It was a very warm October and the muggy, riverfront heat intensified the acrid smell of cabbage in the air as it mixed with the yeast and salt of cheap beer. YM magazine was still in print, Ronald Reagan was still in office, and a fat little girl was being paraded up and down the streets of Washington, MO dressed as a stuffed pepper. It was 1986, and, if you there to bear witness, the gargantuan side dish you saw throwing herself on the hot pavement along the Oktoberfest parade route was me.

I can see where my mother may have been mislead. To be fair, my only hobby to that point was divesting my closet of all its contents, and making my mother take pictures of each ensemble I assembled throughout the day. So, perhaps it wasn’t a long-shot to think I wouldn’t mind being draped in a green, handmade tarp, drawstring closed at both ends, stuffed with waded up pages of yesterday’s news, and paraded down main street. (This was also back when a newspaper delivered to your door was not directly correlated to Extreme Couponing: I Hoard Five Cent Toothbrushes Edition.)

But with each step tens of thousands of newsprint balls poked, scratched, and clammed against my sweat slicked arms. And with each sob the (presumed to be) fire retardant nylons on my legs trapped more heat to my skin, raising my core temperature to levels safe for eating pork. This was hell, and at six-years-old I was staring straight into the face of the devil.

What would my first grade classmates say when I returned on Monday?  Assuming they weren’t consumed with sadness after learning I’d thrown myself onto the back of an Lions Club float and rode away, leaving my mother and sisters to wonder if the savings bond prize was really worth it, while I lived out my days sorting donated eyewear for the same children whom my mother had sent all of my green vegetables.

So much time has passed since that last contest and that torrid walk down main street – Reagan is now seen through day-glo colored glasses, and according to UrbanDictionary.com YM is first and foremost linked to a brand of gangster underwear. Which I can only assume means your nether regions are covered up by Bugsy Seigel’s smirking mugshot.

And as you’ve probably guessed, either the Lion’s Club was disappointed with my sorting skills, or I never quite made it on the back of their float. However, I still am prone to splaying myself on the floor and weeping every time I smell sauerkraut.

I now have a three-going-on-thirty-year-old who loves to play dress up and is growing up in the era of Pinterest. This means if she doesn’t have her own dress up bin, handmade from the reclaimed wood of a French haberdasher’s floors and filled with a variety of gender-neutral costumes lovingly made by hand and very much reminiscent of the very costumes I protested being shoved into as a child, I have failed in my role as an internet-era-mother.

And, because we all turn into our mothers at some point, as I hand whittle a whimsical crown from the sticks I scavenge in our backyard, I plot with delight as I dream up family Halloween costumes, and evil laughter peels from my throat as I plan entries for my children comic book convention costume contests.

damn you Pinterest,

Things have been pretty shitastic between the two of us. Our sordid relationship is going into it’s fourth month, and you’ve had more opportunity for a turn around than reasonably afforded most, yet you haven’t wavered in your shitasticness.

If it weren’t for chronology, I would have dumped you long ago and drunk dialed 2008 for a pick-me-up.

To be fair, it has been since early 2012 since I’ve had a full night’s sleep. (And that wasn’t your fault, it was a natural consequence of unprotected sex.) So, perhaps, I am not seeing you as clearly as I should. I mean, there was that amazing, toasted ham sandwich I had a couple of weeks ago, and I did my come to The Walking Dead experience.

Actually, if I were to start writing down things in your favor: You aren’t 1993 so I’m not in junior high anymore, Boogie stopped peeing in her pants and on my furniture, The Sequel is no longer occupying the space between my ribs and hips, and Nickleback hasn’t released anything new. That’s hardly enough to inspire a long love affair.

So, we’re just going to leave it at this: I can do better. Trust me. And if you think I’m going to put up with your craptastic attitude for another eight months…while I technically have to just put up with it, I am going to make you eventually leave me. You have until December 31st to shape up or ship out, buster or else…

I’m going to sick my attack basset hound on you. Scary, isn’t he?

you’re officially on notice,

My husband’s grandmother passed away after living a very full life and having been loved dearly by many, many people-my husband, myself, and my daughter included. In fact, Boogie is but one of her namesake grandchildren.

And since they have been living with my in-laws for the last year, Boogie has grown close to “the greats,” as she calls her great-grandparents, performing and batting those killer lashes for great-grandma until she and great-grandpa have no choice but tell us how cute she is so they can enjoy the rest of their meal. And, truth be told, it was the tremendous affection and respect the Mister showed for his mother and grandmother that assured me I probably wouldn’t end up a Dateline Mystery if I stuck around. (Probably.)

I suspect it is going to be a rough weekend at Casa D’Meiners, one where blows will be dealt with chocolate chip cookies and lots of hugs and reassurance from Mommy.

