Dorky Mom Doodles

“I Wanted To Make It Special”

A while back, I wrote about Baby Girl’s tendency to draw on things that aren’t coloring sheets/blank paper. We never had that problem with Little Man. The girl, however, used many things in our house as her canvas. The wall, the floor, the door to her room, etc. were all used for her drawings. She also drew on the table and some of her toys.

And then there are the books.

As a former English major/English teacher/bibliophile, I’m all about the books. With the exception of LEGOs, we have more books than we have of any other item in our home. We have hundreds spread throughout the bookshelves in our house, plus I have a couple of totes full in storage that I don’t have room for inside. Once someone helping clean our house for a holiday party commented that I had too many books (after I had donated some), which wasn’t well-received.

Books are my weakness. I love going to thrift shops and looking for books. Once I found a book by one of my favorite authors — Chris Crutcher — and it was signed. Glorious day! Occasionally I’ll find books that are duplicates of books I already have, but I feel like I have to buy them anyway, because I don’t want them to be neglected and lonely on the shelf.

I completely understand how Frodo felt in “The Lord of the Rings.”

I may have a problem. Aside from making my house a tinderbox of sorts, it’s not the worst problem to have, though.

Kind of went off on a tangent there. Oops.

Our books were often used in Baby Girl’s art. She scribbled in her books, some of our regular books, and even parenting books. One of my discipline books has scribbles in it. (As annoying as her drawing in books was, that one was pretty hilarious.)

She’s four now, though, and aside from accidentally going off of her coloring pages, she had stopped drawing on things she wasn’t supposed to draw on.

Key word in that sentence: had.

Last Saturday, I was taking a nap when my husband came and woke me up. He had the girl in tow.

“She drew in your book,” he told me.

I sighed. “Okay.”

He’s waking me up for this? Ugh. I want sleep. I want to stay nestled in my warm blankets. Leave–

And then my train of complaint thoughts was interrupted.

“Wait — which book?”

My collectible books — including a few that are over 100 years old — are out of her reach, so I knew it couldn’t be those. That left only one book that would be worth waking me up over — my book. The one I’ve been mentioning for the past few months on this blog. My labor of…well, not love, because I didn’t exactly enjoy creating it after the 1000th hour, so just my labor.

Yep, my book.

He handed me the book. Baby Girl was smiling and couldn’t have looked more pleased with herself. Here’s what I found:

Something with blond hair and legs on one page and “Mom” written on the other. She quickly explained/bragged:

Dammit. How freaking sweet is that?

My frustration went away very quickly. She got a big hug for personalizing my book (as well as a warning not to personalize anymore of them, because I want to sell them). Considering that there is actually a story in the book about the little graffiti artist, that will make the book graffiti even funnier when she gets older.

What has warmed your heart lately?

So, a couple of new book things–

First, I have released companion journals to Don’t Lick That! called Times the Kids Weren’t Little Heathens. You can use them to record funny stories and one-liners from your kids. The journal for parents of multiple kids can be found here and the journal for parents of only kids can be found here.

Second, if you have Amazon, you can download the eBook for FREE starting today through December 22. If you don’t have time to read it now — and I doubt many do, considering the season of chaos is upon us — you can download it to read later. Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!

(And if you already purchased the book and this doesn’t count as a gift for you, then email me your address and I’ll ~~pull a Wet Bandits and rob your house~~ send you a personalized dorky Christmas card if you want, glitter-free, because I’m cool like that.)

I Survived

If you aren’t on my personal Instagram or Facebook pages, then you may be wondering whether or not I survived snow tubing. Since Hell doesn’t have the Internet yet and I’m not posting in ghost-mode, I survived!

We went with an indoor snow tubing place. You see, I didn’t realize that you had to take a chair lift or tram up the side of a mountain to get to the snow tubing place we originally wanted to go to. Just thinking about that makes my heart rate go up. I’m not even gonna doodle this, because I want your heart rate to go up, too, so here’s an image from TripAdvisor.

See? Holy cow! I’ll ride most roller coasters, but there is something about being suspended over the side of a mountain by a cable that makes me nope out completely.

So, indoor snow tubing place it was. Baby Girl wouldn’t get on the snow tube, but the rest of us had a good time with it. I was pretty darn terrified at times, because going fast down a hill, spinning, and worrying about tipping over and breaking my neck can do that, but I still enjoyed it.

