You Gotta Know When To Fold Em

No decent human being likes letting people down, but I really, really can’t stand it — the very thought of disappointing someone is enough to bring a tear to my eye. It doesn’t even have to be a big failure: a couple months ago I forgot to bring my mom coffee when she watched Bubba for me and I’m still feeling a bit guilty about it. Compounding this issue is my tendency to commit myself to doing things I don’t really have time/energy/desire to do (this is how I wound up making enchiladas for my entire family on Mother’s Day…the day after I ran 20 miles as part of my marathon training…when the rest of my sisters signed themselves up for tasks like bringing canned beans because they’re much, much savvier than I), which, as you can imagine, has led to stressful situations more times than I can count. Once I commit, I must deliver lest I run the risk of disappointing someone!

It’s one of the last holdovers from my many years of low self-esteem: there’s a (big, apparently) part of me that can’t quite believe that my presence alone at an event is enough. I feel I must sweeten the deal by offering to clean up after everyone or by making homemade cupcakes when no one would really care if they were store-bought, as if otherwise everyone might turn to each other after I left and ask, “why was she even here?” Contributing something ensures that my value is documented, measurable, and indisputable.

Saturday was my grandma’s 90th birthday party, and, as usual, I signed myself up to bring dessert. Since this party was big both in terms of importance and guest list, I had rather ambitious plans: for the first time ever, I decided to attempt a tiered cake (split and filled and fully decorated, of course), and, because I’m insane, I determined we’d also need four dozen cupcakes (in case anyone didn’t like the type of cake I was making, obviously). If this sounds like a plan that would involve a lot of work and an awful lot of time, you are correct, but I had everything under control. I got all my supplies the week before and set out to start baking three nights before the party.

And then on Wednesday night, right as I was getting my Kitchenaid set up, I got sick. Like, Exorcist-vomiting, everything-from-my-hair-to-my-toenails-hurts, I’m-pretty-sure-I’m-dying sick. The type of sick where you start seriously considering the possibility that an unknown enemy has poisoned you, because, seriously, how could anyone vomit that much.

And all I could think abut was those freakin’ cakes.

All day Thursday, I lay in bed sweating out my fever and fretting about the cakes. I kept looking at the clock and thinking, “if I feel better in a few hours, I can still get everything done.” As the day progressed and my health did not, I adjusted my thinking: “if I feel better by tomorrow, start baking immediately after work and don’t take a single break until the party starts the next afternoon, I can still make it happen.” And then finally, when Friday morning rolled around, one final adjustment: “there’s no way in hell I’m going to pull this off. TIME TO PANIC AND ASSUME THAT EVERYONE WILL HATE YOU FOREVER!”

I stopped panicking long enough to call my mom to advise her to order a cake from the grocery store before it was too late, and then went back to feeling horribly guilty about my cake failure. What was I supposed to do, just show up at the party with nothing to contribute, like…everyone else?

Absolutely not.

So I made five dozen carrot cake cupcakes to augment the grocery store cake.

Which was, of course, not really necessary (couldn’t I have just told my mom to order two cakes? Or one larger one?), other than to allow me the luxury of only feeling half as bad.

I need to learn when to fold ’em. If ever there was a time for me to tap out and say “I’m sorry, but I just can’t do this,” I think this was it.

On the bright side, everyone enjoyed the cupcakes, including Bubba:

At the moment this photo was snapped, he was in the middle of saying “MMMMMMMMM!” exactly like an over-the-top commercial for a sinful dessert

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PS: If you’re reading this and thinking “hmm, Mo let me down one time and she didn’t seem all that concerned about it,” allow me to assure you: I’m aware of it, I probably think about it at least twice a week whether the offense occurred last month or last decade, and I’m very, very sorry.

My Thing

I’ve always been jealous of people who have a “thing” — you know, a hobby they’re incredibly passionate about, or a skill they’ve honed, or some special talent that is deeply associated with their identity. It’s their thing.

Unlike those lucky bastards who are awesome at singing or really into making model trains or whatever, I’ve never had a thing. I like plenty of stuff, but I’ve never been passionate about anything to the point of it being a defining factor in my life (except perhaps fountain Dr Pepper, but that’s more a crippling addiction than a thing). Talent-wise, I’ve proven to be marginally competent at a wide variety of everyday endeavors (slow jogging! Mind-numbingly boring technical writing! Above-average cupcake-decorating!), but none of those are really thing-worthy.

