Friday, May 18, 2018

7 Quick Takes about Cool Mom Tattoos, When Eating Looks Like Working Out, and an Imaginary Fight about Diapers That Lasted 14 Years

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

1


At dinner on Mother's Day, we went around the table and each of the kids said one thing they liked about me. (Beforehand I heard Phillip instructing the kids to give "real answers that are nice things, nothing funny.")

The kids' initial answers were that I play with them and I don't fart too much.

After more probing from dad, they agreed that they also appreciate my cooking. Which is nice to hear, because I try to feed them a lot of healthy stuff and make better-for-you versions of processed foods, and I sometimes wonder if it's worth the time and effort.

The 9-year-old piped up, "Yeah! You don't load us up with junk food, candy, and video games!"

"Wait, is that something you like or don't like?" I asked.

He hesitated and after a pause answered truthfully, "Both."

2


Overall, it was a nice Mother's Day. Phillip made me breakfast in bed (buckwheat crรชpes are all he's been talking about since he went on a business trip to France last month) and the kids made me cards.

Then the 6-year-old took it a step further and penned the words "Love Mom" on her ankle. She draws on herself all the time, but this particular instance made me laugh because it reminds of a big, burly biker who gets "MOM" in a heart tattooed on his left bicep.

3


I have a confession to make: I hate Comic Sans. I don't know if I'm just a typography snob or what, but when someone hands me a document written in Comic Sans, it's all I can do to smile politely and wait until they're out of sight to hurl in a trash can.

As far as I know, I've never talked to my family about my feelings, so you can imagine my shock and delighted surprise when the topic of fonts came up over dinner and BOTH of my older girls went nuts over how much they loathed Comic Sans.

So as far as I can tell, it's genetic.


If you use Comic Sans for everything, I'm sorry. I really am. But mostly for me, because I'm the one who has to look at it.

4


I don't remember how I got possession of it since I've never belonged to this (or any) gym, but I own a T-shirt from America's Racquet and Fitness Center, which I mostly wear as pajamas.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
I've never been particularly interested in racquets OR fitness.

I wore it to bed one night and was lazing around the house in it the next morning (which is totally okay because I just learned that "athleisure" is a thing now,) when my toddler came up, pointed at me and said "spoon."

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
This guy right here, holding the world's most gigantic spoon in the en garde position.

So just in case you were wondering how raquety-y and fitness-y I am, my 2-year-old looks at a picture of someone who is clearly working out and sees a guy ready to go to town on a giant bowl of Rocky Road instead.

5


I rarely play pretend with my kids; it's just not my thing. I'm not good at it and I don't particularly enjoy it. But my 4-year-old is going through an obsession with pirates right now, so we played pirates and he had a great time.

It was a pretty busy morning. In the sandbox we sped away from sharks, found a deserted island, and dug up buried treasure. Then we had lunch (complete with clementines so we didn't get scurvy) and went to the pediatrician's for an annual checkup because that's what responsible pirates do.

We also slathered his wrists and legs with coconut oil, because pirate captains get really bad eczema flareups when the seasons change.

My son took the whole thing very seriously and talked in a gravelly pirate voice for hours, not even breaking character when he was asked to say the prayer before lunch. I may not enjoy playing pretend, but I did have to admire his commitment to his art.

6


Speaking of eczema, my friend Casey just told me about something for super-irritated skin that sounds horrifying but is actually awesome: bleach baths.

Now that you've fainted and regained consciousness, let me say I did not throw my children into 40 gallons of bleach and hand them some bath toys.

I poured two tablespoons into a tub of warm water and let them soak for 10 minutes. It was basically like going to a swimming pool, if the swimming pool was only 5 feet long and allowed naked people.

We've been battling my 4-year-old's scaly, painful eczema for weeks, and I kid you not it looked better after 10 minutes in the bleach bath. It was like magic. It ranked right up there with the trick I learned for getting poop stains out of onesies a few years ago. I can't believe I'm just now learning this stuff with my SIXTH child.

7


Being the stay-at-home parent, I'm naturally the one who changes more of the diapers and therefore opens more diaper packages. And when I do, I open them neatly along the perforated line on the side. The times when Phillip opens a new pack, it looks like he does it blindfolded with a weed whacker.

I know I've said something about it before, but decided about 5 years ago that if he was so insistent on opening them his way, I needed to just let it go and enjoy our marriage for what it was.

But recently I said off-handedly when he mutilated yet another pack, "You know, when you tear along the perforations, the diapers stay inside the bag better and they're easier to take out."

He just gave me a blank stare and said "Perforations?"

How he opens packages of diapers has driven me crazy for 14 years straight and Phillip insists I've never said anything about it until this very moment. This is why I'm crazy.

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12 comments:

kristina b said...

This is awesome and totally hilarious. Kids are so great :) Mine (3 and 4) have been begging me to pretend to be a baby elephant for hours at a time...

Anonymous said...

There is a genetic skin disorder called Epidermylosis Bullosa that causes severe blistering as sufferers are born without a particular protein that anchors the skin. Essentially the skin slides around (and off) resulting in horrific, full body blisters, including INTERNAL blistering. It is referred to as the "worst disease you've never heard of". The lasting results are webbed fingers and toes, due to scarring, as well as disfiguring scars throughout the body. It impacts life span as well (some versions of the disease cause death before a child is a year old while others result in deadly skin cancers by the late teens or early adult years). One way to manage the bacterial infections that result from the large number of open wounds (many of the blistered sites actually NEVER heal) is to bathe in bleach water much like you just described. The bleach kills the bacteria and is also soothing to the wounded areas. This is just a long, sad, possibly dreary comment to note that bathing in bleach is not as unheard of as you or your readers might imagine. It is also a fine example of the more obscure information that resides in my head. I won't remember a person's name until re-introduced at least 4 times (rude I know) but I file away medical information as though my own, and possibly the whole world, depends upon it. - Kathy Young

Rosie said...

#7 ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚ Sounds very much like how my children open cereal boxes!

Marcia said...

Yes, that was a truthful answer from your 9-year old :). Funny, but I have this misplaced (?) dislike for Comic Sans, too. Do you think it's rooted somewhere?

MaryAnn said...

Comic Sans- no joke. Literally.

Rachel said...

I think the diaper package opening story is too funny. It's both surprising and not-surprising-at-all the things that we never realize men don't actually know about household/baby stuff.

Evie said...

The National eczema association has bleach bath instructions. Here: https://nationaleczema.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/FactSheet_BleachBath_FINAL.pdf?x59892

Bleach baths changed my family’s life. We were battling repeat staph infections from the open eczema sores and I was about to lose my mind with frustration and grief for my tiny people. Then we went to an old doctor who put us on a regimen of bleach baths and vanicream. Looking at my kiddos, you’d never know how bad it was.

Jenny Evans said...

The difference has been pretty amazing so far. It sounds horrifying (I actually thought the lady who told me about it was kidding when she first said it!) but really works.

Jenny Evans said...

I was thinking the same thing! They must be learning it from the same place...

Jenny Evans said...

Depends. Do you have good taste in other areas? That could be it.

Jenny Evans said...

That's a great quality for a mom!

Jenny Evans said...

Have fun! I'm seriously the worst at pretend. When my first was little she always wanted to play that her stuffed animals were alive and we always just ended up reading them stories because that's all I could think of!