We’ve moved! Our new website is: thewildwest3.com On bathing (sometimes…)

We’ve moved! Our new website is: thewildwest3.com

Parenthood does wonders for your appearance. Unfortunately, this pretty much means people look at you and *wonder* what the heck happened (probably not what you were going for…) In fact, appearance post-children is such a struggle bus that I will probably make this into a series of posts. Up first: bathing.

You’re going to have to find a standard with which you’re comfortable. I highly recommend finding that balance somewhere in between gorgeous model and disheveled, unshowered lunatic. The former is certainly a pipedream but the latter is undoubtedly my husband’s nightmare, so, you know, compromise. This is not to say that Lady Lunatic will not be making her periodic appearances, and in fact, there may be seasons in which it looks like she has downright taken over (side-eye to you sleep regression, terrible twos, stomach-flu-season, etc.). Still, making a little effort here and there is good for the soul. The problem: appearing somewhat normal these days requires more than making just “a little effort.” It requires a Herculean one…

We’ve moved! Our new website is: thewildwest3.com Summer Survival: The REAL “Essentials” Checklist

We’ve moved! Our new website is: thewildwest3.com

At this time of year, there are a lot of “summer essentials” lists floating around the internet. Most of them seem to be related to nutrition and appearance (summer body, beach-ready, etc.). Well, that ship sailed for me when my middle son, literally, tore through my abs and then my youngest later turned the aftermath into a hot air balloon. Even parenting-wise, there’s no shortage of websites floating around that will tell you what sunscreen to put on your child, or conversely, what hazardous poison-death-creams not to put on your child. Sadly, none of those “essentials” are going to help you run your household insane asylum through the summer. If you’re at all like me, the following checklist will much better suit your needs:

We’ve moved! Our new website is: thewildwest3.com The Witching Hour: It’s 5 o’clock somewhere, unfortunately…

We’ve moved! Our new website is: thewildwest3.com

Back in your pre-child days, if you’re anything like me, you used to toss around the phrase “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere” with both joy and longing. You couldn’t wait for 5 o’clock. In fact, when you literally couldn’t wait, you would hold your happy hour early and say “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere.”  5:00 pm was a magic hour in your day.

Now that you’ve been blessed with children, 5 o’clock still comes every day, but you no longer eagerly await it. You fear it. You dread it like a necessary root canal you know is coming.

I don’t know why it is, but it is a universal parenting truth that children lose their ever-loving minds around 5 PM. The term “ witching hour” exists for good reason. For some kids, it strikes earlier, say around 4 PM. For the excellently behaved children, maybe a little later, say 6 PM, but it pretty much seems to strike everyone regularly, daily for most.

If you happen to be Catholic, next time you go for confession and your priest gives you your penance, you can tell him you already did it yesterday at 5 PM and you’re doing it again today at 5 PM, and probably tomorrow too. Your sins are covered indefinitely. For my protestant friends, who believe that Jesus has already paid your penance on the cross, good news for you too: you’re going to need that redemption and forgiveness for the things you are about to say and do today (and tomorrow, and…). Religiously unaffiliated? Ten bucks says you start praying anyway come the witching hour. Children know when you’re weak–they’re like dogs that can smell fear. All parents are weak around 5 PM and that is when the children go insane. They’ve got you on the ropes and they know it.

We’ve moved! Our new website is: thewildwest3.com School Daze

We’ve moved! Our new website is: thewildwest3.com

Today is the last day of school (for one of my sons, anyway. Read through to the end for more on this. My bad). In that spirit, I decided that school would be as good a topic as any for today’s post. Given my background and stage of life, it’s probably safe to say it won’t be the last.

I thought I appreciated teachers before my kids started school. After all, I’ve taught high school for about a decade now and I have worked with some incredible, compassionate, awe-inspiring teachers. Then my oldest started school and I realized there was a whole new level of appreciation I hadn’t yet experienced.

If your kid has a halfway decent teacher, you will 98% love them. You will be eternally grateful to them for teaching your kids important life skills like reading, writing, and walking in a semi-straight line. You will also love them so much for absorbing some of the 18 billion words your child speaks daily. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m known as quite the chatterbox myself, but at some point, GOOD GRIEF, CHILD, LOCK IT UP! I think of my oldest’s teachers with adoration regularly, even teachers he no longer has anymore, for all of the conversations they have fielded on my behalf.

I started a blog…

People have been telling me for years that I should write a book. That sounds like a wonderful idea and is certainly something I would love to do, but I’d also like to sleep and shower regularly, and that’s not happening so… I decided to try my hand at a blog! My hope is that if you are a parent, know a parent, or have a parent (or may one day be a parent yourself), you will find amusement in our antics. If no one but my Mom ends up reading it (Hi, Mom!) then this will be a short-lived project 🙂

Please click, share, and leave me your feedback in the comments!

We’ve moved! Our new website is: thewildwest3.com How frat parties have prepared you for parenthood …

We’ve moved! Our new website is: thewildwest3.com

One of my main (few remaining) hobbies is musing about the absurdities of parenthood. In college, I spent my fair share of time in Greek life and I can confidently say that being a parent is a lot like being at a frat party. People are irrational, everything is filthy, and there are far more bodily fluids than you’d like to imagine. Here are, in no particular order, five stark similarities between parenthood and your run-of-the-mill fraternity bash:

#1 Nakedness – At a frat party, if you made no cups in a game of beer pong, the standard penalty was to run a naked lap. My boys need no such excuse. Nudity happens at the most random times for no apparent reason, and I don’t even have what I would call “naked” kids” –you know, the kind who just really dislike wearing clothes. Sometimes there’s a reason provided, however suspect, “My tushy itches” “My underwear were bothering me” “I fell in the potty” (yup, that has happened here). More often than not, no rationale is provided by the tiny humans.