What I learned this week…

1. It’d be great if my baby would stop getting into the trash. And the cat food. And possibly the refrigerator. That’s all I ask.
2. I realized recently that every single other person in my home thinks bodily functions are fascinating and farts are amusing. It’s not that I’m above it. I just really don’t think it’s funny.
3. You know what I do think is funny? This: at 12pm I go to class to learn how to teach grammar to non-native English speakers. Almost immediately after, I go to another class where we discuss how it’s unnecessary to teach grammar to non-native English speakers.  Graduate school, yay.
4. Homeschooling is going well. And by “well,” I mean “not as bad as it could be were my son a sociopath and I a crackhead.” Pretty much everything I planned is not working and the toddler is posing an unexpected difficulty considering she suddenly and randomly abandoned the morning nap she’s been taking since birth, which is, incidentally, the only time I have each day to really focus on just teaching Rocket – because I can’t do it in the afternoons because I have my own school and evidently the child’s brain loses its ability to do schoolwork after 11am. (Now, students, that’s what we call a “run-on sentence.” They’re terrible. Never use them.)
5. I’m hoping it’s a transitional thing and it’ll smooth out. You know. Someday.
6. And I’ll grow okay with the fact that my son is 6 and doesn’t want to read. End of story. (Ha. Ha. Ha.)
7. So check this out. If we put the cat food on the kitchen floor where it belongs, the baby eats it. If we put the food on the kitchen table, the cat thinks she’s allowed on the kitchen table (sound reasoning there), and consequently LIVES up there, eating the food we should put away after meals but don’t. BUT if we put the food anywhere else in the house, the cat won’t get fed because I’ll forget about it. There’s some real complicated shit in my life.
8.  My baby spent a good portion of the weekend eating dirt. At one point I actually heard myself say (to somebody expressing some rendition of concern regarding said dirt-eating): “No it’s cool. It’s clean dirt.” Yep, I’m there.
9. Sometimes I see my husband. That’s nice.
10. I read an article recently about how parents shouldn’t use sarcasm around their kids because it causes “smart-alecky” kids. I think that is great advice and I’ll be rebuilding my sense of humor as soon as I get a free moment.

Have a great week, people. And look at this. We did a science experiment together and it was freaking perfect and I felt like a good mom and homeschooler. Yeah, that happened once. Once.

So that didn’t take long. We already have material for a new volume of Idiot Surfing.

Today we’re featuring a Facebook post that asked people to complete the sentence “I suspected I was a crunchy parent when…” And as you can imagine, there are some real winners.

Please note: I have nothing against crunchy parenting. In fact, on paper, I’m pretty damn granola myself. But doesn’t it seem that the crunchies are by far the most judgmental parents? Maybe I’m wrong, but it appears that there’s an air of pretension surrounding the attachment-parenting thing – which seems weird, doesn’t it? Hypocritical? Since we”re supposed to be the “enlightened,” “accepting” ones? Ah, the complexities.

Whatever. Who gives a shit. Let’s make fun of ‘em. Here we go. I suspected I was a crunchy parent when…

“…my daughter looked in horror when she a woman feeding her child “poison” in a bottle!” – Really, lady? Really? Poison? Effing POISON? Could you just try for one single moment to enter the realm of the reasonable? POISON? Rat killer is poison. Chemicals are poison. Napalm is poison. Formula (you self-important small-minded jackass) is NOT poison. What if that woman can’t breastfeed? What if the baby can’t breastfeed? What if the baby was adopted? ARGH. It’s people like you that make me a closeted crunchy mother.

“…I cried at the mere mention of giving my baby formula.” – Yes. It’s one of the great tragedies of the world. War, child abuse, cancer, and formula feeding.

“…I didn’t want to pass my baby around and let others hold him.” – Hey dumbshit. That makes you paranoid and possessive, not crunchy. The crunchies aren’t afraid of germs. They love germs. Germs are organic. Duh.

“… I decided to breastfeed … co-bathe…child-led parent.” – What the hell is “co-bathing?” Are you telling me that each and every night at 7pm you strip down and get in the bath with your baby? You have too much time on your hands, that’s all. And “child-led parenting”? Holy hell, that’s a good idea. Here’s what “child-led” parenting would look like in my house:

Me, to my 5-year-old son: “Hey Rocket, what are you doing?”

