Tag Archives: babies

How To Differentiate Between Drunken University Students and Mothers

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It’s been noted that new parents bare a startling resemblance to inebriated undergrads, the following is a handy guide which characterizes various behaviours to help tell if you are dealing with a tipsy twenty-something or a newly minted parent.

  1. Late nights

Drunken undergrads are known for staying up late, stumbling around and then passing out wherever looks softest. Mothers also are known to host all night parties. This behavior cannot be used to differentiate the two

 

  1. Little Sleep Followed By Excessive Napping

After these all night parties both new parents and fratboys have been known to take naps during the day. Once again, daytime siestas cannot be used as a way to tell between a new parent and a fratboy.

  1. An Excess Of Skin

If you find yourself surrounded by cleavage and boobs there are one of two places you might be; a sorority party or a breastfeeding moms group. Tread carefully, previously the presence of sequins ruled out the latter but since the emergence of stylish nursing tops, this is no longer a reliable way to distinguish between the two populations.

  1. Forgetting Items Everywhere

Misplacing one’s phone and identification is a time honored tradition of both intoxicated students and new moms. If the phone is lying next to a squeaky toy, it is most likely a new parent encounter but there is a trend of students owning dogs so this is not a definitive qualifier.

  1. Traveling In Groups While Engaging In The Same Activity

Undergrads are notorious for running wild in packs; jogging, playing sports or hollering in public places. Likewise, mothers are often found working out in parks as a group or practicing yoga, they have also been known to yell in commercial centers, in particular grocery stores. Thus unless one is standing next to the egg section, it’s questionable whether it is a parent or student meeting.

As evidenced by the lists of characteristics above, it’s almost impossible to tell a drunken undergrad from a new mother. The only truly reliable way to tell if the person sleeping at the park with their breasts showing with no identification or phone, surrounded by other similarly attired people, is whether or not they have a baby.

Five Things Friday: The Murderous Family Christmas Edition

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It’s Friday in New Zealand. It doesn’t make any sense, but time zones are like that; they’re tricky devils, sometimes, for example last weekend, they jump backwards an hour for no reason at all. Time zones don’t obey the laws of physics. Scientists thought everything had to obey the laws of physics. And everything does, except for time zones. Also Cher.

2010-cher-pg259399

This lack of adherence to physics is the only possible explanation for this woman. Photo Credit: MTV.com

Anyway, on with Five Things Friday

  1. My In-Laws Gave Me Coal For Christmas

It wasn’t actually coal, it looked more like severed tree roots. Regardless, it sent a message -be nicer to our son; this is your Christmas gift. Following celebrating an early Christmas with Tex’s family this past weekend, I found a “present” at the bottom of the bag of produce they had brought from the farm. It was underneath the beets and the lone zucchini which was the size and shape of a baseball bat.

I turned the oddly shaped, dirt clod coated bulb-ish/shrub-ish thing over in my hands trying to find an identifiable feature so I could figure out whether to cook it or plant it. Finally I gave up and called my mother-in-law Zoey*. “Did you give us a piece of a tree?” I asked. “Pardon?” Zoey replied masking her obvious disapproval of my naughty behavior over the past year with confusion.

“I’m holding a plant” I said. At least I thought it was a plant, it very well could have been dirty petrified wood. “Is it for the garden?” I questioned further. “Oh!” Zoey burst out, “it’s the horseradish”. So it wasn’t coal, it was condiment ingredients. Close enough, it ended up making me cry. Message received -I should be nicer to Tex.

 

  1. I Drove Over Two Men With My Van

To clarify, I drove over a pit AND two men with my van. It was horrifying and I cried in the way that one does when they’re about to commit murder. I’d never patronized a Jiffy Lube before, consequently I was shocked when the garage doors opened and in lieu of a friendly mechanic trotting out to relieve me of my keys, a youth in a pit beckoned me to drive over him. Then to make matters worse, another young man jumped in with him. Double manslaughter, goody.

I drive infrequently because I loathe it, but more importantly because I’m terrible at it. The examiner had to coach me through a three point turn on my licensing test. Thus, the pit/youth situation spelled certain doom and jail time to me. However I somehow managed to very slowly maneuver the van over the pit and the youths lived to scare another unsuspecting customer.

