Flip the Nerd

Remember (way, waaaaay back in the olden days of the 80s) making little flip books of crudely-drawn parachute guys and exploding bombs? Where you'd mark every single side edge of your mom's 100-page note pad, and everyone would take phone messages for the next ten years on paper scarred by black Bic stick figures in various degrees of gory, red-marker-splattered death?

(Um, no? Just me?)

Er, regardless, I found a few flip-book-worthy photo series last night while I deleted all the gross pictures of me sorted and organized our holiday photos of my family in Wisconsin.

First, there was a somewhat jerky but heart-tugging set of Silas receiving a used and battered lightsaber from my little brother, which I'll call The Most Awkwardly Sweet Hug Ever series. (Go ahead, you can click on any one to see it better.)

Then we went sledding and birthed the Glass Slipper series:

And the Oh, Crap, Sledding is Way Scarier than I Remember It set:

Also the Man in the Iron Ski Mask photos:

And the Karma's a Witch set:

And, finally, along a somewhat related vein, a night of sub-zero Wisconsin temps produced the Rob the Husband Tries to Throw Boiling Water into the Air to Watch it Turn to Steam but Accidentally Throws it on Himself Instead series:

So flippin' satisfying. Artistically, I mean. Not a mean-spirited-laughing-because-I-warned-Rob-he-might-burn-himself kind of satisfying. (Kind of.) (For the most part.) (Meanest wife ever.)

Curious about my family? Check out THE BEST CHRISTMAS PHOTO OF ALL TIME.

(And prepare to leave even more confused...)

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The Grinchy Car Thief Who Stole My Christmas Spirit

Sometimes I have it where my heart, no matter how hard I try, just ends up being mean and charcoal black.

Enter Christmas 2013 and the person who stole our GPS...and also a hairy dog towel and a decade-old DVD player sporting a broken cord that fell out every time the car hit a pothole. [Enter also the sound of my mean, mean heart chortling just a bit.]

2 days prior:

2 days, 10 minutes prior:

2 days, 20 minutes prior:

2 days, 30 minutes prior:

[more sounds of my rotten heart laughing]

Bah. Freaking. Humbug.

Want more questionable art skills + car stories + quality parenting techniques?

You may enjoy the time I scarred the kids with real tears of mom despair.

Missing out on Facebook updates? Mark Z. screwed it all up this month! Here's the easy fix:

1. Go to the Yankee Mom page here.

2. Hover over the "Liked" button and choose "Get notifications."

3. Growl at your screen.

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Am I Raising Entitled Kids?

When my eldest was born, I remember gazing into her wrinkly little face and swearing, "I will help you be a strong and capable woman. A do-it-all-yourself lioness!" Then somewhere along the way I missed the turnoff for Independence Street and kept right on plowing down Toddler Boulevard. with a 7-year-old in tow.

Want more? Read the rest at Families in the Loop! Click HERE to find out how I woke up, saw the light, and made my kids hate me more. Go me!

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Shake Djibouti: An Idiot's Guide to Teaching your Children Geography

How to force-feed gently encourage your kids to be violent, regurgitating robots to learn geography:

Step 1. Marry Rob.

Step 2. Endure 5 years of Rob's thinly-veiled disgust that you did not know the West Indies was synonymous with the Caribbean and that the map in your brain placed the West Indies somewhere, oh, just west of India?

Step 3. Produce heirs. Pray they'll distract him from his more recent discovery that you're (still...even now) unsure of the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom.

Step 4. Grant him his lifelong dream: A Giant Wall Map. Pretend not to notice the shimmer of joy in his eye and his somewhat creepy map caresses when you first hang it.

Step 5. Allow him access to your children's tender emotional states and give him leave to turn your sweet, sweet children into savage geography monsters, pitting them against one other in a fiercely bloody competition complete with screaming, occasional body pounding and kicking, and nightly crying.

Step 6. Take a video for posterity's sake. And then leave before you accidentally learn something.

Want more of Rob?

You may enjoy the time we almost died on a mountain because he was taking selfies.

Or perhaps the post about chapstick. And its perils.
Or maybe when he took Silas to get his mug shot.

Or the time he gave me gonorrhea.

Or just click the "Rob the Husband" label to the right...you can read all day. All. Day.

Merry Christmas.

Taxicab Confessions

Isn't it refreshing when someone tells the truth about her parenting experiences? You can sit back, sip your coffee, and gloat over your own superior skills?

Well, sit back, sip your coffee, and gloat over your own superior skills. Welcome to more questionable illustrations, confessions, and something occasionally referred to as "Thursday afternoon":

Confession #1: Moments before this glorious opening scene, nearing the end of a long day and my short rope, I had a) taken away the privilege of dessert for two days, b) banned all TV time for a week, and then c) threatened to hang their dirty underwear on the mailbox the next time I found a pair on the floor. And here we were, about to go into public. It was a stupid rookie move.

Confession #2: I was wearing sweatpants. (Somewhat unrelated, but in the spirit of confession, I'll include it.)
  

Confession #3: I may have been momentarily amused by the irony of our errand - bratty kids protesting a trip to the pharmacy to fill my birth control prescription. Neither hell nor high water could have kept me away at this point.

Confession #4: Probably.

Confession #5: I had run out of all other ideas (obviously) (please refer to Confession #1), so I stooped low. Like slithering-on-the-floor low. Like fake-chin-trembling-and-an-escaped-sobbing-breath-to-invoke-an-empathetic-response low. Yep. I pretended to cry.

Confession #6: And then I resorted to dramatic, flashy sentiments.
 

Confession #7: I made my kids cry. Out of genuine sadness.

Confession #8: And then, amid my sniffled "My heart is so heavy" and my choked "I could have a job where I do things for people who pay me money and respect me, but I have chosen to be with you two, and you can't even show me enough love to take a silly little trip without fighting and complaining," I found that I was actually crying. Like for real. My heart was so heavy. I could have a job where I do things for people who pay me money and respect me. What was I doing with my life??

Confession #9: As I type this, Silas is looking over my arm, concerned about this cartoon mom. "Did her kids make her cry?" "What did her kids do??" (pausing for a moment) "HEY!...[laughing]...this is when we went to Walmart!"

Confession #10: I may have let them weep and apologize for a good five minutes because I felt so sorry for myself.

Confession #11: I kissed their soft cheeks with extra kisses and gave their monkey bodies extra squeezy hugs when we finally arrived. They stroked my hair and patted my back while apologizing all over again. I tucked away the highly effective Crying Parent Card to play again in the future, and then I made a beeline straight to the pharmacy counter and filled the heck out of that prescription.

Confession #12: They were so remorseful that I gave back all dessert and TV time. My dirty-underwear-on-the-mailbox threat still stands, however.

Like quality art + questionable parenting?

You may enjoy the time I was attacked by a dementor. Click here to read on!