This may sound silly (especially if you do have a thing and can’t understand what life is like for us thing-less losers), but I’ve spent a lot of time over the years lamenting my thinglessness. I felt like I was lacking something fundamental in my life that everyone else seemed to have, like I was incomplete in some way. Unfocused, maybe. Being asked to describe myself (a godawful icebreaker that should be abolished) was downright panic-inducing: “um…I like reading…and…soda? I’m really good at editing other people’s shitty writing, and…OK, CAN WE PLEASE MOVE ON NOW; PERHAPS YOU CAN ASK ME TO DISCUSS WHAT HAPPENED ON BIG BROTHER LAST NIGHT INSTEAD?!”

Worse yet, for the past several years I’ve worried that my past struggles had become my de facto thing, not because I was fixated on them but because my scars are on display for the world to see. Short of wearing a burka or getting my body covered in tattoos (I’m working on the latter but it’s just too hot for the former), it’s simply not possible for me to hide them all. This is incredibly unfortunate for me since the person I am today shares little in common with the disaster-woman who put those stupid scars there (except for our love of Dr Pepper!), and I can tell you with authority that the only thing worse than not having a thing at all is people thinking that your thing is being an unstable mental patient.

And then I had Bubba, and I found my thing.

Is that corny? Sappy? Cliche? A total thing cop-out? Probably, but I don’t care. I’ve never been as good at anything as I am at being his mom. Nothing has ever come so naturally to me or brought me even a fraction of the joy I get just from being around that ridiculous child. Of course parenting has its challenges, but I can honestly say that I have zero complaints about my son or parenting in general. Just watching him be his cute little self fills my heart with such pride and love and joy that I fear it may burst at any moment, even when he’s throwing sand at me (which we all know is the most heinous crime anyone can commit, because sand is seriously the worst).

With Bubba, I feel complete (note to TFW: do not take this as a concession to your “one kid is plenty” stance; my life would be even more complete with two or three kids…ahem). I have purpose and passion and reason. I have a thing, and it feels awesome.

(I do still wish I could draw or something, though. Dammit!)

A Few Pointers In Case I Die

It’s no secret that when it comes to raising Bubba, I’m the admiral and TFW is my lieutenant. Prior to becoming a father, TFW had literally zero experience interacting with babies, much less actually taking care of one, and thus is more than happy to follow my lead (this could also be a diversionary tactic on his part in an attempt to get out of doing work; he didn’t even feel comfortable bathing the kid until about a month ago because he “didn’t know how to do it” — suspicious?). Furthermore, I am both a control freak and a major stresser and fear that if I don’t do something myself or at least provide explicit guidelines and over-your-shoulder hovering, tragic consequences could ensue.

This system has worked well for us for the past 19+ months. I’m in charge of everything Bubba-related, and I simply delegate tasks to my second-in-command as needed. Everything gets done to my liking, and while he definitely does a lot to help out, TFW never has to do anything he doesn’t know how to do!

There is, of course, one potentially critical (and totally obvious) flaw to this system: there’s a lot of stuff TFW has never had to do or even think about. This isn’t an issue on a day-to-day basis, but what if I were to drop dead tomorrow from a bout of avian bird flu or get kidnapped whilst out for a jog and then enslaved for years in some psycho’s sex dungeon? I’ve previously discussed my suggestions (*cough* demands *cough*) for TFW’s second wife if such a fate were to befall me, but I neglected to consider the full ramifications of my demise with regard to TFW’s solo parenting.

I am rectifying that now!