I didn’t fall going up the escalator (yes, an escalator) to the top of the hill, I didn’t fall down the hill while trying to sit on the tube, and I didn’t break anything.

The only time I had a near-death experience was when I rode back from the snow tubing place with my mother-in-law. Let’s just say that taking mountain curves at 65 MPH is more terrifying than the thoughts of riding a tram up the side of a mountain.

(And my mother-in-law is probably reading this now and thinking, “But did you die?” No, I didn’t, but, you know I can’t pass up a chance to tease you.)

It was a very fun short trip away! We took the kids to do the Polar Express train ride last night, and we all loved it. They came out dancing to the “Hot Chocolate” song just like in the movie. I was mildly disappointed they didn’t dance with the hot chocolate in their hands, though. (Yeah, I knew there was only a .00001% chance that would happen, but I held out hope.)

Now that we have that trip out of the way, we can focus on our Christmas Movie Marathon, baking, and crafty type things.

Instead of asking you a question to wrap up the post, I’m going to create a poll…

If y’all don’t hear anything from me after this post, it’s because she has killed me. #RIPDorkyMom

Now that the “Don’t Lick That!” eBook giveaway at Pretty In Baby Food is over, you can try your chances at the giveaway Candy is hosting at Geek Mamas. If you don’t want to wait, then you can snag the eBook here and the paperback here.

#TBT: That Time I Broke My Ass

Right now I’m sitting in my car heading to the mountains. And I’m wearing my headphones, so I’m not having to listen to the kids complain. #ParentingWin and also, #PrayForMyHusband. While we’re on our short trip, we plan to go snow tubing. As such, I thought sharing this old post would be appropriate. Keep my butt in your thoughts and prayers…

I’m not known for being coordinated. Anyone who knows me in real life will be thinking, “That’s the understatement of the year,” but that’s basically the truth. I’m not one of those people who can walk from one place to the other without tripping over something. Sometimes it’ll be a something that I didn’t see and other times it’ll be tripping over my own feet. Occasionally this leads to broken bones and scrapes, but mostly it just leads to my being pretty darn embarrassed.

Eighth grade was a lot of fun for middle school, but it wasn’t kind to me as far as my bone health went. Aside from breaking my foot after hopping a fence/rail type thing at Carowinds, there was also the incident that occurred when our grade went on a ski trip.

My grandmother encouraged me to stay home from that trip, by the way. She knew. Obviously that wasn’t happening, since the ski trip was a pretty big deal, so I assured her that I would be fine and went.

Ha.

After we got to the ski lodge, I went through the thing they had set up for beginners and by lunch time, I was ready to go down the intermediate trail. So I went down it a couple of times to build up my confidence.

My confidence built up quickly. Too quickly.

The third time I went down, I decided to go down fast, so down the hill I went in a straight line, like a bullet.

About halfway down, I realized that I was going too fast. I knew that if I didn’t start slowing my ass down, I would going to crash into something or someone at the bottom. So, I turned my skis inward to try to slow down. Except I turned my skis in too much so that they crossed to form an X, and I lost my balance. Not good. I did a front flip, landed hard on my butt, and rolled down the hill.

Ouch.

My body hurt all over, but not as bad as my ego. A classmate helped me up, and I was done for the day. At least I got to enjoy half of the day.

The next day, my butt region was so sore that my grandma wouldn’t let me go to school and took me to the doctor.

After doing an x-ray, the doctor told me that I fractured my tailbone. I was told to take it easy, no softball (and tryouts were the very next week), and that I should sit on a little cushion to stay comfy while it healed up.

After the weekend, I went to school with my cushion. I didn’t think anything about it until a friend snatched it up and exclaimed, “Erika, you got hemorrhoids?!” during homeroom. Heads turned.

I explained to her that no, I did not have hemorrhoids and that I had fractured my tailbone.

About eight years later, I decided to give skiing another try. This is how far I made it:

I totally froze up and wasn’t moving anywhere. My body knew right then that it had no business trying to go skiing, so after much discussion over whether or not we should stay and see if I changed my mind, we ended up asking for a refund. Even though there weren’t supposed to be any refunds, we were given one anyway. I suppose the look of sheer panic on someone’s face will bend the rules a bit.

