Super Mom
It’s been 10 years since I’ve become a mommy and I have noticed a distinct decrease in my mental clarity. I do draw some comfort in knowing that I am not the only mom afflicted with this problem. My memory is shot, I can’t concentrate, and I have trouble helping my daughter with her 4th grade math. Well, to be fair, even back when I was in 4th grade, math and I were not on speaking terms.
When the Obstetrician delivered my first baby, I swear she reached in and plucked out part of my brain. Being a mother herself, she knew that I wouldn’t be using it.
Maybe it is really a blessing in disguise, otherwise I might be cognizant of how mundane my life has become. With out all that pesky brain power, I can now happily go about my day, changing diapers, picking up toys, and heating up chicken nuggets.
But do not fret mommies, all is not lost. We have been compensated for the lack of brain cells by being granted superpowers.
The most powerful of all our gifts is a super multi-tasking ability. Who else on this planet is able to juggle helping the kids with homework while making dinner, answering the phone, and changing diapers? I remember one evening in particular when I was helping my 9 year old with fractions(AHHHH!!), making dinner, feeding the dog, all while answering a potential client’s questions about the health benefits of massage therapy. From upstairs, my 4 year old yelled, “Mommy, I POOOOPED! Can you come wipe my bum?”
Needless to say, that person did not book a massage appointment.
Moms are also given super sonic hearing. We can hear a toddler opening the cookie jar from 4 rooms away. We can tell the difference between the cry of a child who is looking for attention and an outraged yell from another child because his sister threw his Power Ranger into the toilet. Like the Bionic Woman, I have that cool’ boopity boopity’ sound effect when using my extra sensory hearing (think Jamie Summers tucking her hair behind her ear, as she listens intently for the sound of Steve Austin unzipping his pants).
Fortunately, we have the ability to turn off our hearing powers at will and can tune out chaotic noise. For example, the dog can be barking and the TV is blaring, one child is singing loudly, while the other two are screaming at each other. I can ignore all this racket and continue to read my book. However, when I look over at my husband, he has his hands clamped over his ears and his eyes are rolled back into his head.
Sorry Dads, the only super power, and I use that term loosely, that a father possesses, is learning how to change a diaper. Of course, it takes a dad about 10 minutes to a mom’s 10 seconds, and he usually wanders off in search of the diaper cream he has forgotten. In that time, your baby boy has peed all over your curtains, which is not his fault because that’s what happens to boys when cold air hits their wee wees. It’s okay, because by the time they are adults, 8 out of 10 men outgrow that particular problem.
The most impressive of all our super powers though, is our built-in tracking device. We can locate any lost object in our homes.
“Mom, have you seen my sneakers?”
“Look in the shoe hamper.”
“Mommy, where is my Power Ranger?”
“It’s still in the toilet where your sister put it.”
“Honey, where did you put my keys?”
“On the dining room table where you left them.” And will be hurled at your head if you lose them again!
Often we are asked to locate these lost objects 2 seconds before we are walking out the door, which can make my eyeballs roll back in my head. One thing I do know is that the moment their belongings are dropped on the floor, they become invisible to my family. I, with my ex-ray vision, apparently am the only one capable of seeing these ‘lost’ items, therefore the only one to be able to clean them up.
Whenever we made a mess growing up, my mother said we had dropsy. In reality, dropsy is a dreadful disease which causes your arms and legs to swell up to elephantine proportions. I guess when your limbs are swollen like sausages, it’s impossible to pick up your toys.
The most unsavory of all our special abilities is the ultra cleaning power of mom saliva. You know the old spit on a tissue and clean off the kids face bit? I swore that I wouldn’t do that to my kids, but if I have to choose between a dirty face and the disapproving looks from Grandma, saliva wins. And besides, Mom spit is proven to have better cleaning capabilities than the most stringent household cleaner. Also, it’s only gross to our kids, which hopefully proves to be an incentive for them to stay clean.
As moms, our greatest super power of all is to somehow still love our family when they make our living room look as if a tornado has hit. Or the super human strength it takes to refrain from throttling your child when they yell out a curse word the moment a client calls. The fact that we are not quite as sharp as we used to be, is a small price to pay for the joy of having children in our life. The special powers are cool, too.
Jamie Summers has nothing on us moms!
copywrite 2010 cwaldman
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
THAT PART!!!
THAT PART!!!!
Why do we scold children when they say or do something inappropriate? Young kids don’t know yet that shaking their butts could be seen as something improper because they are too innocent to understand the dynamics of adult naughtiness. The reason that they repeat the unsuitable behavior is because someone laughed the first time they did it.
To avoid some of this silliness, professionals state that it’s important to teach children the proper names for their…pee pees. As a mother of 3, I completely disagree. I’ll give you an example of why using the clinical terms for private parts may not be in your best interest.
