I've Been Shopping at One Step Ahead Again

There is sort of an unwritten hierarchy of assumed parental intelligence:

No Kids = Don't even open your mouth if you are about to spew any words related to kids or parenting. You are a parenting moron. Shooooosh!

One Kid Parent = You have no idea what you are doing and everybody knows it. Feel free to have an opinion, though, because everybody with more kids than you likes laughing at your stupidity.

Two Kid Parent = You've got a clue. No one will doubt you just so long as you manage to take a shower at least once per week. You doubt yourself on occasion, but mostly you think you've got it together.

Three Kid Parent = You're pretty darn good at that parenting thing. Parents with fewer kids marvel at your ability to do simple things like managing to brush your teeth more than once per month. You're pretty darn impressed with yourself, too.

Four Kid Parent = You're beginning to think you're a parenting idiot, but others perceive you as very wise.

Five Kid Parent = A precarious number. If you give the impression that you still have some control, despite being vastly outnumbered, people will still think you are very wise. You know for a fact those who think you are wise are very much so wrong. That knowledge is exactly why you truly are wise. If you come across like your kids are the ones running the show, you are demoted to Two Kid level. You've got a clue, obviously, since everybody is still alive, but there is some doubt as to whether you get the parenting thing all that well.

Six kids or more = Your status is reduced to less than that of a One Kid Parent. If you don't believe me, ponder your thoughts on the Duggar clan. You know you think anybody that has 17 kids is more than a few French fries short of a Happy Meal. You are right.

Despite my status as a member of the lowly One Kid Parent Club, I do know one thing: Kids make messes. I know! Isn't it amazing how I figured that out so soon? See, I'm totally feeling superior for this knowledge because it turns out that not everyone knows it. Allow me to prove me point, please and thank you.

This little invention might just do a good job of keeping little hands from getting sticky while eating popsicles, but isn't that sort of the point of popsicles? And I hate to break it to all the One Kidders that haven't figured it out yet, but that kind of thing may slow the mess parade, but it will not stop it. Wait until the popsicle melts completely then the kid tips all the juice all over your nice white carpet. Oh yes, it will happen.

If it really bothers you that your kid sometimes misses his or her mouth or scoops some peas and carrots onto the table, you might want to consider therapy. Spending $7 on a bowl that might slow food spillage makes you certifiably insane.

Let's see, I could strip my kid down to the diaper and throw her in the bath after she pours spaghetti all over herself, or I could spend $13 on something that I can just throw in the washer. Sounds good, except for the fact that the hands and head are still exposed. And you know what? Whatever square inch is left exposed? That is where the kid will slop the mess.

Apparently it is impossible to spill the contents of this bowl. You can flip it, spin it, throw it, do whatever, it won't spill.

The catch? It's only for use with dry foods. You know, Cheerios and little crackers and the like. You know, the stuff that is super easy to clean up anyway. Whatever.

This thing is an accident waiting to happen:

That spoon has a chamber that will hold the entire contents of one jar of baby food. All you have to do is squeeze it a little bit and the spoon fills with one little bite of food. The problem? Babies have hands. I know this is shocking. Babies like to use those hands. In fact, most of them like to use those hands to swat at anything within ten feet of their little bodies. I'm sure there will be no mess whatsoever when the kid sends the thing flying across the room.

You know what's worse than a kid that insists on throwing their spoon across the room? Giving that same kid a weapon of mass destruction.

You just know that spoon can be used to catapult food thirty plus feet. I kind of want it for myself.

At first, I was thinking this next thing seemed kind of useful. We are in the midst of the torture that is potty training and it sure would be nice to not have to tear apart the car seat when there's an accident in the car.

However, the product reviews made me expand my thinking real quick. I think we should have bought one a long time ago because of this little line, "I am purchasing two for my stepson and his wife to use in a cross-country trip with their 16-month old." How awesome would that be--drive cross-country and never once stop to change a diaper. The PiddlePad will take care of everything!

Give a baby a pacifier and he or she will spit it out. On occasion, the pacifier might just land on the floor. Some parents would find a sink or water fountain and rinse it off. Others would stick it in their own mouth to clean it off before giving it back to the baby. Those like me would figure the kid was the one that spit it onto the floor, the kid can be the one to savor the taste of cat hair and month-old dog poop that collected on the pacifier tip. Or, you can be all nutso and spend a bunch of money on a little contraption specially designed to clean up paci messes.

