#startseeingyourselfie

I have noticed a growing trend lately. In a world filled with narcissistic selfies that promote perfection, those of us that are less-than-perfect are becoming invisible. That sucks. 

Just because we don’t work out 24-7, sport the latest trends and can’t afford $30 mascara, doesn’t mean we don’t exist. We can take pictures outside of the gym or the salon. We can snap a selfie when we don’t have any makeup on. And it doesn’t have to make us sport a goofy face.

Because our kids are going to want to look back and see that we were there with them. That we were young once. That we were present. And we are going to want to look back and know that we were part of our own lives. 

So I propose a challenge. Take a picture of yourself. No makeup. No goofy faces. No filter. Just you. Smiling. Post it to Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. Tag me and add the hashtag #startseeingyourselfie. 

Then search the tag and compliment someone else who has been brave enough to take the challenge. Tell them they have beautiful eyes, great hair, healthy skin or dimples that make you smile. Tell them something positive. Help them see the beauty in themselves. I will add the pictures to a future post to show people how beautiful my readers are, inside and out. 

This isn’t a contest. I won’t crown someone the “most beautiful”. Because we are all beautiful. We are all winners. We just might need a little help from others to see it for ourselves. 

If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.

29 Things Only a New Mother Would Understand

Ah, new motherhood. Now that the hard part is over, the really difficult part begins. Even though being a new mom is one of life’s greatest challenges, it’s also one of the most rewarding. Read on for a few things that only a new mother can understand.

1. The complete joy of a warm sitz bath.

2. Being so afraid to poop that you avoid the bathroom at all costs.

3. Having incredible boobs … that hurt so badly you’ll kill anyone who so much as brushes up against them.

4. That taking a shower is a luxury, not a necessity.

5. The isolation of being alone with a tiny, helpless human. All. Day. LONG.

6. Celebrating your new eau de parfum: slightly spoiled milk, cabbage, and A+D ointment.

7. The fear that every other mother in the world is doing a better job than you.

8. What a dairy cow feels like.

9. Loving your other half for giving you such an amazing gift.

10. Hating your other half for the way they eat/sleep/breathe.

11. What it feels like to have no shame about whipping out a boob in public.

12. Crying. All the time. For no reason.

13. The feeling of victory that fitting into your pre-pregnancy clothes awards you (no matter how much muffin is left on top).

14. Using the baby as a legitimate excuse to get out of absolutely anything.

15. Wearing granny panties that are made out of mesh and come up to your eyeballs.

16. Why you can no longer do jumping jacks. Ever again.

17. Watching a horror movie and sympathizing with the zombies.

18. Going so crazy with fatigue you find yourself mindlessly rocking a jug of milk to sleep at the grocery store.

19. That “mother’s intuition” is real. And it is powerful.

20. The pure joy that is a first glass of wine after nine LONG months of sobriety.

21. The joy/embarrassment that are Preparation H pads.

22. Being so in tune with someone that your body actually produces food for them on demand.

23. That whoever came up with the cutesy term “baby blues” had never actually suffered from postpartum depression.

24. Accidental shoplifting.

25. Leaking through your shirt during an important presentation at work.

26. Waking up in a cold sweat, convinced you rolled over on the baby — only to find them sleeping soundly in their crib.

27. That “sleep when the baby sleeps” is the stupidest phrase anyone has ever uttered.

28. Being proud of the fact that your stomach looks like it was attacked by a tiger.

29. The amazing feeling of being the one who created this unique human being.

This post was written by me and originally appeared on Healthline.

If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.

Sometimes they surprise you

Children are funny little creatures. Just when you think you have them all figured out, they surprise you. Whenever you are sure they will go left, they zig right. If you know without a doubt they will pick white, they choose black. 

It is these changes of pace that keep us parents on our toes. They sometimes show us that our babies have blossomed beyond what we thought they were capable, while at other times they remind us that our children still need a little patience in a task we thought they had mastered.

This happened to me a few weeks ago when we transitioned our kids from the school they have both been going to for the last few years, to a new school that is a feeder into the kindergarten they will attend. 

I thought the The Quiet Contemplator would throw open the metaphorical saloon doors of this new opportunity and make it her bitch, while The Cool Cucumber approached it with trepidation. Boy, was I wrong on both parts. What I didn’t take into account with this new phase in theirs lives was the way my children learn and absorb things. While I knew they would both thrive in this new and exciting environment, I thought that they would both approach the change differently thank they did.

You see, my daughter likes rules and things being “right” and instructions. This new school is more about investigation and children being part of the creative process. So the first few weeks were very hard on her. She missed being told what to do and how to do it. She didn’t yet know how to come up with her own hypothesis or original ideas. When you gave her a table full of loose materials and told her to “explore”, she felt lost. She wanted you to tell her what the end product was supposed to be so she could please you by making it. 

