bit like the time I received a Friends request on Facebook from GH'S Grandmother, except she wasn't doing it as a way to criticize me, which is nicer. But I'm so sorry about your poor baby's skin! I hope something will work for him soon!
MadMadameMim, you TELL that lady.
AmyJane, what's that quote from? Ugh. Now I'm going to have to go look it up. The effort . . .
Natalie . . . wow. Just. Wow. And now The Internet will always know about what your daughter did. mwah hah hahahaha
Azucar is right, most of those were hers and she has put the fear of boys into me. I know I won't be able to be as put-together as she is in the face of all that.
Audra . . . I have no words for that. Except to say that you deserve a medal. Or a vacation.
Edgy, definitely leash them through junior high. Because then when they come over the library in the afternoons I could just tie them up in one spot and it would be so much simpler.
Holy CRAP, Jill! That is serious child-endangerment awfulness going on, so I hope you gave that woman what for. Reminds me of that guy who left his kid in the car during a showing of Dark Knight over the summer, and then I get irate all over again . . .
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