Here I was thinking that teaching her to stop pooping in her pants and to only cram art supplies in her nostrils, mouth and ears in the privacy of her own home was to be counted as my greatest challenges as the parent of a toddler. That would have been easy. I didn’t realize I was going to have to deal with her first heartache already.

In case you’re poised to fire off a super-awesome comment about what a terrible parent I am since I’d rather make out with a peanut butter cup than address this with G-Boogie, a couple things. One, I have a delete button so no one will ever know the truth about how clever you where when you called me out. Two, we have been reading up on it and have a plan in place to address it with her while her grandmother is present to prevent confusion, and where we can show her pictures to help while we explain it to her in very simple terms.

You’ll have to find another reason to dress me down on my parenting skills. But trust me, it’s not going to be hard – just comb the archives here and you’ll find one.

yours,

You will *probably* never see the headline, “Local mother hospitalized for exhaustion.” My exhaustion won’t be brought to the attention of Harvey Levin, nor will it be worthy of top story status and pithy commentary on Facebook. I’m not sure if it’s because I never made a sex tape, or because my two-year-old makes a lousy publicist.

But even if you ask my friends, they are too tired to remember when I told them about my exhaustion. And, in fact, I am fairly certain I don’t have a provision in my health insurance to cover medical treatment for exhaustion. So, like lice at a grade school hat swap, exhaustion finds and clings to moms like me everyday. Squealing with delight each time we get all gussied up and someone asks how long we’ve had the flu. Laughing every time we fall asleep before we can make it through the late news weather report. Creeping around every corner and waiting to see if we dare to finish that second glass of wine.

But let me assure the Brooke Muellers and Lindsay Lohans of the world who are found slumped over after an “intensive jewelry making session,” or when they don’t wake up after working for (gasp) six weeks straight – ladies, you haven’t seen exhaustion until you have spent 24 hours alone with my children. And trust me, staying up all night long to shove your boob in someone’s mouth is much less glamorous and much more tiring when there isn’t a DJ around, you’re completely sober, and that someone is bald, toothless, and under the age of one.

And let’s not talk about dealing with a toddler at the same time. Suffice it to say, I am about ready to use my seven-week-old to beat my two-year-old with.

True exhaustion is one day finding your deepest heart’s desire is to lock yourself in a room with an Ambien and flannel pajamas. A room where no one is screaming for your boobs or your help cleaning their ass. A room where you can have use of both hands and you can finish your Diet Coke before the ice melts. Pardon me, I just got lost in that fantasy.

But Lilo & Brooke, I wouldn’t trade your exhaustion for mine, even if it came with your pre-wrecked Porsche. An Astin Martin? Maybe we’ll talk.

yawn,

They flew me to DC, and I stayed long enough to sufficiently move the needle past nerd and into the full-on-geek-out region of the meter, but not so long that my child began asking random women on the playground if they were her mommy.

But I had escaped, and after a very long but interestingly narrated tour of the furthest reaches of DC by way of the airport shuttle, I made it to the room I would be sharing with absolutely no one. And the first thing I did was…

take a half hour long shower without interruptions followed up by this for 45 minutes. Forget Fifty Shades, this is real #mommypron

After that egregious violation of the Mom Clause of my contract, I was invited to go to ‘Pinterest in Real Life’, or what locals (and the owners) call Lincoln – a newer restaurant located a few blocks from my hotel. The floors were literally  tiled in millions of pennies, the tables were upcycled aging barrels, and the ceiling of the lounge where the Nintendo Brand Ambassadors gathered looked like this…

in this poorly lit photo you will see mason jars come pendant lights hanging from the ceiling. But, try as I might, I couldn’t find the repin button anywhere in that room.

After calling it an early night and making my way back to my hotel room, narrowly missing a run-in with a guy whom I am sure was drunk enough to have earned a promotion at work the next morning, I jumped into my PJ’s, ordered croissants and hot chocolate up to my room, and then sat in front of the AC vent while sipping said hot chocolate, and watching Star Trek: First Contact. And then texted the Mister…

The next morning I had a chance to try out the new Wii U system and some of the demo games that will be released with it later this year. Nintendo didn’t fly my round with child ass out there only to eat, shower, and abuse the air conditioning. I know. Shocking.

At the Wii U Experience lounge, the other brand ambassadors and I joined a whole group of gaming enthusiasts from the area who were invited by Nintendo to try the system out.

My cohorts for the trip – most of whom are more gamer chic than gamer geek. Photo courtesy Brand About Town

My thumbs got sore on a few games that took advantage of the wireless game pad, including Super Mario U and a couple of titles from the Nintendoland game. The coolest thing I see about the game pad is that you could simultaneously play a game and have your television tuned to another input, so I could be all “Super Mario U” and my husband could be all, “Football” without giving one of us a reason to not put out that night.

