Holy Sleet, I'm Bored

It's another snowy/sleety/rainy day in these parts. So I've written today off as a lazy day at home, doing puzzles and watching movies with the boys. They played nicely by themselves for about 45 minutes in the next room, so I was even able to catch an episode of my boyfriend, Tony's show, The Layover. Parenting!

I'll be stepping on blocks and books and dinosaurs all day today. But you know what I won't be doing today? Going onto Pinterest for "rainy day" ideas for toddlers and preschoolers. Because you know what? All that horse sh!t is just a lot of flipping work for mom. I made cloud dough once for W and blargh! I was cleaning slippery flour off my kitchen floor for days. And my house smelled sickeningly of baby oil all day. I wanted to ralph. So, I won't be filling a bag with finger paint and taping it to my door. I won't be making any more god forsaken cloud dough. And I won't be making an indoor mini sandbox with rice. My kids can rot in front of the television, thank you very much. Screw you, Pinterest! I free myself of your vice grip. I will be a god-for-nothing, lazy parent today. Ole!

I will NOT be making any more f@&king cloud dough.

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Speaking of lazy parenting, I'm currently reading an excellent book. I haven't read many general parenting style books. I can recite the Essential Guide for Parents of Preemies and You Can Adopt, but that's where my parenting research kind of fizzles out. I perused The Happiest Toddler on the Block for a while, but it seemed so far fetched to me. Like, for robot parents. Not parents who have lazy days. Then I found the book I'm currently reading and I just fell in love. It's called The Idle Parent, by Tom Hodgkinson and I think it might have been written just for me. It's magic in type form. Teaching kids to 'just be' and sitting back to let the magic happen is my kind of parenting style. Please, check it out if you're like me and just want to let you kids be free range from time to time so you can sit back and watch No Reservations while snarfing a Diet Coke float for lunch. 

Some of the key points in his idle parent manifesto are:

• We pledge to leave our children alone
• We reject the idea that parenting is hard work
• We drink alcohol without guilt
• We lie in the bed for as long as possible
• We read them poetry and fantastic stories without morals
• We reject the inner Puritan
• We try not to interfere
• We both work as little as possible, particularly when the kids are small 
• There are many paths    

Sounds pretty ok, doesn't it? Coming from a childhood where I suspect my mother was a so-called "helicopter parent," it only make sense for the pendulum to swing back the other way. Not sure if this is your bag or not? You know this book might be for you if any of the following are true:

• You're happy letting your kids run free at the playground while you play Words with Friends on the bench
• You let your kids climb up the slide the wrong way, even while other moms are screaming at their kids for the same apparent atrocity
• You wait for the mother at the birthday party to finish her story about how cake is a big deal because at home, they mostly eat BULGAR, then tell her happily that sometimes you let your son walk to the bakery to eat a cupcake for lunch.
• You calmly wait for a howl after a large crash before you get up to see what or who is broken. 
• Your baby proofing begins and ends at plugs in electric sockets and an upstairs gate.
• You don't shelter your kid from good music, just because there's cursing in it

Check it out. It's a good thing. Also a good thing? The aforementioned Diet Coke float I just made to wash down my lunch. Yessiree, today's shaping up to be an ok day.

Ain't No Party Like a Liz Lemon Party Because a Liz Lemon Party is Mandatory

Next week marks the end of one of my favorite shows of all time, 30 Rock. I want to have coffee with Liz Lemon. She's on a very short list of amazing sitcom women. And I will just miss her so very, very much. Not much else to say about it, really. So here's a bunch of YouTube clips from a really classy show. Weep not for the memories.

At least I still have Leslie Knope. Now walk away from YouTube, Linds...

...In Which I Find Some Time for Me

Confession, ya'll: I pluck my eyebrows in the car because it's the only place I have to do so. And I only do it about once ever six weeks. So... yeah. When I paint my nails, I text pictures of the event to my friends. Just today, I took ten minutes to master the art of sock bunnery and was so proud, I texted it to the friends I knew would feign interest. Taking time to do things for myself is very, very low on my list of priorities (and I don't consider sitting on the stool in the kitchen, pinteresting on my iPhone while hiding from the kids "me time"). But that's something I'd like to change this year. The kids aren't in a constant state of AAAAACK anymore and I think I've got this mom-of-two thing down a bit more and I'm ready for a little Summer of George.

Damn tight sock bun, son. But worthy of mass text? Really? Also, judge not the walls. It was that way when we moved in (ahemfouryearsago).

I'm not gonna like, liposuction my double chin and lay around eating bon bons or anything looney like that.  I just want to do more things for me. Like remember to pluck my eyebrows more than once every six weeks. Or start saving for a new bathroom so I don't have to pluck in the car anymore <insert wishful dream bubble>.
This weekend, I'm supposed to go out with a friend to celebrate her divorce which by definition, means a hangover will be involved. So that's cool. Last weekend we actually got a sitter and went out with friends. Or I'll paint my nails more - and when they start to chip, I'll take the time to actually remove the paint instead of looking like a 14 year old girl for a month. Or I'll make shaving my legs in the shower such a commonplace affair, that I can stop announcing it, proudly.

Sometimes I feel like the only mom who can't hold her shit together. But I can't be, right? Surely there are other women out there who feel the need to document when they take the time to learn how to jam a sock in their ponytail, right? Right?

sniffle sniffle snort

We've been sick since Christmas Eve. W is finally getting over it, but I woke up with a fresh cold this morning, so I know it's just a matter of time before he falls. H has an immune system of steel so he misses all the germs. He's a snotty mess right now, though. He's getting four molars and two bottom teeth. So he's even more delightful than the sick one. I'm fairly certain that 93% of my home is covered in a thin, dried sheen of mucous.
I'm all about natural treatments of cold discomfort. I have a neti pot, and use humidifiers at night and drink ass tons of tea. But I'm all about otc medications for me and the little ones. I try to only give them their Tylenol or Advil before bed, but I'm super quick to pop a pill to be able to face the day. My current favorite is Mucinex because it doesn't make me loopy. I use to love to cuddle up to a box of purple Sudafed, but it makes me trip the light fantastic and that's no good with the little ones that actually want to do something other than stare at the wall, so that's been pushed to the back of the medicine closet, for now. 

What do you do for your kids when they have a cold? What helps them to sleep through the night when they're sick or teething?