Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

Hershey's Night At The Museum 2: Blogger Event

Hershey's invited the kids and I to come to Washington DC to take part in a promotion for the upcoming movie Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian. They flew us, and nine other bloggers into the city to have dinner, take an after hours tour of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and then go back to the hotel where the kids could stuff their gobs with s'mores and all the candy you could ever dream of shoving in your mouth.

I'm not sure which part the kids loved the most: the car picking us up and driving us to the airport, the plane ride, seeing the icons of Washington DC (even in a whirlwind way), the way the people held the doors for us at the hotel, the bathtub in the hotel, the Abe Lincoln look-alike, the tour of the Smithsonian, the candy, the late night slumber party movie viewing, or just finally seeing how what I do all day can actually benefit them.

This was the first PR thing the kids were invited to go on and I have to tell you, it was pretty refreshing to wake up at a blog related event without facing an action packed day with a mild to severe hangover. Thank you Hershey's!

The tour was amazing, my kids love museums to begin with but having a personally guided tour by museum curators was beyond great for them. They're at an age where they really get this stuff, and Max in particular is enthralled with air and space. Additionally, they're excellent travel companions at 8 and 10 with almost no bickering at all.

Except for that 45 minutes before dinner on Saturday when I nearly fed them the other's arm because they were crabby and hungry and I wasn't paying $10 for mini bar cashews.

The best part of all this is you can win a similar trip from Hershey's. Read more about it here. There are two really nice things about visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum after it closes. No lines for the bathroom and no arguing over the gift shop at the end of the trip.

You will love this, I hope you win.

The Humiliation: Mutt Strut 2009

My brother walked the Mutt Strut and thanks to a lot of people who were as eager as I was to see my brother march around in a furry hot dog suit (Thank God there isn't a furry hot dog suit guy at the market) (Oh God, I'm sure I just cursed myself) (July is National Hot Dog Month.)

My sister in law sent along a few pictures and an email to say thanks. I think you'll enjoy them.

I forgot to tell you about this one.

Right before Easter I was walking into the market to pick up a few items in order to make Easter dinner for my family. I only needed a couple of things because I called my favorite place, The Chop Shop, to have them make up the main part of our meal. I still highly recommend that place, even above other meal prep places, because everything is put together right there. Not sent from a franchise distribution factory.

I went to the market to round out the menu with rolls and a dessert. On my way into the store a person in a giant furry bunny suit was standing in front of the store handing out candy. I assumed this was something meant for children, children who still believe the Easter bunny is a giant anthropomorphic rabbit with a bow tie, corsage and a basket of candy in front of the grocery store.   

That day I wasn't with the kids and I just wasn't in the mood for candy from the Easter Bunny's basket. So I smiled, shook my hand in his direction and said, "No thanks!" and kept walking into the store.

But the bunny followed me into the store, tapping me on the shoulder and putting his arms up for a hug.

You should know I'm not anti-bunny or even anti-furry-fetish guy, I'm not anti-candy either. But I am pretty vehemently Anti-Hugging-Furry-Fetish-Bunny-Guy. So I said, "Ha ha ha! Aren't you funny! No thanks!"

And kept walking.

And the Furry-Fetish-Bunny-Guy followed me around the produce department trying to wear me down into giving him a hug. Walking next to me, trying to put his arm around my shoulder, holding his hands up in a prayer position and finally just standing by the potatoes holding his arms up in a silent last minute plea for just one chance to rub his furry suited body up against me in a fetish-y fury.

Here's something I've learned about myself in the last couple of months. Some people make it their mission to break down your personal boundaries, and I make it my goal to tell those people to go fuck themselves. (Though in a quieter way.)

The lesson here? I should have bought more side dishes from The Chop Shop so I didn't have to go to the market at all.

Note: I will always tell you if I've been given anything as a gift from a company I write about. The Chop Shop is wonderful and I love using them but we're on a strictly friends basis. However if they want to make out behind the bleachers. Fine!

*Update: Oh geez.....

Did They Eat It: Cincinnati Chili

Have you had Cincinnati Chili before?

I used to eat this chili at the house of my second family, The Mitchell's.  I've talked before about this family I grew up knowing. I've mentioned how I watched them ferociously looking for how normal families work, how normal marriages are, and least dramatically, how people cooked food that tastes good.

Things I learned about food at the Mitchell's:
Hamburgers from McDonald's are not "gourmet".
Spaghetti with clams and red sauce is amazing.
Pork Chops can be cut with a knife without straining your bicep.

Chili from Cincinnati is the best kind of chili in the world. It's made with chocolate and if you hate chocolate you're probably not human.

Mutt Strut is on!

Yes! They reached the goal!