The game pad also makes the system a little more social and more accessible for the mini-gamers in your family who are being groomed for gaming proper because of the opportunities for complimentary play. For instance one person can be helping out Mario as he makes his way through a level by building steps while bitty-gamer is playing the Mario character, and some games use the pad for different actions like in Zelda where the traditional controller is for sword fighting and the game pad is for archer actions.

While it’s been getting some mixed reviews from hardcore gamers, from a mom who likes to geek out with their family’s perspective, the game pad is more than just a gimmick and gives the whole family an opportunity to get involved in play while using the Wii U.

And then I went home.

That sounds much easier than it was. The real-life version starts with me getting to the airport a painful three hours early and spending time next to every lady of a certain age who has a penchant for perfume and olfactory damage. It continues through weather delays and cancellations, makes a detour with me getting into a fight with a woman who looked suspiciously like Sid Vicious and claimed it was okay for her to cut in front of me in line because she had an unnamed disability. And wraps with me telling the guy who looked like he was considering an offer of lugging my pregnant ass over his shoulder to save himself as we ran through two 35 gate concourses to make a 5 minute connection window. See, ’cause it was after that when I actually made it home.

Bumping my taped up glasses up my nose,

**Gratuitous Statement that Keeps the FTC in a Happy Place: Brand About Town, on behalf of Nintendo, provided transportation and accommodations during this event so I could share my undiluted and unsolicited opinions with you about the Wii U system of my own accord and choice.**

I never tried to run away from home as a child. And after a couple of hauntingly awkward conversations with pseudo-kids like me, I realize it is a fact that is probably much to my mother’s chagrin. I wouldn’t want to live with one of them. Ever. In fact, I shiver after five minutes of having to deal with them and their Brenda Starr interrogations.

I’m not so sure I want my child to be one of those perfectly behaved kids who are all mature and well-mannered all the time, either. (A sentence that makes me want to chop off my fingers as I type it.) When a kid doesn’t have a little bit of adventure, mischief, defiance, and that little glimmer of shithead in their eyes…well, it’s creepy.

There are some days when parenting is a joy-filled experience, worthy of the Von Trapps singing on a damn mountain side. Those days never coincide with the ones wherein you leave your child unattended while eating applesauce, nor do they occur anywhere near the span of time when your child becomes absolutely fascinated with their own bodily functions. But there is usually at least one moment each day that gives you a tiny, crusty-fingerprint-covered heart swell. Moments that make you think you could deal with this person for another 16+ years without ending up in a straightjacket, rocking in place, mumbling about mashed potatoes.

And then there are days that leave you completely exhausted, emotions raw. Your hair slathered in smashed grapes, and breath rank from having that tiny, precious, seconds long window of tooth-brushing opportunity snatched from you by an overly curious child digging through every drawer and shelf that doesn’t have a lock on it, ensuring that you understand the few shreds of privacy you may be clinging onto are but a mere illusion. Days when your child climbs up on a bar stool to start bashing the keys on your computer, before turning it off while tediously spent hours of unsaved work vanish in a long forgotten pattern of light on your screen.

Days when you just want to run away from home.

I may not want a perfect child, but how on earth can one tiny person manage to fill a whole day by only doing every.single.thing. they shouldn’t be doing?

don’t forget your toothbrush,

A few weeks ago Boogie woke up and decided she would become a cliche, embodying all of those fabulous habits and personality quirks that traditionally characterize a tiny person’s second year of life. And, as a result, I could probably put the promoters who have had to address Beyonce’s tour riders to shame with all of the outlandish demands I’ve met and accommodations I’ve been making lately. Though she has been devilishly clever enough to make me fall desperately in love with her, in turn successfully preventing me from throwing her in the Goodwill donation box alongside that hideous, mistake of a lamp I just *had* to have a few years ago.

But, my friends, I have discovered a light at the end of the Parenting-a-two-year-old-without-mainlining-vodka tunnel. And that light is peer pressure.

Need to combat the subliminal message they pump through the grocery store alerting your child that it is now time to act like a complete lunatic? Peer Pressure. Need to get your kid to stop pooping in their drawers and start using a toilet like the rest of the civilized world? Peer Pressure. Tired of snickering behind your child’s back when they attempt to jump, and need to coax them into actually picking their feet up off the floor instead of simply grunting and bending their knees? Peer Pressure.

So far it has worked in my favor, though lord knows how I am going to manage the cliff jumping analogy when trying to talk her out of going with her friends to get a tattoo of my face with “Word to Your Motha” underneath it.

outtie like a pregnant lady’s belly button,

I’m not saying that to be cheeky or cute, because I am telling you now, if it isn’t because I didn’t breastfeed her until she knew her multiplication tables, it’s because I let her eat those little fish shaped crackers…You know the ones we used to eatback before we were all anti-gluten (we’re still doing that, right?) and before we realized refined carbs and sugars were the root of all failing grades and ‘talks too much in class’ report card comments.

