I don’t have a lot of time to fart around on the Internet (Full-time job, part-time freelancing, husband, three kids, etc.) but if there’s something that can see me wasting time for the sake of laughing at ALL THE THINGS, it’s ridiculous Internet memes. I got sucked into the Internet vortex of Awesome thanks to my friend Anastacia’s Cry-Laugh posts over at MamaPop. My husband and I have incorporated the phrases “ALL THE THINGS” and “YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID” and “WHATCHA THINKING ABOUT?” into our daily lives.

(The Moran bit slayed me, because that is my maiden name. GET A BRAIN! MORAN.)

The most recent Internet meme was brought to attention by my friend Linda’s post at The Stir about Ridiculously Photogenic Guy.

The popular photo is of 25-year-old New York resident Zeddie Little. On March 31, Little took part in the Cooper River Bridge 10k run, which was held in Charleston, South Carolina, and at some point during the race an amateur photographer named Will King randomly snapped his picture. King first posted the image on his Flickr account, and eventually decided to share it on Reddit.

I’ve seen numerous other people link to it since reading Linda’s post. I showed to to my husband last night and he was highly amused.

Do you have any favorite Internet memes? Like Texts from Hillary? Or Others?

We have really been enjoying our winter break.

I mean, really enjoying our winter break. In fact, winter break 2011/2012 may go down as being one of the best winter breaks we’ve ever had. Naw, we’re not spending it in Hawaii or on a picturesque mountain somewhere – heck, we haven’t even gone into the next the town.

In fact, we’ve barely left the house. It’s been perfect.

We grudgingly get dressed if company is coming or if we’ve (foolishly) agreed to go out visiting, but these last 10 days have been one relaxed, slow drawl of movies and games, books and crafts. When we’re not sleeping. We’ve been doing quite a bit of sleeping as well.

This is how our days have looked:

8:30 kids get up

9:30 I get up, get breakfast for the kids, get coffee for me.

10:30 the huz gets up (don’t worry, he’ll pay me back for this later), whatever movie kids were watching that allows me to sleep in, ends. Kids play. We drink coffee and read.

Noonish – lunchish

Afternoonish – bake, craft or go outside, depending on our mood. Nap with four year old (remember the payback? Here it is. Ahhh.)

Late afternoonish – wonder if we should have done anything more productive for the day.

Dinnertime – more often than not, with friends. This is when we get dressed much of the time.

Afterdinnerish  - games, another movie for the kids maybe

Too late – go to sleep after watching half a season’s worth of Californication episodes.

See? Perfect. Seriously, I have not been bored or hungry at any point over the last 10 days. I weep to think that this will soon be coming to an end and that somebody will expect me to have my kids somewhere before 9am. I weep.

So, how has your winter break been?

Apparently This Is What A Nobel Prize Looks Like. Who Knew?

So on top of last week’s revelation that you’re a worse parent than you think, comes The Onion’s assertation that no matter how you parent, you suck. In  study published last week, someone very smart determined that every style of parenting produces disturbed, miserable adults. And yes, it’s from the Onion so of course it’s a joke, but frankly,  the point is well taken. Doesn’t it seem that from every angle, every slant, no matter what you do, you can find a study that tells you you’re either doing absolutely the right! or completely epically wrong! thing.  If you were to assemble every parenting study and every outcome, it’s probably quite likely to be fact: no matter what you do, you’re going to screw them up somehow.

But am I the only one that finds this realization liberating?  It’s impossible to NOT screw your kid up, even with the best of intentions.If I’m too loving she’ll be neurotic. If I’m too cold she’ll be emotionally withdrawn. If I tell her princesses are nice she’ll grow up to be a Kardashian. If I tell her princesses are evil she’ll grow up to be an axe murderer. And on and on it goes. I cannot help but raise – god forbid – a flawed human being. Just like me, and you, and everyone else.

Truth? Whether you raise a perfectly well adjusted nobel prize winner or an oaf who won’t get off your couch at age 34 has less to do with whether you let him watch Spongebob as a kid and a lot more to do with luck, fate, and nature than either you or I would like to admit. I mean, there are obvious things you can do wrong (beat your kid, shame them, let them be Leafs fans) and obvious things you can do right.  Like love them and feed them and hug them.  In the words of  Alli Worthington (who has five of these creatures, so she knows at least something of what she speaks)  “When you feel like you aren’t doing a good enough job, ask yourself these things: Does my child feel secure? Does my child feel loved? Did my child go to sleep fed? Do I daily look in my child’s eyes and smile? Does my child get hugs everyday? If you are doing these things right, Mama, you are doing a wonderful job.”

So ease up on yourself. Read some books, talk to some friends, do what feels right – but ultimately, know that they are who they are, and all the [insert parenting technique here] in the world just might not change that.

So understand that at the best of times, this is my child’s hair.

She’s got this silky fine, superstraight, flighty hair that protests against any and all attempts at styling – and whatever her hair doesn’t actively protest,  the rest of her does. I can’t get near her with a hairbrush, let alone an elastic or clip, without a NO! and little feet running the other way. (Frankly, she disdains most acts of grooming: teeth brushing is a daily struggle, and changing a poopy diaper can be akin to wrestling a wildebeest armed only with baby wipes.)