He's wearing the Hot Dog Suit with matching unitard.

Furry Hot Dog Suit. Unitard. Public Humiliation. My brother.

Dreams really can come true. Thank you to everyone who donated!

Pictures coming soon.

I never revealed my secret (unfortunate) Proctor and Gamble Logo Tattoo*.

A few months ago an invitation was extended to me to spend a couple of days with the people at Proctor & Gamble in Ohio. I was invited down to talk about Pampers which is a pretty narrow product to discuss especially since I have been diaper free since 2004...and so have the kids. But I like seeing other bloggers, I like seeing how large corporations build a culture, I enjoy seeing what happens behind the scenes in consumer based companies and I like hearing intelligent people discuss blogging and their audiences, I also love hearing about what people are passionate about, even when it's diapers and baby care products.

I am also a big fan of mommy bloggers in hair nets and goggles. It turns out I'm also fond of mommy bloggers in beard nets who are actually men.

Pamper's People put on a great event for us talking about all sorts of interesting things, like how the diaper market is different all over the world, they recently unveiled a diaper in China (where cloth rules) that is the cost of an egg and will allow a Chinese baby to sleep through the night without getting soaked. Helping babies sleep through the night is a mission I can get behind. Oh, and the one pack = one vaccine thing is nice too but man. Sleeping through the night, you can't go wrong. Obama should get that on his agenda, right after he steals all my brother's money and gives it to me.

Even more baby stuff.

I'm glad I'm at peace with my decision to cut my losses and stop having babies. I'm madly in love with the two I have, but I'm not particularly maternal. You may have noticed. I'm glad I'm at peace because it seems every where I look there are babies! Delicious, delicious babies.

On Saturday we went to a baby shower for one of Logan's coworkers. It's cute right? Logan works with kids, as I like to call them. James just had his bar mitzvah and now, he's married and having a baby of his very own.

I ended up picking up another Mighty Junior pick for our gift. I chose the Cone Sorting toy because aside from the fact that Jayne and James' baby will come out being super intelligent, it's the kind of toy you could have on a shelf and not want to punch yourself.

I think it's actually a cult, not a club.

Yesterday I made a trip to Costco. Every year Jesus smiles upon Costco and brings my favorite beer there and drops the price of it so drastically it's like buying water, or Michelob Ultra (same thing, really). So I stocked up on my favorite beer and then felt a little silly buying just a couple cases of beer. So I grabbed a pack of 600 batteries for our Flip camera and a big bag of those Baby Bell cheeses.

I had also set my mind to finally just buy a pair of shoes already, (thank you thank you thank you all for your suggestions). So I headed over to the shoe store. The car was a little hot because the sun has finally come back to my part of the country and I worried about leaving my cheeses in the car. I shopped for shoes with a giant bag of cheese in my purse.

Gosh I wish someone would have stolen my purse.

I found shoes, these, that are different than my favorite shoes but I think they're cute.

I hate "Savings Clubs", I don't want to carry around your stupid card to get the sale price and "special offers" in the mail. I just want to buy your stuff at the price you want to sell it at, okay? I refuse to join these clubs. It's my tiny, and frankly, ineffective act of rebellion.

So yesterday when I brought my shoes up to the counter with my purse and my big bag of cheese, I politely declined my cashier's offer to join the "Savings Club". "Oh, no thanks." And then I smiled, politely as well.

I was being very polite.

But oh boy, she really felt concerned about my refusal to join the club.

Yoga Lies.

My friends and I are taking yoga classes once a week from our friend Chef Laura who isn't happy being just a kick ass chef, she also wants to be a yoga teacher. I'm married to a Type A and I keep finding Type A people who become my favorite people. Something's happening here.

Here's how I remember the first yoga class Laura taught us:

Her: Just be gentle with yourself. Take a nap.
Me: I like yoga.

Here's how I remember the second yoga class Laura taught us:

Her: Keep moving!
Me: Oh! Funny Twister! How neat!
Her: Keep Moving!
Me: Wait....I'm sweating. I thought this was napping? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Today I'm sore and I don't know how to tell you this.

Yoga is.....
it's something horrible...

Yoga is exercise.

Laura is a liar.

Sex Ed, With Mimes!

I've always made it a goal to not have "funny" words for our sexual organs. I called a penis a penis, and a vagina a vagina and I realize we're really talking about the labia, I simplified.

I thought if I did this from the time my kid's were little they'd never think those words were "weird" or "gross" or "silly".

Of course, when Maddie was 2 we brought Max home from the hospital and gave him a bath. She noticed his penis and asked "What's that?"

I told her, "That's Max's penis, boys have them." (See, nonchalant! My face didn't turn red or anything. Parenting A!)