Have you ever broken your ass? How about any other bones?

Time to plug the book!

Rachel at Pretty In Baby Food had some lovely things to say about “Don’t Lick That!” Check out the review on her blog, plus enter the giveaway on her site to win a copy of the book. If you already purchased the book, enter anyway — if you win, you can gift the code to a friend that you think would enjoy the book!

“Don’t Lick That!” is available for purchase as an eBook on Amazon and as a paperback through Amazon or Barnes and Noble. (Amazon has free shipping for Prime users, but right now things are glitchy, saying shipping will take a while, so keep an eye out for that. This isn’t an issue with B&N.) If you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, you can read the book for free. If you purchase the book and enjoy it, please consider leaving feedback on Amazon, B&N, or Goodreads.

Baby Girl Says…

When I first started this blog, I didn’t have a lot of Baby Girl material to use. She was talking some, but not a lot, so most of my stories were about her brother. These days, however, that child doesn’t stop talking, and much of she says is funny as hell. The older one is shifting away from saying lots of cutesy things and does a crap ton of dabbing, so I don’t have as much to go with from him. (I am so sick of dabbing, by the way.)

See? That does not make for great blog fodder.

Thank goodness for the girl. Baby Girl has said enough cutesy things in the past week that deserve her own post, so here we go.

Doctor Time

The girl had strep throat a few weeks ago. Since she downright refuses to take medicine — and I don’t mean she gets fussy about it, but that she will kick, scream, spit it out, and reject any food/drink that we’ve mixed it in — the doctor suggested giving her a shot. I didn’t think this would be a problem. Most kids hate shots, of course, but she understands that they will only hurt for a second and that they can help you feel better or prevent the flu and other illnesses. She told me she went to school encouraging her friends to get flu shots after she got hers in October. So, yeah, I didn’t think it would be a big deal.

It was, of course.

The doctor, nurse, and I had to hold her down while the nurse administered the shot. (Never underestimate the strength of a 30-pound 4-year-old.) After it was all over, she told me she wasn’t going downstairs (where the pediatric office is) and was only going upstairs (the family practice we used to go to) from then on. Poor kid. (And she did feel better within a couple of days.)

Last week, we had to go back to the pediatrician. That child told the receptionist, the assistant, and the doctor no less than 30 times that SHE WAS NOT GETTING A SHOT.

When the assistant asked if she had any allergies while checking her in, Baby Girl spoke up and said something that had us all laughing.

Well played, Baby Girl, well played.

The Spider Closet

Remember how Baby Girl drew a picture of me dead in a grave last week? Well, she’s still going through her creepy phase. A few days after that, she was displeased with Little Man over something (who knows what it was, as she is often displeased with him), when she made the following threat:

Um, what?

When we asked her to clarify what a spider closet was, she looked at us like we were idiots and told us that it was a closet full of spiders. I let her preschool teacher know the next day that we do not, in fact, have a closet with spiders, in case it came up.

Go Tell It…Where?

For the preschool program this year, Baby Girl has to sing “Go Tell it on the Mountain.” Baby Girl and preschool programs do not go well together. (Not that you can expect much from preschool age kids, but especially not with her.) The first year, she was too preoccupied with terrorizing the children near her to do much in the way of singing. Last year, she didn’t participate much (and had to visit the preschool director for her refusal to participate and distracting others during practice). This year…we’ll see, but so far it’s not looking good, since she’s already changing up the lyrics to the song.

At least she isn’t singing, “Joy to the world, the teacher’s dead, we barbecued her head!” right?

Pepper Spray Them Bitches

Okay, she didn’t say the last word, but I sure thought it.

Earlier this week, she noticed that I carry pepper spray (it’s out of her reach, of course, but I was showing her something and she saw it) and asked what it was for. I explained that it was to help protect us in case of danger and also explained how painful it would be and to never, ever touch it OR ELSE.

Sometime later, we were driving down the road when a car zoomed past us. It was a 45 mph zone and he was easily going 65. I made a comment about the guy thinking he was on a speedway and how he was driving dangerously. Baby Girl had a solution for this problem.