Rocket: “I’m putting my penis in a funnel.”

Me: “But you’re supposed to be eating dinner.”

Rocket: “This is more fun. I’m doing this instead.”

Me, being a “child-led parent:” “Well okay, then. Does it fit?”

[2 hours pass]

Rocket: “Mama, I’m hungry!”

Me: “Okay, go eat the dinner you didn’t eat 2 hours ago. By the way, what are you doing with the cat?”

Rocket: “Oh, I tied her paws together with pipe cleaners and stuck her in this pillow case and now I’m going to tow her around behind my dump truck. She likes it.”

Me, being a “child-led parent”: “Very nice, honey! Excellent creativity. I support you in your ideas and free-play, so have fun and, if possible my sweet bundle of lovely, try not to kill our kitty, mmmmkay?”

(Okay so I have no idea what “child-led” parenting is for real, but it sounds bad. I mean shit, if kids could parent themselves, why would they need parents?)

“… our favorite music is the sound of the wind in the trees.” – Yeah, hate to break it to you, but the sound of wind in the trees is not music. It’s the sound of the wind, in.the.trees. That is all.

“…I can’t travel because I don’t have my refrigerator and pantry with all organic fresh foods.” – Oh sweet Jesus where do I begin? You’re just an idiot. Just an idiot. There is nothing else to say. No way to expand. Except I should mention that your kids are undoubtedly going to hate you, partly for sheltering them from the world because it couldn’t provide “organic fresh foods,” but mainly just because you’re an idiot.

The end.

______

While waiting for the next edition of Idiot Surfing, perhaps you could donate 2 clicks to a super worthy cause. There are only four more days. And then, since I’ll probably never be nominated for anything again, I’ll leave you alone forever. Well, on this particular topic.

I realize practically every blogger on the planet does this exact post, but holy hell I can see why. Because this shit is funny. So here you have it: the “Best Of Google Search Terms” post. These are terms people have entered into Google and used to ultimately find my blog (kinda scary).

Because I like to be helpful, I’ve given little responses to the searcher. Right, helpful. That’s it.

“do I have the mind of a 9-year-old?” – Well I think that may be pushin’ it. Perhaps more like a 4-year-old, since you apparently think the internet has some insight on the inner workings of your particular mind.

“why do i want to headbutt things when i’m angry?” – Because you’re angry and you have poor coping skills.

“how to tell when people hate you?” – If you don’t know I can promise pretty much everybody hates you.

“I’m not pooping i’m just thinking real hard” – Thank you for clearing that up. I was concerned. Although I’m guessing you’re really not thinkin’ that hard.

“my life is miserable because I’m a crackhead” – Yes, I imagine it is. At least we’ve pinpointed the problem. Now hmmmmm…. a possible solution…. Huh. I for one am stumped. Let’s go smoke some crack and think about it.

“goldfish poop hanging out” – Yep, just hanging out. Just kicking it. But why my friend would you GOOGLE such a thing? What do expect to find? Photos of a fish bowl with poop? Suggestions on the topic? Empathetic stories?

“10 interesting reasons to wear clean clothes” – Sorry, the only ones I know are pretty uninteresting, like “not stinking” and “not looking like a homeless person.”

“I’m too old to change my mistakes” – Welcome to the club.

“why do my ed hardy seat covers sag” – The critical question here is not why your Ed Hardy seat covers sag, but rather, my friend, why the hell you own Ed Hardy seat covers in the first place.

“med school stop fucking with me” – You are not increasing my confidence in the medical profession.

“I feel like I pretend being an adult” – Is there any other way to do it?

“I’m a bad mother because I curse and yell a lot” – You’ve come to the right place, sister.

“how a crack head thinks” – Well a lot about crack, I imagine.

“how does the flap on a onesie work?” – Wait. Seriously?

“how to dress like a waldorf mom” – If you’re asking this question, you’ve already totally missed the Waldorf boat.

“damn, I am sleeping with my roommate’s mom” – That is too bad. I hate it when that happens. It’s kinda like when I wake up saying “Damn, I have a sore tooth.” You know, bad luck and whatnot.