She said, "Oh, a peanut. Max has a peanut."

"No, it's a penis."

"I SAID IT'S A PEANUT! It's a peanut right mommy?"

Okay.....

Even vagina was changed into acceptable speak for Maddie, as an 18 month old I'd narrate how we were getting her whole body clean in the bath and we'd wash her hair and her face and her belly and her hands and her bottom and her vagina....."Mommy that's my mygina"

"It's actually called a Va-gina."

"I SAID IT'S MYGINA! It's mygina right mommy?"

Okay....

Mostly I just wanted the kids to know that their bodies are theirs and no one is allowed to touch them or make them feel bad in any way. So if that means renaming parts of their body to make them okay, then fine! You can can have linguistic control over your anatomy as well. Girl Power!

Still now I have a 10.5 year old daughter and it's kind of time for "The Talk", in even it's most vague forms because I always thought we'd have an open dialogue about these things. That Maddie wouldn't be at school in 8th grade where a boy asks, 'Do you know what a blow job is?" and she says, "I don't know, something with fixing fans? Or, oh I know! Glass blowing." (Not that I know anything about that.)

The problem is if you say certain words in front of Maddie she dies, comes back to life and dies again:

Here is a partial list.

Life List: Rough Draft Volume 2

So wow, here's what happens. You start writing down what you want to be doing? And all the sudden you can't stop thinking about all the things you can do. It's actually fun to think about everything you can do.

Back when we were in the middle of packing up and moving across town, giving up one dream in favor of another, and I was barely holding my shit together. Maggie and I had a weekly phone call during that time and her way of handling stress is to dream about the next thing. (Little known fact about my friend Maggie, she's very good at dreaming.)

During that time I could barely bring myself to think about what next month would look like, much less make plans involving more time and money.

Now that we're settled here and figuring out everything, it's fun to think of all the things we can do.
Nothing on my list is all that dynamic or difficult but they're all things I want to do. I can't imagine staring at at a list of things I should be doing, but don't really want to. Isn't that what my bill paying station is for?

These are all little things I want out of my life.

I want things on my list I can pull out on a day with some free time and pick something to do. Something fun.

I also want things that will take a little more time, effort and luck. If you're inspired to make your own list, I hope you make it exactly what you want it to be.

A few months ago I caught an episode of Oprah, just a little of it before the kids got home, because it was about S-E-X.

This episode was about how women are coming to this place where they demand sexual satisfaction. And they brought this group of moms in on Skype and one was all, "Oh My God. I'm so busy! I have to worry about being sexually satisfied now too?"

Let's rephrase this statement. Let's say, "Oh God, I have to do something totally pleasurable now!?"

How could you not want to do that? This isn't a chore, it's fun.

Think about a life list the same way.

Delicious....I Mean....Cute....Cute New Babies!

Just before Max's birthday our friends Rachael and Mike had a couple of babies. A couple of babies, I say like they just grabbed them at 7-11. They had two babies they dreamed about and prayed for hooray! And they're here. I worried about it so I feel like I can take credit for them arriving safe and sound. Except, not really at all.

Still, thank God I worried! Who knows what would have happened!

Oh they're cute. They are so cute. They have tiny fingers and noses and little grunts and tiny legs and little arms. They also like to keep their parent's sleeping at a bare minimum and I appreciate that because I'm psychotic without enough sleep so, hey! Thanks girls. You just, by being normal babies, kept me from regretting that vasectomy.

Listening to Rachael and Mike talk about the babies, they're plowing through. They have perspective on raising newborns (two at once)(!!!) that I was never able to get and as I listened to them talk I thought, "Yep, you guys are going to rule at this part of being parents."

Here's a picture of me with one baby, you'll note my chin is the size of this baby's head. This made it very hard to resist putting her head in my mouth. But Mike had strongly warned me against doing this.

Like Living On a Dooce Comment Page

I'm driving Logan to work, because...hey! I was hit while driving Logans car on Tuesday night. But that's not why we're functioning as a one car family. That's because on Wednesday our second car died as well.

2009, I respectfully ask for my money back. You are not working out for me.

Logan likes to get to work early. So early you'd think he didn't work as a senior art director but was instead a dairy farmer, or the doughnut guy, or perhaps the newspaper delivery guy, or a doctor (without the pay).

This morning he dragged me out of bed at 6:00 to drive him over to the office. As we pulled up I saw that the building and lot were totally empty. I kind of rolled my eyes, because only a robot gets to work at this hour, voluntarily.

And Logan yelled out, "First!"