TFW, if I should meet a sudden end, dry your tears and consult this list as soon as possible (and then you can cry some more, because you’re seriously going to miss me…right?!):

1. Sometimes Bubba’s bath toys get gross and moldy. You have to wash them. The fact that they get kinda rinsed out in the tub with him does NOT count as “washing.”
2. You have to change his sheets regularly, not just when milk or poop gets on them. Yours too, for that matter (although if milk or poop is on your sheets…I don’t even wanna know what’s going on in my absence).
3. Don’t teach him to say stupid or inappropriate things just because it’s funny (even though it totally is).
4. WWE and Ultimate Fighting really aren’t appropriate programming options for kids under two. Neither is anything on Adult Swim (animation does not necessarily mean “kid-friendly;” you need look no further than Beavis and Butthead to prove my point).
5. You HAVE to clean sometimes. Like, mopping and stuff. Not just because it makes things look nice, but because your ridiculous son rolls around on the floor like a damn dog (and will not hesitate to eat things found on said floor).
6. Motrin is every 6 hours, Tylenol is every 4. It’s OK to combine them, BUT THE DOSAGES ARE DIFFERENT! BE CAREFUL!
7. Popcorn is a choking hazard! Actually, just google “toddler choking hazards” and memorize everything on the list.
8. You have to wrangle the toothbrush away from him and brush his teeth yourself. He will not like this, but too bad: him gnawing on the brush for thirty seconds a day doesn’t really count much towards oral hygiene.
9. At some point, you’ve got to ween him off the whole drinking-bottles-in-bed thing. I was totally gonna do this soon, but I’m dead now, so….good luck with that.
10. Don’t ever leave the house without wipes, diapers, and at least one spare outfit. Trust me. Once he’s potty-trained (and dear god, how are you going to pull that off?! Call my mom for assistance), you can skip the diapers, but I’d still recommend keeping wipes and spare clothes with you at all times.

Okay, never mind: I’ve decided I’m just never going to die. Not that I don’t trust that these two goons would eventually figure things out…

But better safe than sorry.

Why I Liked My Husband Even More After He Stupidly Wrecked His Car

When I met TFW nearly nine years ago, he had only been living in California for four months, and he’d only known how to drive for about four months and two days. Prior to his move, he’d spent his whole life in New York City, a magical land where people can actually utilize public transportation and have no need for drivers licenses. Unlike here in California (and I imagine it’s the same in most parts of the country) where teenagers eagerly anticipate their 16th birthdays and count down the days till they’re free to drive themselves around, a drivers license is no big thing to a teenager in NYC and thus he felt no need to seek one.

(At least that’s what he claims; I suspect he may have just been too lazy and/or scared of driving to bother until he planned his cross-country move and it became absolutely necessary.)

As you can imagine, he was a terrible driver. Truly, seriously, legitimately abysmal. To make matters worse, southern California isn’t exactly the easiest place to drive — traffic, crazy aggressive drivers, and a freeway merge every couple of miles put even the most experienced drivers to the test. Toss a 22-year-old overly-cautious nervous nellie in a used Mustang into that mix and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

(Related digression: when he picked me up for our first date, he didn’t get out of the car and come to the door, because he didn’t want to try to parallel park! That’s right, he called me on my cell phone when he was out front and I went out and met him in the street. Keepin’ it classy!)

A couple weeks after our first meeting, we were set to go on our fifth date. I watched the clock and nervously awaited his arrival (the good kind of nervous, of course), but he didn’t show up. 5 minutes went by, then 10, then 15, when he finally called. Unfortunately, he wasn’t calling to report that he was on his way, but rather that he had gotten in a car accident on his way to come get me and that while he was fine, his car most certainly was not and he was not going to be able to drive over.

For a couple of moments, I wasn’t sure what to say. Our relationship was brand new, and I had no idea how he was going to handle the situation. He sounded surprisingly unruffled in his retelling of the events, but I was still a bit concerned — my previous boyfriend was the type of maniac who had a conniption when I scuffed my own tires against a curb, and even the calmest zen-master is bound to get a tad riled by a car-totaling wreck. I expressed the requisite concern and then waited for him to make the next move.

“So…do you mind on coming to pick me up instead?”

He had just been in a serious car accident that destroyed an expensive car he had just purchased, then spent an hour or so dealing with insurance people, police, and tow trucks, and he still wanted to proceed with our date.

Of course I was happy to drive to his neck of the woods, and we had a fantastic evening. He poked fun at himself for being such an inept driver (the accident was caused by him forgetting that you have to yield when you’re turning left…seriously, how did he even pass his road test?!) and teasingly told me I’d have to be his chauffeur for the next few weeks. I was charmed and downright bowled over by his level-headedness and perspective. “It’s just a car,” he shrugged. “It could have been a lot worse!”

