Not Your Mom’s Mom

I thought I was hip, I thought I was cool…I mean not compared to Alicia Keys…or Bristol Palin…but in my own mind.  It didn’t occur to me that other people look at me and think, “That one there’s a mom.”  But it turns out they  vehemently do think that. Why?  Because I act exactly like a mom.  I never realize it until I’ve been shamed.  Like I asked the boy’s friend to do an “Up high, down low, too slow” high five maneuver.
He was like, “Bitch, I ain’t 3!”

One day I put on a pair of new jeans and showed me to the boy, “How does this look?” I asked real proud.  He goes, “Put on some Converses and we’ll talk.”  I have Converses!  But they hurt my feet since I ruined my arches.  See?  Only something a mom would say!

I do a comedy podcast about food with my old friend Doug Benson – what’s it called?  Oh, Dining with Doug and Karen and I constantly ask him how come he won’t eat more vegetables?  What do I care? He could snort bath salts all day and I wouldn’t… is that what the kids are doing now…snorting my Mother’s Day presents?

Here’s a list of things I say daily: Did you brush your teeth? Did you flush the toilet? Did you wash your hands?  And here’s a list of things I say to my kids… (somebody get me on Ferguson!)

Dude, is that your mom?

I really do know that I’m a Mother.  I’m well aware.  What happened to me was, I read the comments about Dining with Doug and Karen and they are so nice because of all Doug’s stoner fans, but one baked guy said, “It’s like Doug is talking to someone’s mom.”  And before I could process the second “m” in “mom”, I became light headed and my life flashed before my twitter feed.  Of course, this shouldn’t bother me at all.  I mean, whenever the baby or that behemoth of a boy calls me Karen instead of Mom, I say, “No, fools!  My name’s Mommy!”  But it was as if the stoner said, “It’s like Doug is talking to Karen Anderson’s mom.”  Oh, no. Oh, yes.

Here’s the evolution of me morphing into my mom.   “I mean I’m like…and I was all…dude…seriously…soooo…alrighty…looking forward…I will…I will…let him know…okay Carol…very good then!” It’s for real.

Now that I’ve settled down and the dreams have stopped, I can look at my response to all of this with Oprah-like pragmatism.  Be your O-self, be a mOm, clean yOur rOOm.

Update on Baby and Boy Blog

Well, I figured out how to keep the creeps away.  Easiest thing ever – just don’t say, the words that mean “opposite of a girl” together with “the things attached to your ankles that let you walk” because so so so many weirdos search for it in Google.  I thought I searched for “Easy Enchiladas Recipe” a lot!  But since I’ve taken down the post that had those two unmentionable words, hardly anybody looks at the site – and if they do it’s because they’re looking for something about “The Preamble”.  That’s fine.  I’m glad I could help.  Oh, and “Mexican Corn on the Cob”.  People simply want to know!  But that’s it.  All other phrases and words I have published on the world wide internet are good to go!  You’d think just the word, “Scoot” (which I’ve posted many times) would get some attention.  No.  Nothing. I guess I’m the sicko for thinking it

Just a quick re-cap before I start posting actual stories about a baby and a boy again.  The baby is now 3 and the boy is 12.  I’m still naming it, “Baby and Boy”, even though it’s more like, “Little Boy and Boy”. The baby’s interests range from saying, “I do it myself!” to interpretive dance to peeing in the garden.  The boy’s interests are a little more mature; texting, hanging out with his friends and peeing in the garden.  Also they love poker. 

It’s all very exciting.   Oh, oh.  I better keep a look out for people that google, “peeing in the garden”.  What’s happened to our world?

This is why I don’t blog anymore

I have 17,000 hits on my blog, BabyandBoy. Do you want to know why? It’s not because I post all the time. I don’t – and when I do I only share with friends. Then why so many for no reason?  One time I wrote about how big my son’s feet were getting.  And if you look at my search stats below – all of the hits have come from idiots searching for “boys sweet feet” in google.  I can’t stop it.  Does anybody know how to stop this?  The internet is fun.

Scoot Boy, Scoot.

The boy left for his first trip without me or my husband. He’s 11 and we said, “Go for it! Get out! Find yourself!” Our only condition…take Grandma and Grandpa with you.  So they all went to my in-law’s house in Kansas City.  They arrived to 110 degree  heat with 100 percent humidity.   So he should have fun playing with ice in their basement for a week.  A lot of people remember their first time away from home as sort of a coming of age experience.  He will remember his as an incredibly sticky experience.  I know what you’re saying…”Same thing.”
So far, from what my mother-in-law told me, his itinerary is as follows:   Rest of Today: Play in the cool basement with the wrestlers he brought and watch wrestling.   Tomorrow:  Never go outside so he stays alive.  Friday:  Pack up the truck, crank up the air and head to Lincoln, Nebraska for a (get ready for it) scooter rally!
How hot is Lincoln this week?  89 degrees with 100 percent scootidity. Yes, my in-laws are Scooter enthusiasts.  They even subscribe to Scoot Magazine, the best bathroom reading material since The Costco Connection.  At first I thought Scoot was a publication about pets who have trouble cleaning themselves.  Thank the good lord I was wrong!
I wondered what the boy would do at a scooter rally when he’s not old enough to scoot.  Then my mother-in-law said they would take turns scooting and while one of them was off on a scooter ride the other one would do fun stuff with the boy that didn’t include scooting.  (I apologize – that was a blatant attempt to say “scoot” as many times possible in a sentence) She also mentioned that this scooter rally wouldn’t be as rowdy as the last one they went to.   Well, that’s good.  I’d hate for the boy to come back with a neck tattoo and a stripper he’d won in a fight.  “Hi Mom, this my old lady, Horchata.  If you need us, we’re scooting over to the arcade to play Dance,Dance Revolution.”  This may still happen.  Anything is possible when you scoot!
Update:  Because of the constant look on the boy’s face (“Not fair!  I wanna scoot, too!”) they  bought him his own helmet and now he’s in the gang.  He called to say he’d like to take off the 6th grade and scoot his way down to Mexico.   Slow down, Wild Hog.  Check out these badasses:

What’s in the box?  Nunchucks? Knives?  A picnic?  I imagine someday this photo will end up in a slide show the night before he and Horchata get matching ring tattoos and say, “I do, Dude.”  Then through my tear soaked eyes I’ll watch them scoot off with a string of Coors Light cans clanging in their dust .   This just might be his coming of age trip after all.

