This amazingly adorable Halloween treat is incredibly easy if, IF, you heed one crucial step. Follow along and you’ll be well on your way to delighting children of all ages. Seriously, being the “best mother ever,” (that was a direct quote) is just a trip to the donut shop away.
So I can hear what you’re thinking: “What directions could there possible be to follow? Get some donuts, candy eyes, icing, and vampire teeth and throw them all together.” Oh, simple one, I thought the same things, too. I saw the pictures floating around the internet and thought “I can do that.”
So I hit the shops to gather my ingredients, only when I got to Dunkin’ Donuts, they were a little low on donuts. Probably because it was 2:00 PM, but whatever. I had planned on getting three dozen chocolate glazed cake donuts because that was what my daughter requested, but alas, I had to make do with what the breakfast crowd left behind. I ended up with a dozen glazed and two other dozen cobbled together with chocolate glazed, pumpkin, and chocolate iced. I’ve learned as a mother to go with the flow because sometimes it’s the flow that keeps you afloat. You’ll see what I mean in a minute.
I had a speedier time in Michaels Craft Store. It being the first day of fall and all, the slime green icing, candy eyes, and vampire fangs were right up front. Yeah, nevermind they had been up front since August. I guess I should be glad they weren’t sold out.
In no time I was home and on my way to creating my cyclops monsters . The first box of donuts I opened happened to be the complete dozen of glazed.
I soon figured out it was helpful to pinch the fangs like so to insert them into the center.
For attaching the eye, I put a big glob of icing on the back because I wanted it to ooze out the sides.
Voilà!
So onto the next dozen! I went through the same procedure, except I stopped halfway through the box because I needed to switch the laundry over. Couldn’t just be making treats for the field hockey team, I needed to wash my girl’s uniform, too. Minutes later, I came back to a horror show! The fangs had sprung open to break the donuts.
Are you kidding me? I “glued” the donuts back together with some slime icing and ended up just laying the fangs on top of the other ones. Not quite as cute, but not bad either.
KEY TO SUCCESS: The type of donut matters! Use classic glazed donuts because they have enough spring and give to hold the teeth. Cake-like donuts crack and break apart!
I am so glad I was forced to buy so many glazed ones because they turned out the best. At least I had a bunch of those!
Apparently, we are all about the donuts here. Check out these posts, too.
Hey! Want to buy our new book? I Just Want to Be Perfect brings together 37 hilarious and relatable essays that showcase the foibles of ordinary women trying to be perfect.
Empty nest? EMPTY NEST?! Bwahahahaha! I wish. My girl may have launched 1150 miles away to college, but she left her nest anything but empty. I think more fitting words would be disarranged, disorganized, and disgusting. In truth it looked like a mob boss had tossed the room for the secret stashes of cash before fleeing the country.
To her credit, she washed, cleaned, organized, and packed all of her things for college. She managed to do such a good job that she was able to get it all in her allotted suitcases coming in under the airline weight restrictions. But once we returned home from drop-off and the brain bash of leaving my first baby at college drained away, the full disaster of her room walloped me. First it stabbed me in the heart because it looked like she should be arising from the rubble to greet me every morning. Seriously, her bed not only looked like she was still in it, but I swear if you stared at the heap long enough, it looked like it was breathing. My girl used A LOT of blankets since her father keeps the thermostat just north of “meat locker.”
It was with a healthy dose of trepidation that I sidled into the room and threw off the comforter. Hey, she once had a bat doing a jig at the end of her bed so a family of possums setting up camp under there was not beyond the realm of possibilities.
“Whoosh” went the covers and “ewwww” went the very core of my psyche. Had she even changed her sheets in the past three months, wait . . . THREE YEARS? It really could have been longer because I think I stopped cleaning my kids rooms and ceased being the sole laundress when she reached middle school. Silver lining: I still didn’t have to wash the sheets because they went directly into the trash.
But gah! Even though I wasn’t cleaning my daughters’ rooms, they were expected to clean them. But now that I think about it, I never inspected them. I would inspect the bathrooms they decontaminated weekly because I swear the blow dryer would just whisk the mechanics of scrubbing a toilet clean out of their heads. And there was that one time our mismatched sock basket overflowed to Vesuvius levels because apparently it was easier to assume EVERY sock in our dryer was flying solo than it was to match and fold them. But their rooms? If they bothered me too much, I just closed the doors.