I had never (and still have not) met anyone like him. Anyone who knows him would agree that this story is just so him. Why get worked up over something insignificant that you can’t change, especially when you’ve got a date lined up with a hot chick (ahem)? Do you want to cry over spilled milk or get over yourself and seek out happiness?

He has since improved his driving skills significantly (thank God), but his cool, collected attitude hasn’t changed — and neither has my appreciation for that one simple personality trait of his.

I still mock him every time he has to turn left without a green arrow, though.

Riding the subway in NYC…no chance of a crash here.

Sometimes I’m Awesome

I often joke that it’s too bad waitressing doesn’t pay better, since that is my one great talent in life. Seriously, guys: I was a really, really good waitress. I may not be the smartest, prettiest, most athletic or most creative individual, but damn am I good at waiting tables. I worked as a waitress at several different restaurants back in my late teens and early twenties, and I’m pretty sure I know how professional athletes at the top of their game feel — I was that good.

(Except for the one time I dropped a ramekin of sour cream on some dude’s pants. And the other time I messed up the check for a party of eight and they got in a screaming match with my manager over how much they owed until I suddenly remembered that one of them had already paid for their portion of the check like an hour earlier and that I did in fact have his cash payment in my apron the whole time. Other than that, I was impeccable.)

The fact that I was so good at waitressing is actually somewhat unfortunate, because who the hell wants their one talent to be waitressing? How boring! Luckily, I was reminded this weekend that I actually do have one other talent lurking beneath the rest of my mediocre capabilities: I am surprisingly good at baking and decorating cakes and cupcakes!

This is particularly shocking since outside of the Universe of Baked Goods I am truly the least artistic person on the planet — I can barely write my name in a straight line, and forget about drawing or painting or sculpting or anything cool like that. But I worked at a cake and candy supply store in high school, and I picked up some tricks of the trade. I’m no Cake Boss, but I know just enough to make things look impressive…and just enough to make me the go-to dessert-maker for any family event.

(Which is a blessing and a curse. Usually a curse. Do you have any idea how long this shit takes?!)

This weekend was my little sister’s wedding shower, and I whipped up four dozen cupcakes (half chocolate, half carrot cake) and decorated them with owls (because she likes them and because they’re cute. Duh.) Indulge me for a moment and allow me to show off my handiwork:

Not bad, right?! I still can’t claim this as my greatest talent, though, if only because it took me nine hours to make these, largely because I wasn’t brilliant enough to realize that I could have simply purchased an owl-shaped cookie cutter to cut out the owl shapes, a fact that dawned on me at 1am after I had just spent three hours hand-cutting four dozen fondant owls. If cake decorating was really my thing, I would have thought of that ahead of time!

I would never miss something so obvious while waitressing.

Now, would you ladies care for some dessert, or shall I bring the bill?

Things My Toddler Eats For Dinner

If anyone could benefit from a daily nap, it’s a 19-month-old maniac who spends all day chasing after preschoolers and attempting death-defying stunts, right?

My son has not taken a nap at daycare in two months.

Since the rest of the kids there are four to six years old, there’s no built-in naptime where the whole group takes a breather and rests for a bit. And since my son has a pathological phobia of missing out on fun, he just…won’t nap. According to the daycare provider, every day they lay him down and try to get him snuggled in for a little snooze, at which point he jumps up and down shouting “outside! outside!” (where all the big kids are having tons of fun without him, obviously) until they take pity on him and let him run free.

As a result of this refusal to nap, when I pick him up at 4:30, he’s pretty much in zombie-mode, fighting to keep his eyes open on the five minute walk home. At this point, he’s definitely ready for a solid three-hour nap…but it’s 4:30! That’s no time for a nap! If I let him nap at that ridiculous hour, he’ll either wake up rested and raring to go at 7pm and stay up till 11pm (no thank you) or refuse to be roused and sleep through the night, only to rise for the day at 5am (been there, done that; once again: no thank you).

So instead I go for option #3: force him to stay awake until at least 6:00. Of course, since he’s so freakin’ tired, this is not easy. I usually start by giving him a bath, since he returns from daycare so filthy it almost defies understanding, and then I give him dinner.

Correction: I try to give him dinner.