“parenting toddlers with stickers” – It’s gonna take a little more than that, buddy.

AND MY PARTICULAR FAVORITE ON SO MANY LEVELS:

“what to do when you pet your cat on meth” – I just don’t know where to begin. Maybe…slow down?

So yesterday I went out with the three kids. Mac was working (shocker), and I was feeling ambitious and altruistic, figuring “I can handle this. I’m a good mom.” Plus, if I’m OUT of my house I don’t have to deal with the mess IN my house.

I know. I’m a thinker.

So we went to breakfast. Then we went to a craft store to pick out fabric for curtains I’ll never actually sew, and we walked around the 2^nd-hand baby store (where I bitched about the prices, realizing I can buy the same shit for cheaper at Old Navy and it’s NEW)…then we went to a couple other stores, then Costco.

And really the little hoodlums were pretty good. I mean they’re kids, so they can’t be THAT good, but for kids, they were alright.

But by the end of our outing I realized something: My kids never stop talking. They never, ever, ever fucking EVER stop talking.

“Mama, do you think it’s weird when girls talk about boys they like?”

“Mama, why are we going this way? Can’t we walk to the next store? Why can’t we walk? I wanna walk. We never walk ANYWHERE. Why do we never walk anywhere?”

“Mama, can we buy this wooden chest of drawers for my doll clothes?”

“Mama, I love it when I fart in my underwear.”

“Mama, Georgia has a booger.”

“Mama, you never buy us anything.”

“Mama, how do the police tell the bad guys from the good guys?”

“Mama, how did the Russian Revolution start?” (Yes, Ava actually asked that.)

“Mama, how come Hitler used gas on the Jews when  all the countries signed that agreement after World War I promising never to use gas again during war?” (and that too.)

“Mama, will I ever grow up as tall as daddy? How tall is daddy? Is he taller than an elephant? I want to be taller than an elephant. A crane is taller than an elephant. But what about a giraffe? Is daddy taller than a giraffe? A crane is taller than a giraffe for sure. Pretty much everything isn’t as tall as a crane. Right, mama? Is a crane taller than everything?”

And ON and ON and ON and ON.

And on.

And on.

And on.

Please give me a break. One break. Two minutes of silence.

Holy fuck do they EVER stop talking?

No. They don’t. They are relentless. I don’t think they breathe. They only talk.

When I’m with all three of them, there is always one of them making noise in my direction, needing me. Always.

Whether it’s whining or crying or wailing or squealing or talking…there’s always noise coming at me from the little people.

My husband can sit there and, by all appearances, not hear a single smidgen of it.

I on the other hand hear every single speck of chatter and feel compelled to answer each and every question they pose. [Unless it has to do with farts or poop or underwear. Most of those questions I let go unanswered, realizing the purpose is usually just to say the word “fart” or “poop” or “underwear” – any response being almost wholly irrelevant.]

I do okay at the beginning. But after a few hours…my Lord I’m tired of people talking at me. I’m an extrovert and all, but shit. Everybody’s got a limit.

And then I start giving one word answers and my daughter starts picking up on my impatience and I start feeling guilty so I try again but my heart’s not in it but they don’t stop because they actually physically cannot (by the way, is that some sort of ailment?)…so we just go on like that…forever….it’s all really quite a lovely little picture.

So I turn on music. Loud.

But they talk anyway. OVER THE MUSIC.

Sometimes I pretend I can’t hear them.

But they only TALK LOUDER.

Deep breaths. Mantras. “I am a rock in a stream.”

Yeah right. That shit never works.

I tried telling them once about the Dalia Lama stating that “senseless chatter” was a bad thing, clouding the mind and separating us from our Buddha nature. While it appeared promising at first, that particular strategy backfired miserably when they started accusing me of “doing senseless chatter” almost every time I brought up a subject they didn’t feel like hearing.

Oh well.

I know I’ll miss this in 20 years.

OR WILL I?

The only time I get any peace from the NOISE. Except wait a minute. Ava is not in this picture, which means she was probably with me. Talking. Talking to me. Talking to me endlessly. Shiiiiit.