I spent every night of the first two weeks holding her as she cried for her old friends and old school and telling her it would get better. It would get easier. That eventually she would love this new place. But I was not sure. I spent event second of those two weeks doubting my choices that had gotten us here. Would it get better? Would it get easier? Would she eventually love this new place? I wasn’t so sure anymore. 

We needed a good hard look in the mirror.

Then, the other morning, it just clicked. I came out of the shower and she showed me that she had conducted an experiment. She wanted to see what would happen when she let the marker sit on a tissue (what happened was that the purple marker bled through the tissue and all over my new butcher block countertops, but that ain’t the tale I am telling’ right now, yo). She was so proud! She wanted to take it to school and show her teachers and her new friends. It was the validation that I needed that I had made the right choice for her. That I didn’t break her, but that I helped her learn to fly. Thank you 8 pound, 6 ounce newborn infant Jesus because I was really starting to wonder about my parenting decisions!

On the other side of the coin, I thought that The Cool Cucumber would struggle with the change. I thought that breaking him out of his finely tuned routine would freak him the flock out. Instead, he embraced the new school like he had always been there. He loved not having to be put into a creative box. He thrived in the new environment that let him explore and make up his own mind. From day one, he basically walked in, looked back at me and said, “Hey, ma. Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.” I was shocked. It was incredible to witness and has been so amazing for him. It has cast a new light on him for me. Brought out glints of things that I did not know were inside of him. It has been wonderful.

Change is good.

So though we think we may know how our kids will act in certain situations, they often surprise us. Sometimes for good, and sometimes for bad. But they always keep us thinking. Moving. Changing. Evolving. Without them to wake us up out of our cruise control lives, we sometimes wouldn’t notice that there is more than one way to react. Think. Be. 

For this, I am thankful.

If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.

In case you needed a good cry today

I just watched this video of a 7-week-old hearing for the first time and had to share. If you don't cry the second time his mom says, "He's smiling" and hear her voice break with happiness, you need to get yoself a defibrillator, stat. Truly amazing.

 

If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.

My kid is adorable. Your kid is annoying.

I will be the first to admit that I am not a huge fan of other people’s kids. I mean, they are great and all, but I have my own kids to love/be annoyed by. I often find that things that I think are absolutely adorable when my kids do them are incredibly annoying when other people’s kids do them. Things like:

Participating in any Kind of Recital
When my little pumpkins are the ones picking their noses during a dance recital, that shit is precious. I mean, come on, it is better they unload their boogs on the stage than on my couch, right? But when I have to sit through a piano recital or school play for children that did not come forth from my very own loins? I would rather stab myself in the leg with a rusty fork. Because anything is preferable to sitting in a musty gym on a metal folding chair watching Timmy’s tuba solo. Seriously. Bring on the tetanus.

Showcasing their Newly Learned Skills
My husband LOVES showing off our kids’ latest skills. He is horrible at annoying innocent bystanders by making them watch our kids perform some mundane task. Yes, our 3-year-old can count to 10, but NO ONE ELSE CARES. Absolutely no one wants to see that shit in action except us. And even I have a threshold of how many times it is cute. Hell, even their GRANDPARENTS fake excited when they do it. Our friends that are over to hang out and merely tolerate our spawn? They have no interest in seeing our son display his new-found abilities. Unless he can juggle cats. Everyone would be interested in seeing that.

Answering the Phone
This may be one of my all-time favorite things to do to other people and my all-time most hated thing when people do it to me. Because it is adorable when my daughter answers the phone, “Hewow, Gwampa.” But when I am calling to see if you want to go have a drink because I am losing my freaking mind and your kid answers the phone, talks gibberish for 5 minutes and then throws it down and walks away? THAT is annoying as shit. Shivers.

Wearing Shoes That Squeak
Have you ever been to the playground in the mall and had a cute little toddler wobble over to you with those shoes that have little squeakers in the bottom? Cute, right? For about 5 minutes. Then the claustrophobia of the germ-encrusted play pit starts to set in and you suddenly develop tunnel vision, cold sweats and feel faint from all of the “fun” everyone is having around you. That squeak is like the tell-tale heart--every squeak seems louder and closer that the one before until you just. can’t. take it anymore.

Unless you have a pair of Wee Squeaks. They have removable squeakers so your kids can be as adorable as you want at home and you don’t have to annoy every single person in a 100-foot radius when you pop into Target to pick up your next box of wine. The squeakers were the only way I could get my son out of Crocs. Once he would wear the Wee Squeaks, I just popped the squeaker out and TA-DA: my son looked less like a gardening-addicted hobbit when we went out in public (you can see how freaking cute his/her new kicks are in the annoying video below).

The post is sponsored by Wee Squeaks but they did not force me to say nice stuff about their shoes at gunpoint. If I didn’t like them, I would let you Boozehounds know fo sho.

If you share this post, I will buy you a pony. I suck at Twitter. I am OK at Facebook. Pinterest is my bitch. I am also on Bloglovin' and Instagram.