17 LOLS TO GET YOU TO 2017

Let's be honest, 2016 was rough. We could all use a few more LOL moments to carry us into next year. Here are 17:

1). When your child turns to you and finally asks about the fish that have been dead for 6 months.

2). When you spend date night discussing at what age our kids will be able to fully digest raisins.

3). My two year old hanging off the roof of her car yelling, "Safety first".

4). When people text me at 8am and ask if they woke me up.

5). The checker at the grocery store asking me with a straight face as my oldest dumps out the entire contents of a box of cereal, while my youngest is repeating, “Mommy, Mom, Mom, Mommy, Mom” if I had a relaxing holiday.

6). Parenting is like 90% worrying that your kid is choking while the other 10 is spent with your fingers in their mouth checking.

7). “Go away, Mom. We are being safe.”

8). When the doctor hands you your second child and tells you that it is important for you to get lots of rest.

9). My favorite child will be whichever one learns how to locate and put on her shoes first.

10). Charlotte finding me in the bathroom to tell me, “I put the lotion in the basket.”

11). What is it like living in a house with three girl humans and two girl dogs? Hairy. It’s hairy.

12). In my 3 seconds of free time I have each day I think about all the money we could save on our next house if we just didn’t bother putting doors on all the bathrooms.

13). Friend: What do you do while Charlotte is at preschool?

Me: I usually spend the 45 minutes having a moral dilemma hovering over the trash deciding which glued macaroni “art projects” she made the day before in class are worth saving and which she won’t notice have gone missing.  

14). When you find a typo in someone else's holiday card and you are filled with the same entitled smugness that your 2 year old has year-round.

15). Friend: What did you get your youngest for Christmas?

Me: Whichever toy my oldest throws on the ground first.

16). My most productive time of the day is when my kids wake up from nap and when I decide to get them from their rooms.

17). Charlotte: "Mom, I need help." (Takes my hand)

Me: "With what?"

Charlotte: "I have poop on my hands."

Parenthood is a veritable alphabet soup of hilarity. I can only imagine the bowl of fun we'll have in 2017.

How to Spot a Preggo

I can always tell which of my friends or acquaintances are pregnant and it’s never because they have suddenly stopped drinking or are constantly running to throw up like in the movies. It is a bunch of little undetectable habits that to the naked eye may seem normal; but to a veteran mother are about as obvious as smiling during a poker game.

They start smelling your kids. Not in a creepy way, but in a I just pulled out fresh laundry and I want to inhale all its goodness kind of way.

They start incessantly liking all of your posts. Let's face it by the 50th post of your child smiling in a onesie, you've cut your target audience in half. 

They start asking super odd questions about your children’s sleeping habits and whether or not you avoided soft cheeses during your pregnancy.

Their social media pages become Grandma-friendly. Suddenly their girls' weekends in Vegas turn into wholesome dog walking photos on the beach.

If someone accidentally brushes up against their boobs, they flinch like you’ve just pegged them with a BB gun.

They start talking about napping and sleep the way children talk about Disneyland.

I respect all women’s right to privacy and ultimately it is their decision on when they decide to spill the beans. Just know that I see you out there gagging over the smell of pickles, giving death stares to smokers and it’s no secret that, that big burrito you said you ate for lunch is actually not a "food baby". 

Stir Crazy Rainy Daze

You’ve never truly known the meaning of the expression “stir crazy” until you’ve stayed at home with your kids on a rainy day. It would be one thing if I could plop them down in front of the TV with popcorn and let them watch Sesame Street until their brains turned into Alphabet Soup, but there is just something about being trapped indoors that brings out their inner hamsters on a wheel. Of course my children own rain gear and we could go out and splash in puddles or do other indoor activities, and it’s not so much the amount of effort it takes to suit them up and strip them down, but the fact that I’d have to change out of my PJ's, which is where in the plan that I must immediately throw down my all-powerful mommy veto.

To say that my house gets messy on these days is like saying a hurricane has mild wind and light rain. If someone were to pop over unexpectedly, I would be forced to turn off the lights and hide with my children in the pantry, since we passed suitable for guests with our Play-Doh and pasta food fight. Although this is probably unwise because I can see someone looking through our window and believing that we were the victims of a looting or perhaps the before picture for a show on HGTV and then immediately contacting the necessary authorities. However if this lands us on some sort of home makeover show where they send my family to Disneyland for a week, our last name is spelled with 3 r's, not 2.

These are the days where New Girl’s “True American” or Friends’ “Fireball” were invented-- except you aren’t still living in a loft with 4 other roommates and you have actual responsibilities, so none of your games can include alcohol or fire. Instead our wholesome family activities are a very literal translation of “climbing the walls” and me raiding various closets for novel items that my kids have yet to put in their mouths or hit each other with. The rain is expected to continue through the weekend, so things are about to get a whole lot more interesting over here. If you are reading this please send more Play-Doh and lots of coffee-- we might only be one rainy day away from matching mother and daughters' footie pajamas.