Baby Don’t Know

This is a scene from my upcoming film, “Baby Don’t Know” (working title).

I will destroy you.

In this exchange, baby keeps hitting his mother who has done absolutely nothing to deserve such malicious behavior.  We suspend our belief, as somehow, miraculously, not only can this baby throw a perfect punch, he can speak!  The problem is, he can not understand the English language as we know it.

INT. -  KITCHEN – DUSK

MOTHER
(bending down towards baby) I want a kiss!

The baby swats his mother on her head.

MOTHER
No! No! No hitting.  Nice.  Nice. (she strokes his cheek) Nice.

BABY
(hitting her in the mouth)  You mean like this?

MOTHER
No!  No hitting!  That hurts.

BABY
So don’t do this? (he hits her on the ear) Or do do this?

MOTHER
Ow!  What are you doing?  Stop hitting!  You are in time out!

The Mother holds the baby’s arm down, so he can’t hit her and picks him up to put him in
the dreaded “time out” spot.  He hauls off and sucker punches her with his other loose hand.

BABY
Like that?  Is that nicer?  (he pulls her hair) Better or worse?
(squeezes her nose) Yes? That’s nice?

MOTHER
(finally sitting him down) My god, what are you doing?  No hitting!
Do you understand?

The baby flails about in his time out spot, kicks the Mother’s shins as she escapes
with minor injuries.

We hear off camera…

BABY
(in between fake cries)  Mama, mama!  Nice!  Nice!

The Mother waits the allotted 3 to 5 time out minutes and returns cautiously.
The baby extends his adorable arms to her.  She picks him up and he
lovingly hugs her.

MOMMY
Nice baby.

We see the baby look towards the camera, wink and then mime looking
at an invisible watch on his arm while he says,

BABY
I will remember this for exactly 45 minutes and then I bash your
lips into your teeth with a sippy cup.

Cut to:  Ticking of kitchen clock.  We hear Eminem’s, “Love the Way You Lie” (featuring, Rihanna)

EXCLUSIVE EXTRA :  Video starring The Baby:

Catch

The baby is an athlete.  Many, many, many times, when people meet him they say, “Finally.  Finally, you have a football player in the family.”  As if that is the one thing we have been praying for.  “Dear God, before we die, may we see at least one member of our family become a football player?  Please!  Let this happen in our lifetime!  Even if he’s just good at that paper-finger-football…anything would let us rest in peace.”

Finally!

Now, the boy is a really good dancer, but nobody ever says, “Finally.  Finally, you have a pop and locker in the family.  Finally!”

They’re right, though.  This baby is a natural.  He was born with the swing of Will Clark, the speed of Jerry Rice and the throwing arm of a ridiculously, huge baby.

"Head's up!"

His motto is, “If it fits in my hand, it’s for throwing at you”.  I have been hit in the face, head and chest with grapes, spoons, shoes, phones, the iPad and things he grabs out of my very own hands and then throws  against me.  How do I not learn?  Why don’t I carry around Ninja Throwing Stars…”Here baby, let me let you, let you have these so you can sever my carotid artery Bruce Lee style?”  On the plus side, he’s incredibly accurate and will someday win us gigantic stuffed animals at the world’s finest carnivals.

Do we punish him?  Give him the ol’ what for?  Yes.  As a matter of fact, we discipline him severely…with “time-outs”.   Precious time taken out from the baby’s life.

“Next, I throw the dog!”

It doesn’t work, though.  He still throws stuff.  Although, he does sit there until we tell him he can get up, which I think is really impressive for a 23 month old person.  And during the time-outs, he has nothing to throw, so we’re safe for those 3 to 5 minutes.  Lucky for us, we decided not to put his time-out spot next to a bucket of golf balls.  Good move, us!

Sure, right now it’s tough.  We have to weather the storm of being hit in the eyes.  But when that big baby gets to Pop Warner football age – we’ll just sit on those nice, new reclining folding chairs that I saw at Costco – and wait for the offers to come rolling in. “Sorry, he signed a two year contract with  the, “Martindale’s Fish Market” team and we get half off on Grouper.  So……”

Brian Wilson Was In Our Kitchen

How to Make an Authentic Brian Wilson Beard
1.  Get any piece of white paper.
2.  Quickly draw the shape of what you think a beard looks like.
3.  Cut out beard.
4.  Get out a nice big, black Sharpie…go to town coloring in the beard.
5.  Cut out a mouth.
6.  Now, the tricky part…use the rest of your paper to make a thin strap long enough to fit around your head.
7.  Tape the strap to one side of the beard, put the beard on your boy’s face and have me tape the other side of the strap to the other side of the beard.
8.  Wait patiently for Dad to get home and see that Brian Wilson is in our kitchen.
9.  Enjoy watching Dad meet Brian Wilson.

(Giants jersey and hat optional…but highly recommended)