And I honestly didn’t realize until I was reading a post on another mom blog that I was supposed to have picked a parenting philosophy. See, in those very early days of motherhood instead of trying to figure out what parenting dogma was supposed to be “guiding” me, I was just trying to make it through the day without putting her in a box in front of the Super Wal-Mart with a hand-scribbled sign saying ‘Free Baby’ (don’t worry, on the good days I considered leaving her in front of Target or Nordstroms). And by the time I was on the other side of all that business, I’m pretty sure she’d already racked up future therapy bills in the thousands. So I guess my philosophy is something along the lines of, “keep ‘em alive and give ‘em a few good stories for when they are on the couch at the least, or go for the gold and give them something they can sell for a good memoir.”

But, now I’m feeling bad because TIME put some freaky, extreme example of an attachment parent (attachment parenting is one of those philosophies we were just talking about) on their cover. Why does it make me feel bad? Because Boogie’s therapist is going to be really bored with her if she’s going to be competing with kids who are breastfeeding well into grade school.

And it also makes me feel bad because it just points out that yes Virginia, people still use motherhood as a way to marginalize women by focusing on a woman’s decision to be a full time parent. Yes, attachment parents can be intense, but holy cow…are we really applauding how progressive it is for a man to stay home with the kids while using attachment parenting to tell women that a more traditional take on motherhood isn’t a fulfilling or valid choice for them, that as the anti-feminists, they are the ones who are making things harder for their daughters in society?

Now that confusing mess of messages, my friends, is probably more likely to put my kid on the couch than the fact that yes, there are days when I’d rather see a bunch of people bitching in my Facebook feed than read you “The Pout-Pout Fish” for the sevety-frillionth time.

we out,

In the past few weeks Boogie turned two and got the news she was going to be a big sister. She was all “meh”

Well readers, I’ve done it again. I’ve gone and gotten myself all knocked up, and this time I have decided to make sure I am at my most plump and uncomfortable during the most scorching months of the year, as you do.

Not that this was primarily my doing. Nor, quite frankly, was it the result of a moment of complete mental clarity.  However, as I am ripping off the proverbial progeny band-aid, and putting the gag-worthy diapers and crusty fingers all up in my grill phase behind me on a faster time table than once thought, we couldn’t be happier.

I’ve made it to 16 weeks. That, my friends, is only 24 weeks away from margaritas with the girls courtesy of frozen breast milk and a stealthy get away in the night. And since I know you’re not counting, I’m due on October 25.

Speaking of the girls…I am very glad to say they are back. And since this is the last time we will be together, it will be very hard to convince me that my B-cup doesn’t make a fantastic push up bra at this stage in the game. I know where they are going after this, and we’re going to enjoy one another’s company more fully this go ’round.

May I reiterate that this is the last time we are doing “this”?

Last time we did “this”, my uncontrollable craving for square-shaped fast food burger patties coupled with my weakness for eating seven cupcakes in one sitting (they were angel food cake!) lead to a 20 lb weight gain by this stretch marked point. My crippling need for black bean burgers, peach flavored water, and apples this time not only has sent up a big, red WTF banner…but has also happily resulted in only 7 lbs of gain. But don’t be alarmed dear readers, I just celebrated that victory with two single-serving bags of sea salt kettle chips.

We’re in the painful process of converting Boogie’s playroom into a nursery, a prospect that is at once daunting and at the same time cause for celebration as I can justify packing away all of her toys with tiny pieces…for the safety of the new baby since the safety of the pads of my feet pale in comparison.

Being a parent of two, that’s like woah.

devil horns | mel

That gigantic head has a life of it’s own: slamming into and splitting your delicate lips that are just trying to survive the winter, landing square on the bridge of your nose when you (and your language censor) least expect it, and colliding with floors/furniture/major appliances for no apparent reason.

And it only takes a few days of healthy head growth and sub-par hair sprouting until your precious baby goes from a baby skullet to this…

Good gah! She has a bad baby toupee!

As Boogie approaches the big second birthday, a milestone wherein the doctor will actually measure her head and give us an accurate idea of how it compares to normal heads her age, she now rests her giant heed on her wee pillah with a baby toupee that makes Gene Simmons’ toupee look convincing.

It’s a challenge having a baby with an ever increasing cranial circumference. What, with all the tugging that it takes to get her sweaters (all open in the back might I add) over her head each morning, and then prying them off her head each night. And having to constantly clear the air space when she gets to excited and that thing starts whipping around.

We’re just hoping that the rest of her body catches up before she starts looking to much like a Blythe doll, or before it turns into something like this…

(Also, I am tagging this post with big headed baby.)

devil horns | melody