Nah, girl, if I get road rage at someone and feel like I need to get out of my car and hurt them, I won’t be using pepper spray. I’ll just throw glitter on them and really teach them a lesson.

No More Cleaning

What is it with kids and cleaning up stuff? No, cleaning isn’t fun, but come on — it doesn’t take that much effort to pick up after yourself. It certainly doesn’t require so much effort that you should act like your world has come to an end.

A few days ago, I told the girl that we needed to clean up the house. She wasn’t happy about this, of course.

You have the energy to take out your toys and pay games with them, but not the energy to put them away? Something doesn’t make sense there.

Wake Up, Daddy

My husband told me this one. He lied down with Baby Girl to help her go to sleep a couple of days ago and dozed off himself. He said that she woke him up with a complaint.

Preach, girl.

At this rate, I may be able to do a sequel for “Don’t Lick That!” before the end of the year.

What’s the funniest thing you’ve heard a kid say lately?

Time to plug the book!

Morning Hell

My sister and I fought like cats and dogs when we were kids, but my brother and I never fought. I chalked that up to there only being two years between my sister and me and nine years between my brother and me. With that in mind, when we had Baby Girl, I figured the kids wouldn’t fight much, since Little Man would be almost 6.5 years older.

I was wrong about that.

Rarely does a day pass where they don’t fight about something. And on the days they don’t fight, it’s usually because one has stayed over with a grandparent or is too sick to fight. It drives me crazy.

Mornings are the worst. I can’t even comb my hair or brush my teeth without hearing screams coming from the kitchen, where the children are supposed to be eating their breakfast. If I only had to drop off Little Man, I wouldn’t have to get dressed, since I can let him out at the curb. I have to walk Baby Girl in, though, so looking like an extra from The Walking Dead isn’t an option. It only takes a few minutes to throw on some clothes, brush my teeth, and run a brush through my hair, so you’d think that the kids could keep their shit together and not fight. Since fighting comes as naturally as breathing, however, that doesn’t happen.

I warn them before I dash to the bedroom to get dressed. No fighting. I even tell Little Man that if Baby Girl tries to start something with him–she’s often the instigator–to not engage her. All they have to do is sit there and eat their breakfast. That’s it. Shoveling food in your mouth without wanting to kill your sibling should be easy, but it’s not, as sometimes not even a full minute passes before I hear the screams.

Jesus, y’all.

Sometimes I ignore it for a few moments and wait to see if they’ll solve the problem themselves without me stomping in there. Since that’s as likely as me making it through the day without tripping over something, that rarely doesn’t happen. I have to stomp back in there, put my hands on my hips, and speak in my Mom Voice to let them know I mean business and to stop the crap.

This morning, when the screams started, I went in to see what was going on. Little Man told me that Baby Girl tried to hit him with a bottle of honey. Baby Girl said that she tried to hit Little Man with the bottle of honey after he threw it at her. Little Man claimed he did not throw the honey at her and had no idea how the honey he was using made its way across the table into her hands. It must be magic.

After some scolding them and threatening not to let anyone do anything fun after school if they didn’t stop fighting, I started to make my way back to the bathroom when I heard Baby Girl say this:

I’m gonna annoy you now.

We weren’t late, but it was close.

What does your typical morning look like?

Rachel at Pretty In Baby Food had some lovely things to say about “Don’t Lick That!” Check out the review on her blog, plus enter the giveaway on her site to win a copy of the book.

“Don’t Lick That!” is now available for purchase as an eBook on Amazon and as a paperback through Amazon or Barnes and Noble. (Amazon has free shipping for Prime users.) If you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, you can read the book for free. If you purchase the book and enjoy it, please consider leaving feedback on Amazon, B&N, or Goodreads.

The Big Day Is Here!

The “Don’t Lick That!” book is now available for purchase. In addition to some of the stories I’ve shared on this blog, I’ve also included new stories about the kids and myself, a chapter called Parenting Truths, a chapter with one-liners from the kids, a chapter called The Science of Parenting with mostly new content, and a bonus chapter that offers the worst parenting advice you’ll ever get. (If the last part doesn’t sell you, then nothing will.)

You can purchase it as an eBook and download it via Amazon or purchase the paperback through Amazon or Barnes and Noble. (Amazon has free shipping for Prime users.)

