Did You Say Thank You?
I imagined one day mom boys wearing a uniform of some sort and approaching a distraught mom late for the carpool line.
I thought about the mom who had raised that polite and helpful young man.
Thanks mom. You done real good.
Not Qualified? No Problem: On-the-Job Training is Provided
I sat in my tiny cubicle and blinked.
The computer screen flickered in front of me and I felt like a trapped mouse.
What was I doing here?
My first “real” job where someone thought I was decent enough to get paid for my skills. Like, a salary, a 401K and the whole nine yards.
Zeke and Abacus- Two Friends Living Outside the Box
Zeke: “Hey Ab, see this box right here? Let’s jump in it and slide down the stairs!”
Abacus: “Ummm, what happens if we don’t actually slide down and we end up rolling down, instead?”
Zeke: *looks up from his position in the box to raise his eyebrows at Abacus*
Zeke: “Yeah, so….”
Welcome Stevie Mahardhika
I’d like to introduce you to Stevie!
Stevie comes to us by way of New Zealand and he is a full-time children’s book illustrator.
We met on Match.com (hahaha just kidding.)
Actually, I came across his work online and I took a deep breath when I cold-emailed his agent.
Just Prime Those School Supplies
Current state of preparedness for school:
I just told Josh to tell his teacher that his school supplies are on the Amazon truck.
Also, I just opened their backpacks to put some papers in there and found an old orange that probably came home in May.
Charting the Uncharted Waters of the Morning Routine
But for the most part, if they forget something, they suffer the natural consequences.
Mama… hang with me on this one. Let them learn the “hard” lesson. The lesson is going to be much softer at home than it will be later in life. Sometimes, a lesson learned the hard way will be a lesson never forgotten.
For Kids Ready to Handle Life, Upload These Three Bytes of Info into Their Brains at the Start of School
The next day, I joined millions of other parents who had reached the same crossroads and asked myself, “How does one *actually* teach someone else ‘how to tie their own shoes’?”
I did what any self-respecting parent does and I YouTube’ed it.
Making Friends at Costco
There’s a fun new game I discovered at Costco (I think the employees really like it).
I’ll tell all the kids to get in the cart, then I wheel all the kids and the stuff in the cart to the side of the cashier.
Then I shout “THANKS FOR THE FREE BABYSITTING!!!” and run away laughing.
Boys DO Like the Mushy Stuff (just keep it shhhhh)
Most moms would just write a few words on a post-it note. But I am a writer. And both of my boys can read (rather well). And they are used to my diatribes. So they would be surprised NOT to get the full force of my literary flourishes.
I wrote the rest of the sentence. Then I tried to read it back to myself.
A Home for Beetle
“Mom, WHAT’S THAT?”
I looked over my left shoulder from my position at the dinner table. I arched my eyebrows quizzically at Josh. I followed his right arm, outstretched toward a point on the crumb-laden pattern on the travertine.
I looked hard at the ground; searching for what concerned my firstborn. I mean, what was I supposed to see? I saw the crumbs… completely unremarkable.