I truly thought she had cleaned her room though. I know I had seen it tidy at least once during the Obama administration, but once the stripped bed floated like an oasis in the middle of the room, it became clear that instead of following the “touch-it-once” rule, she was employing the “why-throw-something-away-when-you-can-shove-it-under-your-bed-in-your-closet-in-a-drawer-or-behind-the-trash-can” rule. “Just-leave-it-in-the-middle-of-the-ever-loving-floor” rule was her fail safe for when doing the bare minimum to qualify for lazy was just too taxing.
What started as “I’m just going to just pick up those pencils and put them in the caddy,” turned into a full-on excavation. Oh the treasures I found.
There was the solitary volleyball knee pad that was so old, the spandex crumbled when I picked it up. At least there was a deteriorating lollipop gluing part of it together.
Then I found a little straw dress-up purse that contained such treasures as an expired coupon for toilet bowl cleaner and yet another decaying lollipop. (I’m starting to think her superior dental health was because she liked to hoard candy rather than eat it. Why we didn’t trade dental bills for exterminator fees, I’ll never know.)
Also amongst the rubble was a princess jump rope (permanently tangled), a junior scientist kit (never opened), and one hundred plus eleven lip balms (half of which where plastered to—you guessed it—lollipops).
I’m going to save you any more particulars, but suffice it to say, I filled up three garbage bags with stuff I didn’t even have to think twice about throwing away. Okay, I did pause over the one little purple fuzzy slipper because WHAT IF THE OTHER ONE TURNED UP?? They were pretty stinkin’ adorable.
Seems not cleaning my kids’ rooms was an initiative that should have had an exit strategy. This became abundantly clear when I started stumbling over emotional landmines like her “All About Me” kindergarten profile, the stuffed cat she use to snuggle with, and her stack of Webkinz adoption certificates. Those trips down memory lane would have been so much better with her rather than by myself three weeks into her departure when the ache of not seeing her was starting to set in. Silver lining: I had the cover of dirt dervishes to explain my reddened eyes and snuffly nose.
I really meant for the Big Clean to happen over the summer with her fully in charge; but when faced with grief or change I tend to “panic travel.” It’s like a driving force that overtakes me, compelling me to move forward and make new memories rather than dwell with the ghosts of the past, no matter how cute they are.
Besides, I hate to clean, too. Going to Philly was soooo much more fulfilling than battling dust bunnies.
Oh, but snooker me once . . . you’re obviously the oldest child. Second child: don’t even think about it. You’ll have to blaze your own trail to elude me because this pathway has been scorched.
My 10th grader is shoveling out her room even as we speak . . . under protest of course. “My sister made it all the way out of the house before having to do this and now YOU’RE cleaning her room.”
True, but I did leave this wall of memorabilia for her to deal with. I’m COMPLETELY positive I won’t be the one taking it down weeks after her wedding day. I just wasn’t ready to turn her nest into the perfect guest room quite yet. She needs somewhere familiar to land when she comes homes to roost every once in a while.
I’ll leave you with a pro tip since we are after all the Sensible Moms. My girl has a TON of knick-knacks as you can see. I consolidated a bit of the tedious mess by putting the smallest treasures in a two gallon glass container creating a Memorabilia Jar. It truly cut down the clutter more than it may seem. The biggest trick to it is to put some boxy types items in the center so that everything gets displayed around the perimeter.
[Speaking of memory lane, I found the post I wrote when we redecorated my daughter’s room five years ago. I actually wrote about how I would be happy for the massive clean out I was doing then because it would save me from doing it when she went away to college. I don’t know whether to be grateful for the realization that THIS cleaning could have been worse or to tip over laughing at my delusion that a whole new mountain of stuff wouldn’t accumulate in five years time. (Obviously things slithered through that first wave of cleaning like her kindergarten profile because, well, we’re awesome.) You can be the judge after reading it here.]
Hey! Want to buy our new book? I Just Want to Be Perfect brings together 37 hilarious and relatable essays that showcase the foibles of ordinary women trying to be perfect.