The raffle to win a free eBook will end today at 11:59 PM, and I’m giving away three books. I’ll do a post tomorrow for the winners and email the winners their promo codes.

If you purchase the book and enjoy it, please consider leaving feedback on Amazon, B&N, or GoodReads.

Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive through this! ❤

Keep Your Glittery Cards And Presents To Yourself

This is a repost from last year, but I feel it is worth sharing again before people start sending out Christmas cards and wrapping presents…

If you’re wrapping gifts or sending Christmas cards that have glitter on them, you need to stop.

Seriously, STOP.

You know what it tells me when someone does the glitter thing? That you hate me. That you want to drive me freaking insane. That you should join the Taliban. That you’re an evil person with no heart.

Glitter is the evil gift that keeps on giving all year. No matter how hard you clean or dust off your clothes, it doesn’t completely go away. In fact, it multiplies. Don’t ask me how glitter procreates, but I’m almost certain that it does.

There has been a piece of glitter somewhere on my face or eye for the past two days that I can’t find. I know it’s there, because when the light hits it a certain way, I can see it glimmer in my peripheral vision. (It’s gold, BTW.) But when I look in a mirror, I can’t find it. (No, I’m NOT crazy…or not in the imagining glimmering light type of way, anyway.) It’ll go away enough, I’m ~~sure~~ hope, but it’s draining me of my Christmas spirit.

I’m officially putting everyone on notice —

If you give me something with glitter, I’m not going to be your friend anymore, and if you’re family, I’ll disown you. I’ll still love you, but I’ll remove you from the Favorites list on my phone and/or I’ll scratch you off my family tree. This is saying you don’t like The Office level bad.

I’ll also get you back. It might not be tomorrow, next week, or even next month, but make no mistake — I’ll exact my revenge. I’ll go buy ten pounds of glitter and throw it on your car after it rains. I’ll slip glitter in your shampoo the next time I visit. I may even go Carrie style and fill a bucket with glitter and rig it to dump on you when you open the door to your home.

Get it? No. More. Glitter.

And with that, Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays, everyone. Make your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be glitter-free.

If I start a “BAN GLITTER” petition, who would sign it?

If you haven’t signed up for the raffle to win the “Don’t Lick That!” eBook, click this link to do so. A few of you made me aware of some issues with the raffle and that your entry didn’t go through, so I added an option at the top where you can enter just by saying you follow the blog. No verification needed. (I don’t know why it’s being buggy, sorry!)

The preorder for the eBook is live on Amazon for $3.99 and will be available to read on Nov. 28. You can find it here. The paperback is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble for $14.99 and will ship Nov. 27.

It’s Your Grave, Mommy

Kids can be creepy sometimes. I remember when Little Man once told me that he wanted to hold a beating heart one day. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up in the middle of the night to find one of them staring at me. When I woke up to find Little Man sitting beside my pillow staring at me when he was about four, he told me that he liked watching me sleep. Did I say “creepy” already?

Baby Girl took the creepy stuff up a notch this weekend. I had my headphones on playing a video game with Little Man when my husband tapped me on the shoulder. I slid one of the speakers to the side to see what he wanted.

“Can you pause the game?” he asked.

“No. You can’t pause Fortnite. The storm is closing!” I slid the headphones back in place, and he tapped me on the shoulder again.

I slid the speaker to the side again. “What?”

“You’ll want to see this. Baby Girl drew a picture.”

I won’t lie–I was slightly annoyed. I hadn’t played the video game in a week, had a great weapon, and was ready to take out the other tweens and teens I was up against and get a kill count higher than Little Man’s. (I did, by the way, and he claimed it was because other people were cheating.) But whatever.

“Let me see the picture.”

My husband gave me this:

(I lost 10 Mom points there for not saying, “Tell me about your art.”)

What?!

Surely I had misheard her. My kids have done and said a lot of creepy stuff, but neither of them have ever killed me off.

I looked at my husband for verification.

What?! Was that my punishment for playing a video game–death?

I asked Baby Girl why she killed me, but she said she didn’t know. I was just dead and in my grave, and that was that. (I didn’t know she even knew what a grave was.) She didn’t appear to be angry with me, and she also didn’t seem very shook up about my death. She went back to drawing more pictures, and I went back to playing Fortnite. I made sure not to turn my back to her.

