Tag Archives: parenting

What Do You Mean, There is No Easter Bunny?


I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.

The real Easter Bunny

This guy, is totally real

























Filed under Partying with the Ponies

New Year’s Resolutions I Can Keep

New Year’s Resolutions I Can Keep | Ponies and Martinis

I resolve to be more beach-friendly this year.












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Volunteer They Said. It Would be Fun, They Said.



I think I ate the whole cake.
















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Defending the “Bad Mother”

I recently read an article on Salon.com attacking “Slacker Moms” and, frankly, it really toasted my buns because the author ripped all of the imperfect parents apart without really understanding what it means to be a “bad mother.”

I won’t describe the article in detail, but suffice it to say, it got me thinking about this cadre of women that I have recently joined. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been failing at motherhood for seven years, but I just started talking about it in January.

For centuries there has been a portrait of perfect motherhood. It shifts decade by decade, but it’s there and has been weighing on women the way the world rests on Atlas’ shoulders.

Mean Girls

Curse you, Regina George!

In the recent past, the perfect mother had a spotless home, happy husband, polite children and a pineapple pot roast on the table every night. When they joined the workforce en-masse, they were expected to have all of the above as well as a level of committment to the work that rivaled their male counterparts. It doesn’t help that there are Mean Girls who try to rip other women to shreds.

It’s no wonder that there was a backlash against trying to be perfect, and the subsequent rise of the self-deprecating parent. This is the woman who is helping one kid put cottonball sheep into a diorama due the next day, helping another with math they themselves forgot how to do 20 years ago, while making dinner, and tripping over the family dog, who is trying to snap up any food scraps that fall to the floor.

Cake Pop

My attempt at Hello Kitty cake pops. It was all downhill from here.

She is not exactly the “perfect” mom who breezes through homework, surfs Pinterest for convoluted pinecone crafts, and bakes cakes with an entire Minecraft landscape on top. Damn, I wish I could be that woman, but only for birthday parties. It’s too tiring on a daily basis.

But never for one minute do any of these imperfect parents ever claim to not love their children. Their kids may bring them to their knees in agonizing desperation, but those children are always loved. These moms (and, yes, dads too) are up late after their kids go to bed, making lunches, putting artwork created that day on the fridge, surfing the web to find replacements for kitty costumes that were outgrown years ago*, and, overall, worrying about how to not screw up these tiny humans who, for whatever reason, have not been completely traumatized by inept attempts at parenting.

(*Seriously, she’s 5. How can she fit into a size 24-month costume? And if anyone knows where to find the Carter’s pink kitty costume in a 6x, let me know. I’m pretty sure my daughter’s butt is eating the tail on the thing.)

Yes, these bad moms vent, but they are not intimidating monsters reveling in the fact they tossed their kids a snowball and Mountain Dew for dinner and called it a day. It’s about chronicling this surreal journey and knowing that we are not alone.

I know that I am not the only woman who will flip out in the middle of Target and leave a full cart in the middle of the aisle because my kids are pitching a fit about the DS game or Frozen doll I won’t buy.

I am not the only woman who whips up carrots and dill as a side dish, just to be asked, “Why are the carrots moldy? I am NOT eating moldy carrots.”

I am also not the only woman who wakes up most weekends to my 5-year-old crawling into bed for a snuggle, or who spends an extra 15 minutes telling stories to my 7- year-old starring his stuffed lambs.

There are great joys and great pain in parenthood. I am not superior to anyone, nor have I been made to feel like I wasn’t “bad enough” to call myself a terrible mother. And, frankly, if anyone does degrade another human being (let alone another parent), then they are just bad people, not bad mothers. So, let’s let everyone parent go their own way, and I’ll go back to  trying to make cookies with my daughter, using her Easy Bake Oven and choking down the disgusting results. Agreed?

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Filed under Martini Madness

Did I Really Just Say That?

There was so much that I did not expect when I became a parent; the mind-numbing exhaustion, wearing my child’s blowouts, and the things I would end up saying to my offspring. There is great joy in the stereotypical, “Because I said so,” or, “You get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit,” but then there are these choice nuggets:

  1. No, I will not wipe your butt. You’re 7. Which probably leads to…
  2. Please don’t wipe your poop on the wall. I mean, seriously. How messy can they get when wiping up? And how, after using a half a roll of toilet paper, do they still manage to get it all over their hands? And why do they think their poop hands should touch the wall? There is so much I just don’t understand.
  3. I don’t care how nicely you ask, you cannot have a Ring Pop for breakfast. My kids somehow think that if they put “please” in their request that I will acquiesce. Then, they are sent into hysterics when it doesn’t work. “But, you said to ask nicely! I did ask nicely! YOU LIED! I’m never going to ask nicely again. I’m going to eat this Ring Pop anyway! As soon as I can get it open!” Tears, rolling around on the floor, and leg kicks ensue.
  4. Why is there a used pull-up in the middle of your room? My daughter still uses a pull-up at night, because she has a bladder the size of, well, a small child’s bladder. I don’t care about pull-up use, as long as it doesn’t extend into the teen years, but what I do mind is going into her room after a long day and finding a sodden pull-up or two in the middle of her floor. Why doesn’t she throw it out? Does she like the smell of rotting urine in her room? Is it like fresh napalm for her? I mean, I don’t leave my feminine products lying about after I’m done with them. Because that would be DISGUSTING. I might lose my mind if, as a teen, she does the same thing with pads that she does with her pull-ups. I might even get nostalgic for the days when it was just a pull-up I found.
  5. Yeah, well, you smell like rat-patooties. I am ashamed to admit this, but I have been known to sink to my kids’ level when I am at the end of my rope. I would love to be the perfect parent who always takes the high road and is so awesomesauce that they never even get into a fight with their child because they and their child are so well behaved, fighting is not in their lexicon. Since our family is on the opposite spectrum, I end up saying things like “rat-patooties” and, “no… you are!” We’re all 5 in this house.
  6. You have lost TV in the morning, TV in the car, and when you get out of school. This is something that sticks out, not for the words themselves, but because I said them while trying unsuccessfully to get my daughter to bed. I start by offering her rewards to stay in bed, like watching Sheriff Callie in the morning or snuggling when she wakes up. Then, after about the third time, the punishments get doled out. I try not to take too much away at one time because I’ll run out of bargaining chips pretty quickly. There are nights when I do run out and have to make things up, like, “Your grandparents won’t pick you up from school now.” They weren’t planning on it, but dammit, I don’t know what else to say. It’s either that or, “Go the f to sleep!” in my best Samuel L. Jackson voice. I like to think I made the right choice in that situation.
  7. Who pooped in the hall and ate it? Oh, wait. That’s something I say to the dogs. Nevermind.

While I’m glad I haven’t had to resort to the violent, old-school chestnuts such as, “I’ll give you something to cry about” or, “If I have to come up there….” I still wonder on a daily basis, what the hell am I saying? Is this normal? Am I raising some seriously screwed up kids? I guess as long as I don’t have to ask the kids if they ate their own poop, things can’t be too bad, right?


Filed under Partying with the Ponies

Accepting My Son and Every Other Brony in the World

I found myself in tears tonight, reading the story of 11-year-old Michael Morones, a young boy who was bullied into a suicide attempt, just because he loved My Little Pony. It wasn’t just his story that gnawed at my heart, but I couldn’t help but think of my own sweet son who also likes “girl things” like My Little Pony.

When I was a kid, I LOVED My Little Pony. I had the toys, watched the cartoon and wished beyond all hope that I would wake up a pony. Preferably a flutter pony. So, when I discovered My Little Pony had been brought back for a new generation of impressionable kidlets, I was excited. I could share my childhood joy with them. This desire to share my youth with my kids also extends to playing Bon Jovi in the car, explaining jelly bracelets and making them play Mouse Trap.

We started watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and the kids loved it! It entered heavy rotation in our house, alongside Doc McStuffins and Octonauts. Of course, when the cartoon love consumes a child, the toys, books and DVDs are not far behind. Now, can I admit something? I bought the DVDs thinking the kids would share them, and the stuffed animals for my daughter because she is a hoarder of plush. There are pony toys that are sold as “blind bags” or, as the kids and I called them, “mystery ponies.” You never know what kind of pony you are going to get. It could me one of the main 6, or it could be someone you’ve never heard of. Hence, the mystery. Initially, my daughter wanted them, but then my son wanted to start his pony collection. I paused. I wondered if I should encourage something that was “for girls.” I am ashamed to think of this now. Eventually, I mentally slapped myself and realized that it doesn’t matter what he likes as long as it isn’t hurting him or anyone else. So, I bought him the mystery ponies. I felt up so many bags to determine if they were pegasi, unicorns or earth ponies, that I felt like a predator.

I didn’t mind, but eventually, there came a point where my son minded. You know, as much as I had “pause” over his pony love, I had great sadness when he decided to give his ponies to his sister. There was one pony in particular, Princess Celestia, that he was ECSTATIC to receive. It was my touchpoint. My affirmation that I was doing the right thing. And he gave it away. His friends in school did not watch ponies. They did not get excited over Princess Celestia. Once, his sister was in the car when he was dropped off and she was watching some asinine Barbie movie. He made my husband turn the movie off because he didn’t want anyone to think HE was watching it.

And this is at the heart of why I was devastated by Michael Morones’ story. There are kids who feel they cannot be themselves because of how other children will treat them. I know it is not a new concept; I have horrible recollections of being teased for my frizzy perm and glasses. But, this is MY baby. He is my first born. Sensitive, smart and, yes, living with ADHD. I don’t know if that makes him somehow more sensitive to the world around him, or if it is just a part of his personality, like the way he enjoys My Little Pony.

When I first learned of bronies, or guys who liked My Little Pony, I thought they were weird. I mean, who likes Twilight Sparkle when they are “old enough to know better?” Admittedly, this was the same time my kids were learning the joys of Twilight and her pals. But, somehow, my kids were “different.” Then, I researched the brony movement, watched the documentary and made a few conclusions.

They are my son, at different ages. There are probably a few fruit loops in the group. Every group has one, just like every family has the one relative who spews crazy at the holidays. But, overall, they are just guys who happen to love the message these ponies serve up; friendship, kindness and honesty. What more can a mother hope for from her kids?

So, here I am. If I can support my son, then I will declare myself a Pegasister and wave my Twilight Sparkle flag high. All hail the ponies of Equestria. I shall also offer up a prayer for the family of Michael Morones. Please, dear Lord, let this boy recover and may our world become a little more accepting of the people in it.


Filed under Partying with the Ponies