Okay, let’s start out with a definition of terms because what better way could there possibly be to get a par-tay started!?
So . . .
When I say over-the-top, I’m not talking about about dropping $40,000 or even dollar bills remotely approaching four figures on a party. Rest assured children has never left my parties with custom birthstone rings nor have aerialists ever descended from my trees. To my knowledge.
Also, my penchant towards over-reaching crafts, cakes, and activities has NOTHING to do with Pinterest as much as I would love to foist the blame on that most fabulous website everyone loves to roast. I WAS Pinterest before it was even a gleam of HTML code in a developer’s eye since I had dial-up internet and a film camera when my first child was born. Chew on that fossilized tidbit for a moment while I adjust my hearing aid and take my calcium.
Now, I have one important qualifier. Since there was no Facebrag to post on, my creations were not perfectly staged in front of rustic wooden fences draped with the prerequisite handmade pennant banners. However, they were enough for other moms to give me the side-eye. Just don’t give my photos the side-eye now. There was no need for the perfect picture.
So that’s what my parties were not. Here’s what my parties were.
There’s the time I hand-painted a dragon on a sheet and constructed a PVC pipe frame to hang it from so the multitude of tiny revelers could joust during my daughter’s “Unicorns and Dragons” party to celebrate her 7th birthday.
Then there’s the time I had a herd of kids construct Littlest Pet Shop habitats using a bushel load of craft supplies. I must note that I never had loose glitter. Giving children access to vials of glitter could be the only criteria needed to diagnose insanity.
Oh, and by the way, my kids have always gotten their very own birthday cakes to dig into. With abandon. We’re kind of famous for it. (The guests generally get their own spit-free cupcakes.)
Okay, one more shout-out to my cakes. Indulge me because I really am sparing you from the one million pictures I want to post from my time hop through my external hard drive, and anyway, how cute is this owl? You don’t have to answer because I already know.
Okay, just one more because c’mon, just look at it. It’s a cake that looks like an ice cream bar on a stick!
Seriously, this post has taken me longer to write than a doctoral thesis on fondant because I have gotten so caught up in the wonderful memories. So what could possibly be the pitfall?
Well, they might have been a tad too boisterous, a tad too three-ring-circus, just a tad too much . . . pushing the bar for what passes as a successful party a bit too high. While painting this dragon didn’t set me up for further sticky situations (unless you count being drafted to paint a backdrop for Vacation Bible School and I probably should) . . .
. . . inviting half the neighborhood, the entire class, church friends, and the swim team did set me up for some problems down the line.
See, I set the expectation that if there wasn’t a ruckus with enough guests to field two complete soccer teams and a cheer squad, then it wasn’t a party. This wasn’t really a problem in the easy-breezy early years of childhood where their friends equaled who sat at their lunch tables. However, as kids got closer to adolescence and alliances became dicier and ever-shifting, this made making the guest list more tumultuous and emotionally charged often resulting in a fairly short list of invitees. And this was completely fine . . . except for the party paradigm I had created.
While I would not have changed those early preschool parties for anything, I wish I had scaled my way back as the years progressed so that a sleepover with four buddies would seem like a perfectly acceptable party. To be honest, I’m not sure who it was a bigger problem for, me or my kids.
Luckily this was not a pitfall that trapped me forever. Time and my ever maturing kids have “cured” my over-the-top-ness. And let’s face it, there are worst things to be than a party planner extraordinaire who wants to celebrate the heck out of her kids. My one wish is that you duly note things can get a little rougher in the tween and teen years when parties are not as simple as goodie bags and pinatas. Now, out of my way! I’m going to the kitchen to get a cake under some candles to make that wish come true.
Speaking of perfection, buy our new book, I Just Want to Be Perfect, bringing together 37 hilarious and relatable essays that showcase the foibles of ordinary women trying to be perfect.
If all the world’s a stage, then the internet is its courtroom, judge, and jury (gavel down, sentence delivered, forever and ever, amen). This is particularly true when matters of parenting blow through the headlines; and most profoundly true when children are at the center of tragedies.