A few months ago I was in Marshall’s. And while standing at the check-out line, I saw one of the strangest things my eyes have ever beheld.

It wasn’t the near-toothless twitchy check-out lady who appeared REALLY INTO her job.

It wasn’t the baby in the car seat with a bottle of brown liquid (looking oddly like soda), propped up in her mouth, as if her parent’s only mission in life was to encourage her early tooth decay.

It wasn’t even the mother towing three half-naked screaming toddlers while she yelled at her (obviously unfaithful) significant other.

It was… just sitting there…quietly…lurking on the counter…

…wait for it…

Ed Hardy hand sanitizer.

I stared in disbelief.

“Is it SO?”

I looked away. Then back again. (You know, kinda like the way you stare at a car wreck or bar fight –  the weird sick fascination with the terrifying and gruesome?)

“Is it real?”

I looked again. Looked closely.  Squinted a little. Yep. ED HARDY HAND SANITIZER. For sale. At a store, where people go.

AND THERE WERE SOME MISSING, which means, lest my keen deductive reasoning skills deceive me…that people in fact purchase this item. Real humans pay real money for this real item.

Somebody actually says to herself “Well look at this! Ed Hardy hand sanitizer! Cool! I’m going to spend my money on THAT! Now I can sanitize my hands and look like a fucking moron all at once!”

Okay maybe I added that last part.

But let me just say this directly: I think Ed Hardy is hands-down the most idiotic, disturbing, offensive (in its stupidity) brand EVER TO EXIST ON THIS PLANET. Now I know there’s a fatal flaw in that argument, namely because I don’t know every brand that’s ever existed on this planet. But I’m stickin’ with it, because I’m willing to put money on the validity of the assertion that there is nothing more lame than Ed Hardy.

Nothing.

You either feel me on this one or you don’t.

But let’s talk about it for a moment. Let’s talk about why Ed Hardy is horrifying and may actually symbolize the end of all things cool in America – because it’s really not about aesthetics here. While I would never choose Ed Hardy for myself , that’s not my beef with it. I can forgive people for thinking Japanese tattoo images mixed with fake diamonds is cool. I guess. And it’s from L.A.; L.A. is weird. Plus, I walk around looking like a wannabe granola-eater lazy ass, choosing my clothes based on comfort and which items make me look less fat than others, so I’d rather not talk fashion.

And I could be wrong, but I don’t think Ed Hardy was quite as lame when it first came out. For example, they didn’t make hand sanitizer.

My beef with Ed Hardy is that it represents the obscene over-commercialization and sickening materialism in our culture. It is trying so hard to BE COOL that it absolutely misses the boat on coolness. Coolness is authenticity. Uniqueness. Doing your own damn thing.

Ed Hardy represents jumping on the bandwagon (or inkwagon, in this case) because tattooing is now cool.

It’s about the unending ego-driven pursuit of crap because it has a certain label or I think it’s going to say something about me – “I’m cool” or “I’m hip” or “I have money” or “I’m a fucking jackass.”

[I always blow it in the end.]

But my run-in with that hand sanitizer drilled something spectacular and appalling into my brain: apparently with some people, the yearning for labels extends into the realm of hygiene products. Notice they are “travel size”– so they can be put in a purse and pulled out strategically so everybody knows that this girl has COOL HAND SANTIZER. (Okay I actually just laughed out loud writing that. That shit is funny.)

It just seems ridiculous to me.

Have we become such slaves to marketing propaganda that we actually believe it matters what our hand sanitizer looks like?

Oddly, Ed Hardy himself used to be cool, at least on paper. Back in the day, he apprenticed under Sailor Jerry – THE Sailor Jerry – who was this traveling whisky-drinking outcast sailor who made his living tattooing people and singing songs about liberals and how they’re ruining America. Ed Hardy turned down a Yale scholarship to study tattooing. What happened to you, dude? Sell out much?

Whatever. I’d probably do the same damn thing, had I the opportunity.

I mean how the hell else am I going to get my ass to Borneo, where I can sit around criticizing people for their taste in clothing and $3.00 hand-cleansing products?

Anyway, here’s a photo so you know I’m not making this shit up.