The other day Mac and I did this thing where we flirt and tease all day, temporarily deluding ourselves into thinking we’re hot and have an active sex life.

Dad, please stop reading this post.

Anyhoo, you know, we taunt and whisper things and grab inappropriately. Et cetera.

As you can imagine, this is rather fun, and by the end of the day, both of us are ready for, um, the end of the day.

So a couple days ago we were doing the aforementioned let’s-pretend-we-just-met thing all day long. That evening I went out with a friend and didn’t get home until 11:30pm. The whole drive home I was imagining how I would wake him, a-hem – and what would probably follow. I went in the house ready to assault him.

But when I walked in the door I was assaulted. By the condition of my house. The front room looked like Toys R Us spun around in circles vomiting on the floor. The living room and kitchen were barely recognizable. The real clincher, however, was the animals. They were all pacing around like the walking dead, moaning and mewing and looking at me like “Please. Do something.”

I checked the cat’s bowls. Empty. I checked the dog’s. Empty. I checked the fucking rodents’. EMPTY.

Suddenly, I was not in the mood. What the fuck, husband. It’s 11:30pm and I want to ravage you but instead I have to walk around and feed the furry beasts. Even though you were here all night, and they were supposed to be fed HOURS ago…and I’ve been asking you for like 6 months to please help feed the animals on a regular basis…you still couldn’t do it and now, once again, at the end of my day, I have to do what was YOUR JOB.

Not hot, husband.

Not hot at all.

And as I finished feeding the last small mammal and felt the last spark of sex drive fizzle out through my toes, and my desire to do my husband turned into a desire to do in my husband, I realized how drastically my idea of “hot” has changed since I was like, oh I don’t know, 20.

Of course it’s a little hard to tell what I considered “hot” when I was 20, since my man of choice was whoever showed up after I’d had enough beers to make men start appearing hot (which may explain how pretty much NONE of them fit the “hot” bill the next morning….but I digress).

Despite this difficulty, I’m 99% sure “Hey baby, I fed the guinea pigs” would not have struck my former self as a turn-on.

But now? Oh yeah. Bring it.

What? You picked your stinky ass socks off the bathroom floor and put them in the actual laundry basket?

Come here baby. I got something for ya.

What’s that you say? You cleaned out the car and changed the sheets?

Take me I’m yours.

To illustrate, I made you a few graphics, which embody my current idea of the hottest shit in the world.

Yes, I realize this makes me pathetic and old and uninteresting.

Also, tired. Very tired. And with a thrashed house. So tired am I, in fact, and so thrashed is this house, that the thought of a man doing the chores they somehow can’t manage to figure out how to do on their own EVER. (I’m serious. What is wrong with them?!)..is like a giant hit off the love pipe. Like roses and dirty talk and sweat and red wine. Like oceans and whispers and bare muscular chests.

Like yes, please.

[by the way, if I’m the only one of you who finds men-doing-chores sexy, I will in fact off myself.]

Why yes.

Yes I do.