Those who are at least tempered with empathy tiptoe along the lines, “I pray for those parents who let their guard down. If only they had heeded the signs. If only they had been vigilant.”
Those with less of a filter blare like air horns, “That would have never happened to me because I always watch my child! Those parents are neglectful!”
These two opinions, while differing in their stridency, are two sides of the same coin of defensive attribution. This is a mental mechanism used to avoid the worry that you too could become a victim or the cause of something bad. In these cases that translates into the belief that you are far superior at monitoring your children than the parent of the harmed child. As an added mind-bending bonus, the more similar you are to the parents, the more likely you are to assign blame: “There has to be a reason this happened!” If there is a reason–some fault that can be pinpointed–then the protective portion of your brain reasons YOU could avoid such a thing. This reaction of placing blame on the parents becomes more amped-up as the situation becomes more serious. In short, this helps you feel less worried that bad things will happen to you and your kids.
I would say a child being snatched by an actual predator at the happiest place on Earth counts as a nightmare of what can happen if you let your guard down. The thing is, I can put myself easily in these parents’ places. I have walked along the sloping sandy shores of the beach surrounding that lagoon with my own kids throughout the years. I have strained my mind’s eye to recall if they ever touched the water, but I can’t remember because nothing horrible happened to etch it into my memory. I will be honest and say a “No Swimming” sign does not mean “Don’t Go Near the Water” to me, and I also have never once thought about alligators on the Disney property.
While I have a harder time relating to the gorilla incident, I never had the hubris to judge that mother, especially without all of the facts. Just like I can’t remember if my kids ever waded into the Disney lagoon, I can never know how many times my parenting vigilance slipped because by the grace of God, they were not the critical moments. They were not the moments that would write a chapter of tragedy into my life.
We as a species react to risk in an emotional way–a tendency that can heap added pain onto those who are enduring the most tragic event of their lives in the glare of the media spotlight. But the good news is we can cognitively understand our reaction. We can understand we assign blame to convince ourselves that an accident couldn’t possibly happen to us. We can understand that we need to believe we are untouchable because we are too smart or too attentive or too good or too whatever it takes to avoid the heartache.
Why is this good news? Because when our brains tell our hearts that accidents happen, empathy wins out over judgement. “But for the grace of God go I” is a sound way to live because you never know when you may need a little empathy for yourself.
Short of a personal trainer, an industrial strength leash, a never empty coffee pot, and an ironclad agreement with the relatives to babysit every weekend, you know what would make this whole parenting thing a whole lot easier? A book or better yet a whole library to tell you what was coming and what to do once you got there. Motherhood doesn’t just change your pants size, your shoe size, and your selection at Victoria’s Secret, Motherhood changes EVERYTHING. And then it keeps on changing. ALL. THE. TIME. You will just get your parenting stride at a stage, and your little darling is sprinting on to the next one. So we took some inspiration from classic books and children’s books to mark some milestones of childhood for you. Think of this as the Cliff’s Notes Reader’s Guide to Parenting. Some fanfare, please . . .
1. War and Peace
The First Year
Now Erin has never actually read this book, but we heard that it concerns Russia. The title conjures what it feels like in the trenches of your first year with a new baby. It’s either bliss. . . or bombs raining down on you. Prepare to be delighted, completely decimated, and so deprived of sleep you could put on your husband’s underwear and think it’s your own or fall asleep mid-sentence. Not that either of these things has ever happened to either of us.
2. What Do People Do All Day?
The Second Year
Hope you like naming aloud everything you own, see, think, hear, feel, smell, flush down the toilet, etc. because that’s what baby likes. Oh, that’s not for me, you say, my kid’s just chillin’. Well, we say that clearly you have never been at the mercy of a newly mobile but vocabulary-limited tot. YET. They jonez for this stuff like miniature meth addicts cut off from their supplier. Buy every oversized, ridiculously detailed book you can find now to assuage the tiny beasts. Richard Scarry knows. He’s the toddler-whisperer.
Oh, and they run. A lot. This is when they start the sprinting.