Did They Eat It: Simple Chicken & Noodles

This meal wasn't exactly meant to challenge my three children's tastebuds. If they didn't eat this, I would have made them wear it for sure. And not just for a couple of hours or something. No I'd make them wear it for days so they could really think about how picky they've become and is it worth it now that you're wearing a hat of chicken breasts and noodles.....

We grab lunch at Noodles quite a bit, it's right up the street from us (yay!) and across from the bookstore and since, as a family, we all enjoy eating lunch out and browsing the bookstore we do this quite a bit.

Here's the order, as I've messed it up about 429 times, I now have it tattooed on my forehead.

Maddie: buttered noodles, no parmesan, with seasoning and grilled chicken breast

Max: buttered noodles, with parmesan, seasoning and parmesan crusted chicken breast

Maddie loves the chicken so I decided to try and recreate it at home.

Noted Without Comment

Maddie brought this pen home.

I saw it and thought, "Hey! Whoa!"

Logan saw it and said, "Hey! Where'd that come from?"

Maddie said, "China.....they make everything in China."

Logan said, "Huh, maybe they're re-purposing the moulds in China."

Why Dads are so great.

My sister in law emailed me a delicious recipe last night, saying she and my brother had made it over the weekend and even though I have picky eaters over here, maybe the kids would like this.

When I read the list of ingredients, my mouth started to water....olives, artichoke hearts, feta, sun dried tomatoes....these are all my favorite things.

This list reads like Logan's worst dinner option, you stick a pickle on top and you've got Logan's gastronomic nightmare. Scratch that, add some onions and a pickle.

I wrote back explaining to my sister in law that even though this recipe is free of mayonnaise and onions...it still will never pass in this house. I push the limits sometimes, I mean I have no choice or I'd eat poached chicken and broccoli every night of my life. Trying to pass off this dish at dinner here would mean certain death for me.

Here's her reply.

WHO DOESN'T LOVE FETA?!?
You need to tell them what my Dad would tell us as kids.... 'Eat it or wear it!'
We always opted for eat it but I always wanted to see a sibling wear it.

Eat it or wear it. I've been laughing about this all day. I love the nonsense things Dads come up with to say to their kids.

Additionally I think Eat It Or Wear It could become a lovely addition to the Did They Eat It? thing. We'll dump the "Try a taste of everything on your plate" and replace it with Eat It or Wear It.

It's spring break here this week.
I'd like to say I'm loving it, but you know, I'm not.
So I won't say that.

Hold....me......

Life List: Rough Draft Volume 1

One of the things I've learned from being friends with Maggie Mason is how it's okay to dream big. After my last visit out to see her a year ago, I decided I wanted to get better at having ideas. That's something that's had mixed results because, I am a do-er. I'm less good at having huge ideas because I stare up at them and think, "But how will I get the dishes done?"

So very suburban and not surprising considering the life I live, you know in suburban Detroit where every day seems to be all about getting to the next.

Over and over again Maggie has suggested I do a Life List, like hers at Mighty Girl and over and over I've resisted.

Today I thought I'd just throw 25 out there and then I'll throw out 25 more and so on (editing and revising as I go) and pretty soon I'll have 100 things to do before I die.

Let's start.

Mythical Shoes

(From here.)

A friend once said, 'I've never met someone who worries so much about money.'

And oh boy that's me. But then again, you could tag almost anything onto that sentence and it would still be accurate.

"I've never met anyone who worries so much about cancer."
"I've never met anyone who worries so much about their car."
"I've never met anyone who worries so much about ebola."

All true!

But today I'd like to talk about my shoes. I have these shoes I bought last year at Old Navy. They were like $15 and I loved them so much that at the beginning of the winter I pretended people wore shoes without socks in the winter in Michigan in a snow storm.

I've worn them, and worn them, and because I'm so cheap I haven't really worn many other shoes. $15 shoes from Old Navy aren't really meant to be worn every day in all types of weather. The sole of these things is going to fall off soon and then I'm going to be totally out of luck. Forced to wear the only other shoes appropriate for spring in my collection, the ones my mother complimented me on a couple of months ago.

My mom says things like, "I bought these shoes for kickin' around!" And they're the ugliest shoes you've ever seen but she wears them all the time anyway. Because she's always kickin' around....I guess?

This is why I was horrified by her telling me I had cute shoes. Because 'cute' to my mom....is inexplicable.

The problem is I hate shopping for clothes and such(am too cheap, and overwhelmed by all the choices) and I like these shoes more than any other shoes in the land. Except that they're wearing out and wearing them in the rain is like walking around barefoot. I walked a few blocks in the rain last Wednesday and the shoes stayed wet for 3 days.

I'm wondering if you can help me find a similar pair for under $40. Here are some pictures I just took at the coffee shop with my phone. (Not awkward at all.)