1. This week has reaffirmed for me that somehow, the coolest women on the planet have come together from the four corners of the world to read this blog [this is not on account of the quality of the blog. Rather, it is coincidental.]. Seriously. I am convinced that I could be friends with EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU.
2. In fact, I want to meet. Maybe we should plan a retreat or some nonsense – right in the middle of America – where we could get together and party and pretend we don’t have children for like a week. Err, I mean, “scrap book about our kids.” I mean it though. The baby sprinkle comments blew my mind. Big love.
3. Speaking of big love, the freaking bird went away for 2 days. Then it returned. Of COURSE I haven’t actually done any of your brilliant suggestions, because I never get anything actually DONE, you know, proactively. I’m more into surviving. You know, getting through the day.
4. My home is once again at that state where every single room is destroyed, every closet filled to the brim, every cupboard overflowing, every drawer not shutting, every corner full of shit we don’t need.
5. SOMEBODY, PLEASE. Please help me. I can’t take it anymore.
6. Along those same lines (of not being able to take it anymore), in the past 3 days I’ve had two women – count ’em TWO – say to me…”Have you heard about that ‘attachment parenting’ thing? It’s INSANE. Horrible thing. I read all about it in Time Magazine.” These women asked me about this in two totally different contexts. Completely unrelated. The first time I heard it, I attempted to give a little perspective on the matter (basically explaining that Time misconstrued and demonized AP). But to the second lady I just mumbled incoherently, realizing suddenly that Time Magazine is not the problem.
7. The problem is that people derive their opinions from a crap magazine about one millimeter more reliable than the tabloids, believing [because it’s shiny and looks real and official] every word they read, soaking up its perspective as if it were their own, figuring “it must be true,” letting long-dormant critical thinking skills sink deeper into the cracks of their hardly-used brains. Oh my God that wasn’t nice. But I’m sick of the SHEEP PEOPLE THE SHEEP.
8. People want to be told what to believe. As Ava said the other day…”I’m coming to the conclusion that pretty much nobody thinks.” She was referring to her friends at school. I am referring to the general population.
9. I’m beginning to think that the only thing schools should teach is critical thinking. That should be it. And maybe reading. Reading and thinking. Hey students, THINK FOR YOURSELVES. Don’t derive an opinion based on one source. Question everything. Analyze it all. Do your own research. Think, fucker, THINK.
10. But I digress. Back to this week. Yesterday we went to a lavender farm where we cut our own lavender. I love lavender. We took pictures. Rocket and Ava loved it. Georgia, not so much. She was acting like demon spawn. Cute demon spawn, but still.

disgruntled for no apparent reason. I get that.

picking lavender

Check out the bow people. I adore her.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Look at that boy

Look, I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’ve mulled it over and analyzed it from fifty directions. I’ve considered and contemplated and questioned. And as you know, I spend a good deal of my life contemplating irrational theories with no importance whatsoever, so it should come to no surprise that I have come to the following conclusion…

There are two types of mothers in the world: those who say things like “baby sprinkle,” and those who do not.

What the fuck is a “baby sprinkle?” Yes, Exactly. That’s why we’re friends. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Evidently, a “baby sprinkle” is the celebration you have for your second baby (and subsequent ones I imagine). You know, it’s not a full shower. It’s a “sprinkle.” Isn’t that cute?

No, no it is not cute.

Well yes, actually. Actually yes it is cute. It is so cute it’s dripping cuteness from its every pore. It’s so cute it makes puppies look deformed. It’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

And if you said it to me (as in “I’m having a baby sprinkle!”) and you were serious, I would look at you as if you just told me you found a large elderly man rolling in peanut butter on your front porch.

And if I said that to any of my friends “I’m having a baby sprinkle!” they would know I was full of shit, because we don’t say things like that. And then they’d probably say something like “I got a sprinkle for you, bitch.”

Or some other wildly inappropriate innuendo.

And though it may sound like an oversimplification, I’m pretty sure I’m on to something here. There’s no way people can have an ambiguous reaction to that term. You don’t just hear the words “baby sprinkle” and walk off like nothing happened. You either say “Ooooooooo that’s so cute! I’m totally doing that!!!!”

Or you look at them dumbfounded and slightly afraid, making a mental note of the exact details of the situation so you can tell your friends about it later.

In other words, there are women who say shit like that and there are women who make fun of women who say shit like that.

No worries, though, because they make fun of us too. We all make fun of each other. We’re a very mean, judgmental bunch.

Just doing my part.

To illustrate, I made a graph. I like making graphs of my deep life theories. Feels very official.

You see I added “push present” to the graph. That’s because I believe there is a striking similarity between women who say “baby sprinkle” and women who say “push present.” And in contrast, the women who don’t. But the push present thing deserves its own post, which will be forthcoming. In fact, I think I’m going to start devoting regular blog time to this. It’ll be the “Stupid Shit Mothers Say” series. What do ya think?

Anyway, yes. I’ll admit it. I am among the women who would not use the term “baby sprinkle,” pretty much ever, unless maybe I wanted my husband to decorate a cupcake (as in a command: “baby, sprinkle!”). Yeah that’s pretty unlikely.