3. Where the Wild Things Are
The Third and Fourth Year AKA The Terrible/Terrific Twos and Threes
These kids are adorable but nuts with a little extra nutty on top. Every time we think back to when our houses were ruled by these fickle tyrants, there is a little catch in our throats. We do miss our ladies who dressed as princesses or ladybugs every day and our lads bedecked in boots and capes. But it’s a dog-eat-dog world in the Land of Tod and we’ll give you three guesses who’s their favorite meal. Come to think of it, Lord of the Flies works for this stage too.
4. Interrupting Chicken
The Funny Fabulous Fact-Filled Four Year Old
Erin is 100% convinced that she did not have her attention issues until she had to parent a 4 year old—FIVE TIMES! No sentences are finished, no thoughts completed, no work is done. The four year old runs the place like a miniature Napoleon or Attila the Hun and the only consistent thing he or she is serving up is questions. Note: When the 4 year old inevitably asks you where babies come from or why you and Daddy like to wrestle, deflect, defer, and lie your pants off. You have plenty of time to pay for future counseling.
This stage marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, so all that sniffling and carrying on you’re going to do is totally justified. Your baby belongs to the great big world now. And it’s a beautiful, terrible, amazing, nauseating, wondrous sight to see.
6. The Call of the Wild
Early Elementary School
Seriously, kids at this age are powered by sheer force of will and their wily, wily ways. If we could harness it, we would solve the world’s energy needs. Oh, yeah, and they are full throttle without the benefit of forethought or reason. Invest in Band-Aids and mecurochrome and wine.
7. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde
Late Elementary School
As a pre-cursor to the full-blown hormonal onslaught headed your way, Mother Nature gives you a little tapas of what’s to come. Honestly, a lot of the angst comes from having one foot in the Land of the Little Kid and the other in the Acreage of Adolescence, but that doesn’t mean that this stage isn’t sometimes going to keep you up at night or wrangling with each other during the day.
8. Something Wicked This Way Comes
Middle School
Too dramatic? Maybe, especially when we both actually enjoy our Middle Schoolers and Erin loves teaching this age group. But storms are a-comin’, so you need to be ready to ride them out when they come AND to enjoy the calm seas in between the blow-ups.
9. Catch-22
Early Teen
Your tongue might actually hurt from all the times you will hold it. Happy, successful parenting with teens is all about choosing your battles, so often times you may get caught in senseless, absurd situations. We’ll take those over the scary stuff that also sometimes comes with the teen years, but none of it is easy. And <sniff>, you do sense your time together is shortening.
10. Great Expectations
Late Teen
Your baby’s getting ready to spread his or her wings, so there is great talk about the future and plans and what happens next. It’s all exciting and scary and nothing at all like what you imagined when you started this journey, oh so many moons ago.
It’s the season for endings, for new beginnings, and for change. It’s the season for both reflecting on the past and embracing the future. It’s the season for . . . graduation speeches galore. Nothing centers a speech—or even a graduation card sentiment—like a good quote, but enough with the “reach for the stars” and the “follow your dreams.”
Follow the road less traveled and skip the Robert Frost quotes. Be the cool aunt who throws down some Game of Thrones or the Valedictorian who kicks off their speech with a little wisdom from the Terminator. We’ve done the research, now all you have to do is deliver the clever.
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
-J. K. Rowling
Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
-Will Rogers
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
-Arthur Ashe
Nobody else is paying as much attention to your failures as you are . . . to everyone else, it’s just a blip on the radar screen, so just move on.
-Jerry Zucker
Frustration, although quite painful at times, is a very positive and essential part of success.
-Bo Bennett
Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.
-Jackson Browne
Do. Or do not. There is no try.
-Yoda
The harder you work, the luckier you get.
-Gary Player
Once you’ve accepted your flaws no one can use them against you.
-Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones
Just remember, you can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.
-Arnold Schwarzenegger
We know we’ve hit a nice even ten, but we couldn’t resist just one more. Graduates or the graduate in your life might not appreciate it, but if you are of certain age, this will make you smile. Consider it our gift to you.
When I was your age, we didn’t have the Internet in our pants. We didn’t even have the Internet not in our pants. That’s how bad it was.