Do you know how hard it is to eat when you’re so tired you can barely keep your eyes open to see the food? Or when all you want to do is suck your thumb?

Yes, he is trying to suck his thumb AND eat a cracker. At the same time.

These dinners are far from successful. However, I have wised up in recent weeks: I no longer bother offering him full meals, since I know he won’t consume them. Instead, I just try to get a few precious crumbs of sustenance down his tired little gullet before his sleepiness becomes so pathetic that I start feeling cruel for keeping him up, give up, and put him in bed.

As evidence, here’s a sampling of his dinner menus from the past few weeks (and just to clarify, I do indeed mean that each one of these comprised his entire dinner, not that he ate all of these delightful treats on the same night):

• Four peanut butter crackers (pictured above)
• One half of one chicken nugget
• Seven honey-graham cookies and two bites of banana
• Six raspberries
• Ten macaroni noodles
• 1/4 of a bagel with cream cheese (practically a feast!)
• One string cheese
• One veggie pouch
• Two bites of some pizza I was eating
• Nine pieces of Life cereal (dry)
• One silver-dollar pancake

On the bright side of this madness, I am saving an awful lot of time by not cooking for the kid five days a week.

How To Make Your Wife Want To Murder You At 6:00 AM

When it’s my turn to wake up with the baby (which is virtually always, but that’s a story for another day*), I leap out of bed the moment I hear him stir over the monitor. I haphazardly smoosh my glasses onto my face, slide my feet into weather-determinant footwear (slippers or flip-flops; I am firmly anti-barefoot), wrangle my bed-head into a ponytail so I don’t frighten my half-awake child, and within thirty seconds I’ve reached Bubba’s bedside. My reasoning for the hurry is twofold: I obviously don’t want my dear lad to suffer from Acute Lonely-itis (which we all know sets in after 45 seconds), and since I’m the world’s best wife, I don’t want my sleeping husband to be bothered by a fussing toddler for any longer than necessary.

I’m a true hero, is what I’m saying.

On the all-too-rare occasions that TFW is on wake-up duty, the routine is different. Utterly unconcerned about Bubba’s potential Lonely-itis and equally unconcerned about his wonderful wife’s ability to continue sleeping, TFW is in absolutely no rush to get his ass into Bubba’s room. Ninety percent of TFW’s wake-up days go like this:

6:00: Baby wakes up and cries/sings/hollers for Mama/all of the above.

6:01: TFW informs me that he’s going to “let him play in there for a while,” which of course actually translates to “I’m going back to sleep for a bit; enjoy listening to your son!”

6:01-6:05: I lay awake worrying about the abandonment issues Bubba is surely developing as he rots in his crib, obviously unable to go back to sleep and take advantage of the entire purpose of my husband being “on duty”.

6:06: I kick TFW in the back and ask him to PLEASE go retrieve our son so I can go back to sleep.

6:08: TFW gets out of bed.

6:09: TFW takes his sweet time getting dressed (because Bubba expects a fully-dressed companion at the crack of dawn, I guess?), INCLUDING SOCKS AND SHOES.

6:11: Nope, that shirt was no good. Let’s try on a couple other shirts until we find the one we really want to wear today!

6:14: TFW drinks some water.

6:15: TFW goes to the bathroom. I seethe in bed.

6:18: Bubba has given up and has either gone back to sleep (unlikely) or is amusing himself by trying to climb out of his crib (infinitely more likely). TFW comes out of the bathroom, notes the silence coming from the baby monitor, and gleefully PUTS HIS PAJAMAS BACK ON AND GETS BACK IN BED AS IF HIS DUTY IS COMPLETE.

6:20: The monitor stirs back to life — obviously, Bubba did not really go back to sleep. He’s wide awake in there and eagerly awaiting some parental assistance in getting out of that dastardly crib.

6:21: I am now more wide awake than my despicable half-asleep husband, so I get out of bed myself.

6:21-7:15: I plot my husband’s demise while he sleeps peacefully.

There’s not a jury in the land that would convict me, right?

He’s lucky he’s cute (TFW, not Bubba, although he’s cute too).

