The babysitting father.

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of this: “I am just so grateful for my husband. He works so hard everyday and then takes out the trash, does the dishes, and spends time with the kids. He even babysits them on the weekend so I can run some errands in peace.”

 

On the one hand, yes. Co-parenting and marriage is HARD. They take dedication and sacrifice and as such anyone who wholeheartedly tackles those commitments deserves kudos. Plus there are some bona fide jerks in this world and it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself that avoiding those bullets is a real blessing.

 

Preschool graduation.

Sometimes I think I appreciate milestones wrong. Right now I'm sitting here unable to sleep, watching "Teen Wolf," a terrible MTV show that I'm reasonably sure I subconsciously selected is an effort to pretend I'm too young to have a kid who just graduated from preschool.

Now technically I don't have a preschooler any more, I have a kindergartner which doesn't seem right at all because I'm not even a proper grown up. I have a poster of a lobster in my living room and can't seem to schedule dentist appointments at regular intervals.

Pallet garden

The outside of our building looks like a forest green residential Pizza Hut circa 1970.  Normally this doesn't bother me because I don't spend much time outside on the street staring at the building. The one area of exception to my general exterior apathy is the wall separating our deck from the neighbor's. Every time I go out on the deck it taunts me. "Look at me!" it says, "I somehow manage to embody both cheesy disco *and* incredible blandness!"


I didn't want to spend all summer staring at the Donny and Marie of walls.

Like any good procrastinator urban gardening beginner I went online to look for potential solutions and discovered this vertical pallet garden. Go ahead. Click through. Admire the photographic evidence of its awesomeness and check out the tutorial. I'll be right here when you get back.

Amazing right? Cheap, environmentally friendly, good use of vertical space, creative, will totally hide a wall. Everything I needed.

Here's what gave me pause, though: I found this project on Pinterest. I love Pinterest but it's a volatile sort of love. Partly because some of the projects are straight up ridiculous (just because you can make
everything in creation out of mason jars doesn't mean you should). Partly because knowing that there are people in this world who run fifteen miles before making their kids a themed organic breakfast on a daily basis gives me an inferiority complex. But mostly because a lot of the projects on Pinterest that look simple and doable are not at all simple and doable. At least for me. I am the type of pinner who would accidentally take off half her eyebrow when trying a DIY facial.

Squirrel pancake.

Make better life choices, idiot.

Do you want to enjoy locally sourced vegan cuisine at $35 a plate before picking your dog up from acupuncture? My neighborhood's got you covered but you can’t just waft through the day thinking the world revolves around seitan and canine qi because the food bank and Booze’n’Porn R Us are right across the street. For the most part I love this eclectically pragmatic genuineness.

 

The catch is my five year old. I want to shield her just enough that her innocence remains intact but not so much that she grows up to be the kind of asshole who sets up a fundraiser to buy evening bags for the underprivileged. We try to steer clear of the seedier aspects of life but they don’t always steer clear of us.

Living in this neighborhood means sometimes I hear things like, “Mama, why is the policeman yelling at the sad lady for being asleep on that bench?” I’m not sure at what age you’re supposed to talk to your kid about drug overdoses at bus stops but I bet it’s older than five.

Think before you share.

Not a good hobby.

Dear Internet,

 

I love you, I really do. You’re clever. You’re a wealth of information. And you look great in that hat.

 

Your insta-connectedness is fantastic too. Please continue to tweet a video of a cat riding a Roomba when you’re bored watching a middle school band concert or share that blog post that brought you to tears. Viral content is awesome. But if you want to share content that touches on a serious issue please take a bit more care. When you get pitch-forky it makes me nervous.

 

What do I mean by pitch-forky? I’ll give you an example: this past week you’ve been all about sharing and creating content about Abercrombie and Fitch being douchey.

 

Here’s the thing, though: Of course Abercrombie and Fitch is douchey. They’re Abercrombie and Fitch. In other news Gymboree caters to suburban parents of small children and water is wet.

 

Mother's Day guilt guilt.

Motherhood is like a flower. A beautiful, stunning, guilt ridden flower.

One of the things I know to be true about motherhood is that it involves guilt.

 

That guilt is hard to shake in no small part because our fears often dress up in a WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?! outfit. That kid who’s constantly whining for candy?  Don’t blame the kid, blame the parents. Whatever you do make sure you blame someone because if non-ideal outcomes sometimes just happen despite everyone’s best efforts then they can happen to you and me.

That kid over there who just pantsed herself in the middle of the grocery store? There’s no way I want that to be my kid. So it’s probably her mom’s fault. If she just spent more quality time with her rather than going to her book club or whatever then she’d have much better manners. I mean, seriously, lady – what’s more important? Chardonnay and “Gone Girl” or YOUR CHILD? You’re a mother. Act like it.

Pants.

Visual approximation of author.

You know when you go shopping for the perfect pair of pants yet you are prepared to brook no actual pants (that’s trousers for you British colonial folks)? Sure those Joe’s Jeans pseudo-jeggings are nice but jeggings are very 2011 and if you’re going to blow $100+ on some goddamn pants then they better last longer than -2 years. The Seven for All Mankind’s are pretty classic but they kind of make your butt look its actual size. So no on those, obviously. And True Religion’s? Yeaahhh… Why don’t you and your eyelash extensions plonk your clichéd selves in your Subaru and drive directly to yoga class?

So you go home without buying anything because you have STANDARDS, dammit.

Standards but no pants. And you really needed pants…