Being a mother means being a Jacqueline of All Trades . . . whether we want to be or not. But we will have none of that gobbledygook about “competent at many, but master of none” because we rock just about everything. We’re moms, it’s what we do . . . buuuuttttttt . . . do we really have to rock them all by ourselves? Clearing the sink of dishes or scooping the litter box is not high level functioning.
And sure we support the hard party line of giving our kids responsibilities, but you know when the chips are down, the laundry is piling up, and the lunches still need to be packed, mom is the last line of defense.
So what’s a mom to do? Take a deep breath, repeat the mantra “it’s lovely to be needed,” and have a laugh at your own expense. Here, we’ll help you with thirteen spot-on-laughing-through-the-tears mom jobs we all can relate to.
As the urban legend goes, blogging makes you a bad parent. Time spent scrolling the internet instead of soaking up Sunshine’s every little ray can never be recouped. Um, by that logic any and every job would make you a bad parent. So there’s that . . . but we’re also pushing back with this: blogging actually has the power to make you an even better parent. Just soak that up for a minute.
If there was such a thing as a parenting genie who would grant our wishes with a rub of a magical sippy cup, we would ask for two things: a mystical rear view mirror and a telescope into the future. With the rear view mirror we could relive those fleeting childhood moments of chubby knees and downy heads. With the telescope, we could gaze into that fuzzy future to see how our every parenting decision impacts our children’s growth into adults. But we don’t need magic because we have something better: blogging! Unconvinced? Let us present our case.
1. Improves our Time Management
All parents know time is THE hot commodity. Learning how to use those precious minutes wisely is a better gift to the whole family than a subscription to Netflix (although our kids might not immediately agree). Like most mothers, our schedules were jam-packed . . . and then we decided to blog. The idea of shoehorning a new job into our already overflowing schedules seemed crazy. Right?! Dash away visions of abandoned children sacrificed at the Temple of Blogdom because a miracle happened! Budgeting our time for writing and promotion spurred us to mindfully carve out minutes for what matters most, and to put our phones down during those moments.
2. Develops Us into Better Role Models
Good parenting is telling kids what to do. Better parenting is modeling it. We talk a good talk with our kids about taking advantageous risks to put themselves out there, but it wasn’t until we started blogging that we put the proverbial money where our pie holes are. Putting our words, beliefs, and advice out there for the world to see—and critique—takes a fair amount of hitching up our big girl britches. Blogging makes us doers, not just preachers.
3. Expands Our Horizons
Stepping outside our comfort zone was one thing, but launching into different time zones was unexpected gravy. Conferences and summits and advocacy, oh my! Blogging is not about isolation, but opening up the world in a whole new way. We’ve gotten lost on our way to yoga in Chicago, promoted a foundation in Atlanta, spoken about podcasting in Baltimore, and advocated for global vaccines on Capitol Hill.
Acting as Shot@Life Champions
Don’t start lamenting over our precious little ones left behind. They have actually gotten to tag along on some occasions, been sponsored by our employer to go to a leadership conference, and have been published on a sponsor’s website. Not too shabby.
4. Introduces Us to New Things
Social media may conjure up visions of moms staring at their phones while their kids beg “hey Ma, look at me!” from the monkey bars, but we found that blogging and the attendant social media required, blasted open a window into our kids’ worlds. We were beyond savvy before any of our kids even asked for an Instagram account. The social media boot camp gave us some serious parenting stripes.
5. Gives Us Time to Reflect
Never underestimate the power of the pause. The discipline of writing weekly means we are also processing our lives as parents each week: the good, the bad, and the disappointing. Our blog is not about cute kid stories, but focuses on analyzing our experiences on the parenting crazy train. This “pause button” has prompted us to actually reset our practices at times because no job needs chances for a do-overs quite like parenting.
6. Introduces Us to New Friends
Yes, we have friends in our computers. Yes, we’re sure they’re not trolls of the 50-year-old unshaven Limp Bizkit fan variety because we’ve actually met them. Our internet tribe has some of the most intelligent and kind-hearted women you would ever be lucky enough to have in your corner–professionally and personally. Wherever our kids decide to attend college, they will be within thirty minutes of a blogger friend—no, a surrogate mother. You can’t buy that kind of peace of mind.