 

  1. Babies + Oranges = Mistake

Mini-Tex is into eating exactly what I’m eating. I made the mistake of consuming citrus in front of him so now our floor is like a high school cafeteria- sticky and more than a little gross. I debated not washing it and leaving the job for Tex but thought better of it upon remembering the number of baseball bat sized zucchini my mother-in-law has in her garage. Death by squash is never pretty.

 

  1. I Don’t Actually Have A Fourth Or Fifth Thing

Cher took them to another time zone. I’m sending a search party to Taiwan and Austria, I’ll let you know when my other writing points turn up.

 

 

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of lovely, thoughtful women whose fondest desire is for their families to have well seasoned, delicious, local food. She also would never think of using her zucchinis for anything other than baking and is so gentle that she makes people who would never hurt a fly look aggressive. My mother-in-law is compassionate to the point that I’m pretty sure she mourns the dust-mites that accidently get sucked out of the air by the vacuum cleaner.

Your Pregnancy Week By week

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Week 1

Nothing has happened yet. However this still counts as week 1. It’s a little baffling, but treat it like the FREE space on a BINGO card- say thank you and don’t ask questions because it’s going to get a lot more memorable real fast.

Week 2

You ovulate this week, you also go on a trip to see a friend and drink two and a half glasses of wine. You will feel guilty about this indulgence, possibly forever. You also walk twenty kilometers while sight-seeing with said friend. Just like the booze, get ready to kiss all of that activity goodbye.

Week 3

Again, kind of like week one, take it as a gift.

Week 4

Hurrah! You are late. But a pregnancy test reveals that you are NOT pregnant. You sulk by having a glass of wine with a friend. You thought you felt guilty about the other glasses of alcohol? This one will haunt you for at least a year.

Week 5

Your spouse claims that you have been more moody and unpredictable of late and points out that the Party Crasher has still not arrived. You respond by stating that your behavior has been perfectly reasonable and to emphasize your point, punt the kitchen strainer across the apartment. He offers to take you out for ice cream, you accept graciously by gnawing on his arm. The pregnancy test that you pick up on the way home is positive. You apologize to the kitchen strainer for kicking it.

Week 6

There is no recollection of this week- you are asleep.

Week 7

See above. Although your partner claims that during this week, you woke him up in the middle of the night, completely hysterical because you hadn’t thrown up yet and you heard somewhere possibly from the Howard Stern show, possibly from your mother that nausea is associated with smarter babies. Regardless, it was an extremely reliable resource and you were inconsolable.

Week 8

On Sunday, you decide to change up your worship habits, instead of praying, you puke in Jesus’ garden, but it’s ok, the Lord appreciates all of our gifts. You’d feel mortified about your actions if you hadn’t of fallen asleep five minutes afterwards. Your spouse for some reason is relieved.

Week 9

Special Discovery: You read the “What happens to your lady parts” section of the pregnancy book. It’s like the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan but for genitals. You spend the next week cheering up your WooHoo to assure it of its continued role in your life; “Vagina no matter what happens after the baby and I split; I will still love you.” Luckily vaginas can’t read so it has no idea what’s in store for it, which is probably a good thing.

Week 10

The exhaustion continues. At work, during lunch while you are quietly eating your sandwich and trying not to fall asleep mid-bite, Sheila from accounting asks “Wow, do you feel as tired as you look?”

MEMO :

To Sheila

 

I hate you

From Unwashed

Also, yes.

Stay tuned for weeks 11 to 40. Spoiler alert! There is a lot more vomit in your future.

NEWSFLASH –An Unwashed Addition!

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My family was always enormous. After five years of being together Roscoe prides himself on knowing eighty percent of my relative’s names. However a new member has been added! So Roscoe will be back down to a seventy five percent accuracy rate.

Jessica, Carter’s Mommy* had been pregnant for some time. Nine months in fact. And last Saturday she had the baby. Tragically none of my names for the newborn were chosen, even though Carter has two mommies and I’m one of them.

Not really, however people at the Winnipeg Folk Festival probably thought as much last summer. Like any self respecting festival of the arts, the place was packed with same sex families. Walking around, Jessica and I each holding one of Carter’s small hands we looked a lot like the happy gay couples wandering about with their children. Also I totally claimed the role of the fun parent, mostly because I was unwashed, covered head to toe in dirt and invariably about half of me would be sopping wet at any given time.