This one is simply a case of a marketing executive not thinking clearly. A big old mat would be useful for a carpeted floor, but tile? Really? How is putting a big sheet of plastic down on a tile floor saving me any work?

For the low, low price of $12, you can buy a package of three glorified tablecloths that will keep your kid from coloring on your table.

Or you could just grab some newspaper out of the recycling bin.

While you're simplifying things, save yourself $6 and grab a knife out of the drawer, mmkay?

I know changing wet sheets in the middle of the night is the second suckiest thing you can do (changing vomit-covered sheets wins the crown), but I hope that anyone who resorts to putting an $80 electrical device down their kids underwear has exhausted all other options first.

Personally, I'd rather change the sheets. Like I said, kids make messes.

The Hawtness and Me

OK, so I don't hate it.

The One in Which I Tell You I Am Fat and Ugly . . .

. . . or at least I am when I'm in the same room as WTAE reporter Ashley Diparlo, heretoforth to be known as The Hawtness. Because she is.

And, let me back up a minute.

About a week ago, I received a suspicious looking email. It appeared to be some sort of prank claiming to want to interview me about this here blog for the local ABC affiliate, WTAE. I carefully considered the likely culprits of such a prank but quickly discovered that the IP address led credence to the fact that The Hawtness had emailed me.

And COMMENCE FREAKOUT.

Yeah, total freakout. Anyway, there was much discussion amongst the family back and forth to do it, not to do it. Relative anonymity, whatever. In the end, Mr. Husband said go for it and we all know I always do exactly what he tells me to do.

(That was really hard to type with a straight face, I admit.)

Anyhoo, the interview has happened. I mumbled, talked too fast, waved my arms around like an idiot, got teary for the most stupid of stupid reasons, and generally sucked ass while talking about the business of mommy blogging and why I do it. (If you want to see some much better bloggers than me do a phenomenal job of talking about the same topic, you can go here. Details regarding a meet-up to go punch Kathie Lee in the face are being worked out. Feel free to join the party.)

If I had been coherent and not completely in awe of the fact that The Hawtness (she is SO hawt in person) was sitting across from me, I would have replied that I blog about my daughter for my daughter.

It started out a wee bit differently in that I initially blogged for our family. We are spread literally all over the world and it was very impossible to keep everyone up to date as nine months of pregnancy turned into ten months turned into GET THE HELL OUT YOU HEATHEN CHILD. So, I wrote craptastic little blurbs explaining what was going on and posted them on a blog for a very restricted list of people. Then Alexis was born and I needed to get photos to that very restricted but very spread out group of people. So I posted them to the blog. Then I needed to keep them up-to-date on her shenanigans, so I posted them to the blog.

Yes, our family keeps in touch by reading blogs. It's a very one-sided sort of really good at keeping in touch that we do.

As time went on, I realized that Hey! This is better than a baby book! And, I can do this! So, I decided I was going to keep on posting to the blog. I had planned on keeping it all in the family, but then I started to read other mom blogs. Very quickly I learned a very valuable lesson.

I am not alone.

Lots of crazy moms think the same crazy things. Lots of crazy kids do the same crazy things. There's some sort of twisted comfort found in knowing that my kid is not the only kid who has pooped in the bathtub, for example.

So, I very quietly took the blog public. There was no fanfare, there was no party, I just unchecked a little box and that was that.

A few weeks later, I had another startling revelation. While I was indeed leaving Alexis this amazing legacy full of detailed information about what she was doing, I wasn't leaving much of me behind. For over a year, I wrote in a very stiff, uncomfortable prose. We're talking things like, "Alexis rolled over 5 times today all by herself!" Woohoo. Call the party wagon, right?

I was honestly doing the kid a disservice. To know her should be to know me. So, I slowly started to write the way I should have been writing all along. What you read these days is a pretty accurate representation of my personality. Sure, you don't get details about my life, but you do get a sense that I love my kid like crazy, I can find the funny just about anywhere, and I love my kid like crazy. When Alexis reads all this years from now, that's what I want her to know.

I love her like crazy.

So, me mumbling and saying things not nearly that well and doing so while looking fat and ugly next to The Hawtness will be airing locally on WTAE tomorrow morning around 5:15 am and 6:15 am. If you aren't in the area or are smart enough to still be asleep at those times, you'll be able to find it on WTAE's website. If I don't hate the piece too much, I might even post it here once it's available.

UPDATED: Here is the interview.

Oh, and Ashley DiParlo is The Hawtness, in case you didn't catch that.

Now continuing FREAKOUT in anticipation of seeing the final product . . .