Some friends at the BlogU NickMom Prom
7. Gives Us New Ways to Talk to Our Kids
Want to talk about sex, drugs, and alcohol with your kid? Of course you don’t. But if you have a writing deadline, suddenly you can broach touchy topics with very little preamble. Our kids are conditioned to respond without flinching to questions like “Hey, I need to write an article about kids and alcohol, come talk to me!” or “Hey, do you know anyone who abuses cough syrup?”
Interviews notwithstanding, our kids retain rights to their stories and hold the right to veto us sharing them. Our writers’ hearts hurt for the tales we can’t tell, but these discussions stress the importance of maintaining healthy boundaries between private and public lives. For a generation cutting their teeth on social media, and for their moms who need to keep up, this is the greatest prize of all.
8. Encourages Us to Model Good Friendships
We were friends before we were business partners, but blogging took our friendship to a new place. That new place was the world of compromise and generosity. While we think the United Nations would appreciate our skills in diplomacy and cooperation, we know our kids are learning from them every day.
9. Gives Our Kids Fodder for Their Own Memoirs
Our blog is not a baby book, but it is peppered with memories that will last as long as their digital footprint (as long as we keep paying our website hosting bill). In the final analysis, we hope our kids see that blogging is another way we share our experiences not just with each other or the internet, but with them.
10. Gives Us Another Dimension
Hear that noise? It’s us roaring. We’re proudly showing our kids what women can achieve. We have become coders, graphic designers, speakers, advocates, and parenting experts. We’re professionals who have learned to negotiate and put a fair price on what we’re worth as we cobble together an income. Blogging has prodded us to lean all the way in.
We were so happy to be a part of the 2014 Baltimore Listen to Your Mother Cast
So basically, blogging has made us happier, more skilled, and more greatly fulfilled moms. To flip that annoying saying to the positive: everybody knows if momma’s happy then everybody’s happy.
Dear Daughter Who is About to Blow This Popsicle Stand,
I can hear you now, “What? Where do you find a Popsicle stand? I’d rather go for ice cream.” And that right there is why I’m writing my advice in a letter instead of sitting you down for a heart-to-heart: no interruptions, no tangents.
But while you’ve got me on this tangent, for the love of search engines, can you promise me when you don’t know something you’ll Google it? Say for instance, things like idioms and colloquial turns of phrase. You’re post-Millennial for goodness sake. They’re proposing calling your generation Digital Natives, and yet, I always have to remind you to stop shrugging when you don’t know something and pull that super computer of a phone out of your pocket to look it up. When I was your age, it wasn’t that easy. We had to go to shelves containing these books of knowledge known as encyclopedias arranged compulsively in alphabetical order . . .
Okay, sorry about that, but it’s just hitting me hard that I’m not going to be there when you have questions about the little things in life. Sure you can text me, but we’ve already established you may have a tendency to “oh well,” a situation when you don’t have the answer.
You’re about to leave the nest for college and embark on life on your own. Well, more accurately “life on your own” heavily encased in air quotes since dad and I are footing a majority of the bill. Until you’ve chosen between paying the rent and buying name brand cereal for dinner, you haven’t quite sipped from the pool of adulthood.
ANYWAY, my point is I won’t be around to interject my everyday-years-of-experience-old-person knowledge into your life on demand; like that time I stopped you from cleaning the outside of the toaster with nail polish remover. Seriously, acetone and plastic do not mix.
To head these catastrophes off at the pass, I’m going to list as much as I can think of here. In no particular order, here is my “Advice to Make You Look Like More of a Genius Than an A in Calculus.” What? That title may need some work, but it’s accurate. Calculus may be impressive, but knowing how to clean a toilet is forever.
ANYWAY . . .
Always open the toilet cleaner pointing AWAY from your face.
Oh and never mix anything with toilet cleaner. My friend forced the evacuation of a summer camp because she mixed ammonia with Sparkly Bowl. Don’t trigger a hazmat situation. It’s embarrassing.
By the way, clean the toilet. Using the brush.
And while we are on the subject of using cleaners properly, never put regular dishwashing liquid in a dishwasher . . . unless you want a flood of suds of Brady Bunch Hijinx proportions.
If “someone” living in your abode makes this mistake, white vinegar will slay those bubbles in an instant.