While Jessica ran around volunteering for the festival, Carter and I just ran around, at top speed. However unlike many of the fun Dad parents, I didn’t eject Carter from his stroller when we hit one of the inevitable tree roots embedded in the ground on our runs. Prior to these off roading sprints I would  securely strap Carter into his chariot.

Other children at the festival were not always privy to such precautions and as a result I witnessed a couple of child flings.

it's not the thing you fling, but the fling itself

Not unlike on Northern Exposure when they flung a piano, the children soared into the air. But instead of an art piece, it was more about comedy. Although what Chris In The Morning said still applied

 ” It’s not the thing you fling, but the fling itself.”                                              It didn’t really matter who was being flung, it was still hilarious.(Photo credit: tnarik)

 Dads moved across the festival fields, squiring gaggles of children about in buggies, then creating human catapults using said wagons and an obstinate rock.  Into the air and over the sides the children would tumble. Unless it was a front facing stroller, invariably it would take the Dads a second to realize that their load was lighter for a reason. The children would lie sprawled across the ground, dazed by the sun and their sudden flight. I of course would be the jerk who was splitting their side laughing. The Dads would then gather the kids up, placing them back into the stroller or wagon and continue on their way, buckles swaying devil-may-care next to small torsos and paying no attention to the various tree roots and potholes on the path. It was the best entertainment to be had at the festival, aside from the music of course.

Replica catapult at Château des Baux, France

Baby transportation device or instrument of siege? Sometimes it’s difficult to tell the two apart. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anyway, back to the new addition to my family. So despite being mistaken for one of Carter’s two mommies both of my name choices were turned down. I offered up two reasonable options, one for a boy, one for a girl.

Mini Carter for a boy, because Carter is such a great name, so why not have two. Admittedly it would be confusing, however the amount of name yelling would be reduced by half at a crowded playground. Also the “Mini” could be used when you need to distinguish between the two.And for a girl I suggested Cartera. Also for simplicity’s sake. For whatever reason, Jessica and her husband vetoed both of these ideas.

Regardless, my happiness over the new arrival is boundless. I’m looking forward to flying out to meet the little bundle of joy and I shall promise forwards, backwards and upside down that I shall strap the new family member firmly into the stroller before running with it, no matter how amusing small human projectiles are.

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of those who didn’t actually want to be mistaken for being in a couple with me. Seeing as Jessica is all for gay rights, gay marriage, gay adoption and gay children, I think the problem was me. Maybe it’s the height difference, or maybe it was the fact that I kept telling people I hadn’t showered in a week and a half. Whatever the reason, Jessica didn’t want to be falsely identified as my other unwashed half, so I can assume she doesn’t want her name on here either.

Also names have been changed to protect the innocent and under aged. But not the small, at the tender age of four, Carter may very well surpass me in height this year.

Travesty Tuesdays- An Apology and a Plea

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In honour of Candy*’s visit, this Travesty Tuesday post is a postcard that I wrote to Candy’s mother. Last June Candy came to visit for a couple of days. In this correspondence I was petitioning that she be allowed to visit again this past Christmas. Ultimately my December campaign was unsuccessful, something about New York being more exciting than making cider with your cousin.

Dear Aunty Camelia**,                                                                                                        Dec’12

I’m very sorry I told Candy where babies come from. Please let her visit me over Christmas, I promise not to do it again.

In my defense, she thought you had to pluck the arm hairs off of adorable children you liked and then plant the hairs in the ground for a fetus to develop like an oddly shaped potato. I thought my explanation might get her into less trouble than this.

– The Great Unwashed

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of those who don’t actually believe that children grow in the ground like carrots.

** Names of adults who may not appreciate their children being exploited for the purposes of my blog have been changed in the hopes that maybe they won’t recognize themselves and force me to eat puffed rice in lieu of popcorn for the rest of my life. That bowl of round, puffy rice remains the weirdest movie snack that I’ve ever consumed. Although seeing as Aunty Camelia sampled my beet cookies, we may be even in the “Forcing Strange Foods Upon Distant Relatives Game”.