When my daughter was around 2 years old, she followed me into the bathroom (once you have kids, you will never pee alone again). She pointed to my nether regions in horror and yelled, “THAT PART!!” I didn’t correct her with the clinical term and a few days later I was very happy about that decision. We were in the public library’s bathroom, and she took one look at my hoochie and screamed at the top of her lungs,”THAT PART, THAT PART!!!” Yes it was embarrassing and I could hear the librarian’s shhhs through the bathroom door, but could you imagine if she had yelled “VAGINA!!” at the top of her lungs? The librarians there are like book Nazis as it is. Just imagine the flogging I would receive if my child loudly screamed out the names of unseemly body parts into the hallowed silence. Also, I for one would hate to disturb all the special folks of Phoenixville that use the library computers to cruise porn sites.
I’ve noticed that every family seems to have their own euphemisms for private parts. In our family, we just call them pee pee’s, with no gender distinction. A ‘unit’ is what they call the family jewels in my friend’s household. This caused some confusion for her kids when “The Unit” aired for the first time on TV, and apparently when they work on a new math unit in school, a lot of snickering goes on behind the teacher’s back.
It has never concerned me too much whenever kids make fart jokes or are talking about body parts. I do stop them when they get too rude, but I know it’s normal for them to think it’s funny. What’s even more normal is when small children start to be aware of their bodies, and in the case of my 4 year old son, very aware of the female body.
When Donny was about 18 months old, my sister was visiting from out of town and slept in our spare bed, which is in Donny’s room. He was still in his crib and woke up one morning and spied his aunt wearing a tank top and shorts for pajamas. Let’s just say that what nature gave me a small portion of, my sister got in abundance. Donny took one look at her and said. “OHHHH, boobies!”
His dad was very proud.
From then on, he has loved the busty ladies. When I told Donny that our friend, who is divinely boobiliscous, was going to be coming over, he said, “I’m gonna hug her allllll over!” And recently at a holiday party, my cousins were standing in a circle talking, when the Donster decided he would spread some love around. With a big smile on his face, he went around the circle, giving my voluptuous cousins many, many hugs. His face came up to where every man wished that his did. The cousins thought it was hysterical, while all the men in the room looked on, mumbling something that sounded like, “lucky little bastard”. Then Donny announced, “I’m done,” cutting the ladies off from his lovin’. I thought, my God, he has already learned the trick to being irresistible; leave them wanting more.
Once again, he made his dad proud.
At some point, kids understand enough to know why bad words and showing of naughty bits is inappropriate, at which time the bad behavior is increased a gazillion percent. The other day, my son’s 5 1\2 year old friend was over for a play date, when in typical gross boy fashion he said, “Let’s pretends we’re penises!” Donny carefully considered this for a moment and replied, “I don’t got a penis suit.” Which is a good thing, since owning a penis suit would be really disturbing and most likely cause Child Protective Services to come knocking at my door.
My daughters have a different type of disconcerting conduct. It usually revolves around the fact that girls seem to be aware of their bodies from a much earlier age. If you’ve seen girls dance, you know what I’m talking about. They shake their bottoms from the moment they can stand up with out falling over. I think it has something to do with having a lower center of gravity. My husband is scared that they are practicing for a future career in pole dancing.
This propensity to shaking their tushies, of course has Grandmom apoplectic. It is a sin, close to that of a grandchild being jailed for grand theft auto. I guess it is a grandmother thing, because I remember my Memom giving my sister and I lessons on walking properly, as only a good Irish Catholic could. She would have us practice walking by holding in our stomachs and tucking in our butts in a hyena-like fashion. I found that it was impossible to shake my butt while sucking in my 7 year old gut.
I, however, take full responsibility for any inappropriate behavior and all butt jokes that my kids take part in, mostly because I am the one who taught them those jokes. The reason for this is that I have a serious addiction to the sound of my children’s laugher. It is simply the best sound on the planet, and I realized that a surefire way to get a kid to crack up is to say something funny about a bum.
Even though I am a responsible adult, I still think butt jokes are hilarious. I blame it all on my parents, since I got my warped sense of humor from them.
While growing up, we were introduced to a myriad of their interesting, funny friends. I distinctly remember one of their friends singing a very off color song about our neighbor’s dog. The title of the song was, ‘Tanus sat on her anus’. This is how I learned the word anus, and my mother is really lucky that I never shouted it out in public. It was all quite respectable since the song was written by their Lebanese friend who was an Anesthesiologist with NASA. He was also married to a famous Spanish opera singer.
I am not kidding. Even as a child I understood how much funnier the song was because an esteemed Doctor was singing it.
So you can see why a little butt shaking and enthusiasm over big ta tas doesn’t unsettle me too much.
And if I’m completely wrong not to be concerned, it’s okay because it does have its practical side. Many a young lady has pole danced her way through college.
copywrite 2010 cwaldman
Why do we scold children when they say or do something inappropriate? Young kids don’t know yet that shaking their butts could be seen as something improper because they are too innocent to understand the dynamics of adult naughtiness. The reason that they repeat the unsuitable behavior is because someone laughed the first time they did it.