When I pressed her for more information while I was working on this post, she told me that she made me dead because she didn’t want to draw my face. I’m not sure why I had to be dead when she didn’t draw out two other faces and made them alive, though. I guess it’s somewhat comforting to know that my daughter killed me out of laziness. If I believe her.

What’s the creepiest thing your kid has ever said or done?

Parent Speak

Have you ever noticed how adults start talking differently when they become parents? I don’t mean doing the baby talk stuff, which some certainly do, so much as the way they phrase things. Aside from trying to omit “bad words,” parents tend to phrase things in a way that won’t make them sound like assholes when the kids repeat stuff at preschool (which they surely will).

For today’s post, let’s explore a few things parents say to their kids and what those sayings really mean.

Of course, parents aren’t the only ones who have to say things more…diplomatically. Take the stranger who has been around your kid for all of five minutes, for example.

Yikes.

What’s your Parent Speak phrase?

Update time! I posted this on my social media accounts yesterday (and if you aren’t following me on there, use one of the links in the sidebar to like/add me), but I’ll share it here, too, for those who missed it.

I’m planning to release the book on November 28 in both eBook and paperback formats. I get nervous putting a firm date out there, since that is practically begging for something to go wrong, but that’s what I’ve told Amazon, so I suppose I can tell y’all, too.

Here is a 3D rendering of what the book will look like:

I’ll be doing a giveaway as the end of the month gets closer. Email me at dorkymomdoodles (at) gmail.com if you want to help promote the book later this month.

What Partying In Your 30s Looks Like

Age might just be a number, but there still comes a time when you know your days of being considered young are officially behind you. That day might come when you hear kids refer to something you liked when you were younger as “old school.” Or, it might be when you’re filling out forms online and have to move up from the age bracket that includes ages 18-34 to 35-50. (That’s happening for me next month. RIP my youth.) If you don’t consider those indicators of moving from youngish adult to adult-adult, then maybe it’s having sound effects accompanying you when you get up in the mornings.

One of my least favorite parts of getting older is my stomach. I absolutely cannot stomach some of the things I used to have no problem with. For example, pepperoni and chocolate give me heartburn. Just looking at raw cookie dough makes the acid in my stomach start moving upwards. And alcohol? Oh lord. Now, this doesn’t mean that I don’t still partake in any of the things mentioned, but there will be consequences.

Back in my college days, it was a rare thing for me to ever get a hangover. It didn’t matter the amount I drank or what combination I had (I knew some people who would get sick off of mixing beer and hard liquor). I rarely felt bad the next day. But these days? If I have as much as one cocktail, my body usually makes sure I pay for it, whether it’s within the hour or the next morning.

This brings me to partying in your 30s. First of all, people in their 30s don’t often refer to their gatherings as “parties.” We call them “get-togethers” or “cookouts” or just say “we’re hanging out.” Unless it’s for a special event, there usually aren’t parties. And while our get-togethers are still a lot of fun, they often look very different from what parties in our 20s looked like.

In your 20s, you’ll almost always see someone doing a keg stand or shotgunning a beer. And you’ll definitely see someone playing quarters or beer pong.

Fast forward to your 30s, and hello, exciting night of board and card games! Maybe you don’t do something this tame every time you get together, but how often did board games make an appearance during the 20s? Probably never.

At parties in your 20s, it was hard to go more than 10 minutes without hearing someone yell out, “Shots!” The frequency of that word being yelled out decreases big time in your 30s.

The only shots you’re saying “Yes” to every half hour in your 30s are shots of Pepto Bismol.

Did you like staying up until the wee hours of the morning in the club on New Years Eve/Day when you were in your 20s? (Technically, I never did, but I’m putting myself in a club for the purpose of this post.)

Well, this is what New Years Eve may look like in your 30s.

That was our last New Years Eve. Usually we at least do a get-together with friends, but we were having a hard time even holding our heads up at midnight on this one.

And the only drugs you see at parties in your 30s are the kind you find over-the-counter at the pharmacy.

So, I have headache powder, tums, and if you want something strong–Zyrtec.

Isn’t getting older fun?

What’s something you find yourself doing at parties/get-togethers these days that reminds you that you aren’t young anymore?