The truth is, when I hear things like “baby sprinkle,” my initial reaction is a wave of nausea that travels through my entire body, beginning at my toes. After that, I begin asking questions:

What does that even mean? Baby sprinkle. It’s a fucking shower. How is it different than a shower? Do we bring little gifts? No. You bring real gifts. Who the hell would bring a little gift? That’s rude. So why do they call it a sprinkle? To be cute? I hate being cute. I hate cute shit. I’m a grown-ass woman. I’ve given enough up for my kids. I don’t have to be CUTE too.

Fuck cute.

Why do mothers have to be cute?

Being pregnant isn’t cute. Having a baby isn’t cute. Raising kids isn’t cute. There is nothing cute about motherhood except, perhaps, the kids, on occasion. And that’s a big PERHAPS and there’s a lot of NOT CUTE AT ALL buffering every moment of “cute,” so why do we have to have embrace the cute like it’s all there is?

My God. Did she really just say “baby sprinkle?”

Now, I could be wrong, but I THINK this reaction is a tiny bit different than that of the woman who sent out this invitation:

Ah, cupcakes with sprinkles. Get it. Sprinkles. Cupcakes. Baby Sprinkle.

Oh, so CUTE.

Come on, let’s all go be cute together.

Bunch of cute, sprinkly mothers, that’s us.

1. My car is so disgusting I’m almost embarrassed. Almost, because I don’t really give a shit. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have lost even the appearance of sanity, control, or organization.
2. I’ve also accepted that I am no longer cool and will pretty much never be, so the fact that kid clothes, board books, sippy cups and goggles quite often fall out of my car when I open the back door…yeah, that doesn’t really bother me. Sometimes, I just leave the crap on the ground and drive off. (no of course I don’t do that. that would be LITTERING.)
3. Being sick is the single most effective way to appreciate one’s health. I’ve been going back and forth between raging allergies and a head-cold. Both are equally annoying, but since I’m never totally sure which one it is that’s destroying my life, I take all the medicines I have to treat both conditions. This, of course, leaves me feeling like a drowsy tweaker.
4. There may have been a time in my life when “drowsy tweaker” sounded appealing, but NOW IS NOT THAT TIME. I want my health back because these children have never gotten the memo that sick people are supposed to be left in peace to rest and heal.
5. The toddler currently eats strawberries and beef. And that’s pretty much it.
6. Yesterday I glanced at my 10-year-old and I saw the beauty of a young woman, just for a flash, and my head almost spun around like that chick in The Exorcist.
7. Still going strong without the T.V. Ultimately it has been so much easier for me because the kids have learned to play together, by themselves – entertain themselves – (read: leaving me alone a lot more often). They are presently building a fort in the front room. I’m in the living room writing this. Occasionally I have to sneak in and “steal their baby” out of their fort and hide it, so they can then “pack provisions” and “go into the wilderness” to find the baby that got stolen (and I hid).
8.  I promise I’ll stop talking about the T.V. thing. I’m probably being pretty annoying about it. Sorry. Just still trippin’ out by it. I’ll get over it.
9. There continue to be elements of parenting that baffle the hell out of me – horrible, complex, apparently unsolvable dilemmas. And yet, we are just expected to live with them. For example, what the fuck are you supposed to do with the fucking fascinating water dispenser? Get rid of it? Nope. The tap water tastes like ass. Push the trash can in front of it? Brilliant! Until she learns to, um, push it away. Remove all cups from the house so she can’t get her own “wa-wa?” No matter, she’s just as happy filling plates, toys, or the tray at the bottom of the dispenser. Or her hands, or nothing.
10. So what do you do? You deal with it. You deal with spilled water in nearly every corner of the house and a wet toddler pretty much always and kids constantly slipping on the linoleum because Georgia spilled water out of the dispenser and the mother is too lame to figure out a solution. Right? That’s what you do, right? Or am I missing something?

Drowsy tweaker out.

P.S. I want an Iphone so I can use Instagram. That thing is fuunnnn. Here’s some things we did this week, looking cooler because it’s on Instagram (husband has an Iphone).

Ava rode Mac's horse on her grandparent's ranch. The horse is "Major Ben."

so did Rocket

And Mac and my brother suddenly started using the slip-n-slide (notice full clothing)

xoxo