To avoid some of this silliness, professionals state that it’s important to teach children the proper names for their…pee pees. As a mother of 3, I completely disagree. I’ll give you an example of why using the clinical terms for private parts may not be in your best interest.
When my daughter was around 2 years old, she followed me into the bathroom (once you have kids, you will never pee alone again). She pointed to my nether regions in horror and yelled, “THAT PART!!” I didn’t correct her with the clinical term and a few days later I was very happy about that decision. We were in the public library’s bathroom, and she took one look at my hoochie and screamed at the top of her lungs,”THAT PART, THAT PART!!!” Yes it was embarrassing and I could hear the librarian’s shhhs through the bathroom door, but could you imagine if she had yelled “VAGINA!!” at the top of her lungs? The librarians there are like book Nazis as it is. Just imagine the flogging I would receive if my child loudly screamed out the names of unseemly body parts into the hallowed silence. Also, I for one would hate to disturb all the special folks of Phoenixville that use the library computers to cruise porn sites.
I’ve noticed that every family seems to have their own euphemisms for private parts. In our family, we just call them pee pee’s, with no gender distinction. A ‘unit’ is what they call the family jewels in my friend’s household. This caused some confusion for her kids when “The Unit” aired for the first time on TV, and apparently when they work on a new math unit in school, a lot of snickering goes on behind the teacher’s back.
It has never concerned me too much whenever kids make fart jokes or are talking about body parts. I do stop them when they get too rude, but I know it’s normal for them to think it’s funny. What’s even more normal is when small children start to be aware of their bodies, and in the case of my 4 year old son, very aware of the female body.
When Donny was about 18 months old, my sister was visiting from out of town and slept in our spare bed, which is in Donny’s room. He was still in his crib and woke up one morning and spied his aunt wearing a tank top and shorts for pajamas. Let’s just say that what nature gave me a small portion of, my sister got in abundance. Donny took one look at her and said. “OHHHH, boobies!”
His dad was very proud.
From then on, he has loved the busty ladies. When I told Donny that our friend, who is divinely boobiliscous, was going to be coming over, he said, “I’m gonna hug her allllll over!” And recently at a holiday party, my cousins were standing in a circle talking, when the Donster decided he would spread some love around. With a big smile on his face, he went around the circle, giving my voluptuous cousins many, many hugs. His face came up to where every man wished that his did. The cousins thought it was hysterical, while all the men in the room looked on, mumbling something that sounded like, “lucky little bastard”. Then Donny announced, “I’m done,” cutting the ladies off from his lovin’. I thought, my God, he has already learned the trick to being irresistible; leave them wanting more.
Once again, he made his dad proud.
At some point, kids understand enough to know why bad words and showing of naughty bits is inappropriate, at which time the bad behavior is increased a gazillion percent. The other day, my son’s 5 1\2 year old friend was over for a play date, when in typical gross boy fashion he said, “Let’s pretends we’re penises!” Donny carefully considered this for a moment and replied, “I don’t got a penis suit.” Which is a good thing, since owning a penis suit would be really disturbing and most likely cause Child Protective Services to come knocking at my door.
My daughters have a different type of disconcerting conduct. It usually revolves around the fact that girls seem to be aware of their bodies from a much earlier age. If you’ve seen girls dance, you know what I’m talking about. They shake their bottoms from the moment they can stand up with out falling over. I think it has something to do with having a lower center of gravity. My husband is scared that they are practicing for a future career in pole dancing.
This propensity to shaking their tushies, of course has Grandmom apoplectic. It is a sin, close to that of a grandchild being jailed for grand theft auto. I guess it is a grandmother thing, because I remember my Memom giving my sister and I lessons on walking properly, as only a good Irish Catholic could. She would have us practice walking by holding in our stomachs and tucking in our butts in a hyena-like fashion. I found that it was impossible to shake my butt while sucking in my 7 year old gut.
I, however, take full responsibility for any inappropriate behavior and all butt jokes that my kids take part in, mostly because I am the one who taught them those jokes. The reason for this is that I have a serious addiction to the sound of my children’s laugher. It is simply the best sound on the planet, and I realized that a surefire way to get a kid to crack up is to say something funny about a bum.
Even though I am a responsible adult, I still think butt jokes are hilarious. I blame it all on my parents, since I got my warped sense of humor from them.
While growing up, we were introduced to a myriad of their interesting, funny friends. I distinctly remember one of their friends singing a very off color song about our neighbor’s dog. The title of the song was, ‘Tanus sat on her anus’. This is how I learned the word anus, and my mother is really lucky that I never shouted it out in public. It was all quite respectable since the song was written by their Lebanese friend who was an Anesthesiologist with NASA. He was also married to a famous Spanish opera singer.
I am not kidding. Even as a child I understood how much funnier the song was because an esteemed Doctor was singing it.
So you can see why a little butt shaking and enthusiasm over big ta tas doesn’t unsettle me too much.
And if I’m completely wrong not to be concerned, it’s okay because it does have its practical side. Many a young lady has pole danced her way through college.
copywrite 2010 cwaldman
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