In fact, just always keep white vinegar around. Unlike nail polish remover which should only be used on nails (it’s in the name, they’re not trying to fool you), white vinegar can be used for just about everything from deodorizing to unclogging shower heads.
What vinegar can’t be used for is a grease fire on the stove. Never throw a liquid (including water) on a cooking fire. You’ll just scatter that sucker around. Use flour or a pot lid or that special fire extinguisher graduation gift—that you rolled your eyes about—to smother the flames. Don’t forget about 911.
You’re not going to walk away from a pan on the stove anyway, right?!
And turn the oven off when you’re done.
And speaking of turning things off, know how to shut the water off before Old Faithful makes a cameo in your kitchen.
It’s righty tighty, lefty loosey.
Always use the right tool for the job. For the love of all that is good, stop opening things with your teeth. The portion of your life where your parents pay for your orthodontia is over.
In general, if it should be moving and doesn’t, blast it with WD-40. If it is moving and it shouldn’t be, duct tape it.
Speaking of things moving, don’t leave your dirty dishes and snack scraps lying around. I saw my first cockroach in college. And mice? Your cat is not going with you to the dorms. I do at least get to keep my fur baby.
Hairspray will kill a cockroach in a pinch. But maybe not in Texas or Florida. Those monsters could survive a nuclear blast. Just. Run.
Never use a paper towel (or Windex) to clean sunglasses, computer screens, or televisions. You would think that at their price points, they would be made out of stuff that could survive a paper towel. They are not.
In general, don’t eat your feelings, but if you must, go for something primo. Don’t waste the calories on a Twinkie.
But really, don’t stress too much about what you eat. Eat healthy because it will make you feel better, but don’t deny yourself that cheeseburger. You have your forties and beyond to do that.
But do stress about drinking enough water. You need at least 64 ounces a day.
But honestly, exercise really is a better stress reliever than eating.
Do at least ten push-ups a day. Push-ups are seriously the perfect exercise. They require no equipment and they’re like the speed dating of upper body workouts, hitting your shoulders, arms, chest and core all in one motion.
Take the stairs. Bonus: unlike an elevator, you’ll never get trapped with a pervert, a screaming baby, or an incontinent grandma.
If you have the choice between staying home in your pajamas or trying something new, even if you think it may be lame, change out of those pjs.
However, there is no shame in “pajama days.” Everyone needs a break.
But for the love of not flashing what the good Lord gave you, never leave the house in pajamas. Even the cute ones.
Remember to put on sunscreen when you do leave the house.
Treat others as you want to be treated. If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for you.
Always assume the person you are talking about (talking is just old-timey speak for texting or Snapchatting) will find out.
If you always get stuck with a task you hate, train someone else to do it.
Crumbs do have to be cleaned out of the toaster.
Clean out the lint trap in the dryer, too.
And never dump someone’s wet clothes from the communal washer onto the floor. That’s the brand of karma that will get your good bras hanging from the trees.
If someone dumps your clothes, you know what to do. Wink, wink.
Scratch #33 and remember #27. See? Adulting is hard.
This list could be endless and I’m sure I forgot something, but don’t worry. Just like the encyclopedias you know nothing about, there will be routine updates. Via text of course.
And if you find yourself in doubt here is the biggie:
CALL/TEXT/SMOKE SIGNAL YOUR MOTHER!
(Or at the very least, Google it. I repeat myself because I have to.)
Some of this advice may seem random or trivial (well, except for the fire safety and hazmat avoidance), but here’s why those are the things I worry about. You have the big things covered.
You are so talented and yet, you have finally grasped “hard work beats talent when talent hardly works.” You brim the confidence that I didn’t even know existed when I was seventeen. You know you deserve to be respected. You know there is more to finding your joy and setting your goals than just being good at something. Happiness doesn’t exist without balance.
You are primed to find the people who honor your soul and fuel your happiness because you believed me when I told you that your classmates were just the luck of the draw. They didn’t have to be “your people” and their opinions didn’t have to hold weight.
Now go fulfill your commitments, tackle your dreams, and dominate your goals. Just remember to always lock your doors while you’re doing it.
I believe in you more than you could ever imagine.