*necessary disclaimer: TFW puts up with me and is therefore automatically on the short list for sainthood; I also assure you he is typically very helpful with our son. He just sucks at 6am. Forgive him.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: The Best Place Ever

Last weekend, my sister and I took Bubba and her kids to an indoor play place. Unlike Chuck E. Cheese’s (AKA my worst nightmare), this place was clean, bright, and didn’t appear to be harboring any kidnappers. Plus, it was air conditioned!

Naturally, Bubba had the time of his life:

He didn’t even mind when he took a tumble courtesy of his cousin barreling into him on the bizarre merry-go-round thing:

If you need me this summer, this is where you’ll find me. Did I mention it was air conditioned in there?

How To Buy a “Mom” Bikini

Even though I’ve lived in LA for years (and San Diego before that), I am not a frequent bathing suit-wearer. We don’t have a pool and I’m not a huge fan of the ocean (fish are gross), so there’s simply very rarely any need for me to wear one — I have worn a bathing suit fewer than ten times in the last five years, and approximately eight of those occasions were on my honeymoon four years ago. Unfortunately for me, I now have a toddler who loves the water and would surely love to visit a pool or the beach, and worse yet, my sister’s bachelorette party is coming up this summer and the plan is to remain poolside for about 12 straight hours. As a result, I realized this weekend that I have no choice but to get myself a new bathing suit.

Now, bathing suit shopping is never particularly fun — you’re essentially trying on underwear and trying to convince yourself that since the underwear is marketed as swimwear it’s perfectly acceptable to wear in public — but it’s a whole different ballgame when you have a toddler. Not only has your body changed since the pre-baby days, but you now have to factor the suit’s functionality into your choice since you’ll be lugging a squirming kid around and bending down to help with sandcastles and whatnot. On the other hand, you might not be ready to dive into full “mom” territory with a conservative one-piece suit. It’s not easy, but as usual, I’m here to help you with yet another one of life’s challenges!

Maureen Wachter’s 11-step guide to buying a bathing suit suitable for a 30-year-old mother:

Step 1: Try on all of the bathing suits you currently own. Laugh at how ridiculous you look in each one, either because it’s completely outdated, simply does not fit at all, or involves so many precariously placed strings your toddler is sure to accidentally disrobe you within moments of arriving at the beach or pool.

Step 2: Immediately disabuse yourself of any notion that you may still be able to get some use out of those old “hot young thang” suits and toss them into the Goodwill pile.

Step 3: Google “modest bikinis” and feel equally distressed by the hideousness of the options you’re presented with and by the fact that they still all appear to be extremely skimpy. Admit and accept that you are officially an old prude.

Step 4: Forget about the online shopping (how can you trust that those scraps of fabric will really cover your ass based on photos alone?) and go to Target.

Step 5: Do a few laps around Target looking for the collection of bathing suits meant for adult women. Realize in horror that the racks of tiny child-sized spandex panties in the juniors department are the ones you’re supposed to be looking at.

Step 6: Sift through the options until you find a style that looks like it provides more coverage than the average string bikini. Purchase it without trying it on because you have a toddler in tow and using those filthy fitting rooms is bad enough even when you don’t have a maniac companion picking disgusting crap off the floors and shouting “TRASH!”

Step 7: Get home and try it on. Realize you completely overestimated the modesty of your selection when you model it for your husband and he compliments you on your “sexy new lingerie.”

Step 8: Return to Target, this time without your trash-police child. Return the lingerie/bikini and take your sweet time scouring each and every rack looking for something more suitable. After 20 minutes, find one potential winner: a fuller-coverage bottom with some sort of a fringed skirt on it. Realize how heinous that sounds and engage in an internal debate about whether it’s even possible for a skirted bottom to be remotely fashionable, then decide you don’t care because it’s literally the only two-piece style you’ve seen that looks like it might cover you up enough to avoid a wardrobe malfunction. Purchase it without trying it on, because, seriously, trying stuff on sucks.

Step 9: Get home and try it on. Take a photo of yourself and text it to your little sisters to find out for certain if the skirt is acceptable:

Step 10: Stare at yourself for a few more minutes and decide you don’t believe your sister; there’s just no way a skirted bathing suit is OK.

Step 11: Return the skirted suit to Target. Give up and commit yourself to wearing denim shorts in the pool. You look great in denim shorts.

Happy summer!

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Thanks to Mama Kat‘s writer’s workshop prompt (“Create a How-To post”) for the inspiration!