I know that I could cut her hair in to some semblance of a style (ignoring for the moment that there’s no possible way I could safely approach her with a pair of scissors).  And if she had a cute little kiddie haircut, then I wouldn’t have to be horrifyingly embarrassed every time we leave the house.

And yet… I can’t do it. I can’t cut her hair, not yet. It looks like an unkempt rat’s nest, and yet somehow I’m sentimentally attached to it.  This is that same hair that grew in after the dark newborn baby fuzz fell out weeks after she was born; the last bits, perhaps, of the infant she was. The ends of her hair now are the beginning, if you like, of the long, neverending strands of hair she will grow all  her life.  And I’m not ready to let them go yet. But I’m also not willing to battle her to the ground every morning to put in ponytails that she’ll only pull out 5 minutes later anyway.

So the next time you see a toddler who looks like Nick Nolte, understand it’s not mom being lazy. It’s mom being sentimental. And we’re all guilty of that.

“I’m never going to have an operation on my private parts,” Julian said as we were eating dessert last night.

He is, of course, referring to his father’s recent vasectomy, which he knows means that we are not having any more children, a fact that he will gladly share with anyone who asks.

“I’m just going to have lots and lots of babies. I’ll just keep on having babies,” he continued.

“But what if your sweetheart doesn’t want lots and lots of babies?” I asked.

“Well, that’s too bad. She’s just going to have to do it because I’m not having an operation on my private parts.”

—-

At that point, I just gave up for the evening. After catching no sleep on the red eye flight back from the BlogHer conference, I didn’t have the patience or composure to deal with oppression, equality or sex ed. Nor did I care to explain to him that he may not have anyone who wants to be his “sweetheart” with an attitude like that.

Once I’ve had more sleep, I’ll have to ponder next steps. I’m thinking grossing him might be next, aided perhaps by the hilariously illustrated German version of Where Do Babies Come From? (see translation in comment by George here). But in reality, dealing with feminism and sex ed in parenting is an ongoing daily challenge and priority, not something reserved for THE TALK. It is, however, also something I’m just too tired to handle after a weekend of fun and a red eye flight. So I went back to my ice cream.

Image credit: The Culinary Geek

The gift giving season is officially over for the next few months in my house.

Thank God.

Now that it’s over, I can tell you what a jerk I’ve been.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we really scaled back on how many presents we bought our kids for Christmas this year.  (And, um, one of their biggest gifts came from a swag bag. I AM THE QUEEN OF FRUGAL!)  But not everyone was embracing the minimalist spirit this year.  Obviously.  And, well, I have a confession to make.

While I watched other people make mad dashes to the mall for yet another toy, I found myself feeling more than a little smug.

And maybe even a little judgey.

And superior.

I’m a horrible, horrible woman.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Not only did I find myself turning up my nose at the amount of gifts other mothers bought their little darlings, but I was particularly opinionated (in my own head) about what types of things people are buying for children these days.  I’m ashamed to admit it, but on more than one occasion, I thought to myself, “I would never buy my kid that!”

What gifts are off limits to my kids?

For starters…

The latest and greatest video consoles. We have a Wii – which we bought for my husband’s birthday a few years ago.  It works just fine and still gets used regularly.  I refuse to replace it with this year’s latest and greatest gadget.  (I may, however, be silently wishing the XBox Kinect had been out when we bought our Wii.  Maybe.  A little bit.)

DVD players and TVs for the car. Whatever happened to looking out the damn window?  Or playing the license plate game?  Or taking a nap so your parents could listen to their favorite hip-hop songs without having to explain the meaning behind the highly suggestive, masochistic and oh-so-catchy lyrics?  I absolutely refuse to bring a TV into my vehicle and I silently judge other parents who do it.

Kicking it Old School

Kids these days have access to things we couldn’t even have imagined when we were their age, but they have no clue what to do with themselves when you send them outside to play.  I, for one, am taking a stand against these unnecessary gizmos and gadgets and instruments of entitlement!  I shake my Mother of the Year fists mightily against frivolous spending and keeping up with the Joneses!  I, like my mother before me, will not be guilt tripped into buying the day’s most popular toys and gift items!

Fortunately, their brand new DSi XLs keep them plenty happy on long car rides.

In my house, we celebrate Christmas.  Both the Christian holiday that includes mass and baby Jesus stories, and the secular holiday that includes presents and stockings and old men sneaking into your house while you’re asleep.  I’m all about telling my children that they are being watched while they sleep.

One of my favorite parts of the holiday is giving my kids presents.  I love shopping for them, wrapping them and anticipating their excitement, and watching them open up their presents every year.  What I do not love is the anxiety I feel every year about whether or not it will have been enough.

I remember Christmases when I was a kid feeling like a never ending cascade of gifts.  I don’t know how my parents pulled it off because we were p-double-o-r POOR.  Really poor.  But every year, it seemed that we were unwrapping gifts for hours and there was always more! more! more! to enjoy.  I remember being awesomely overwhelmed by the onslaught.

As a parent, I’ve never felt like I’ve been able to recreate that for my own kids.  I know that I am in a better position financially than my parents were when I was growing up, and yet I’ve never felt like I could translate that extra cash into a similar experience of OHMIGOSH SO MANY PRESENTS!

Maybe gifts look smaller when you’re bigger.  Or perhaps it’s impossible to see the stack as limitless when you’re the one who has carefully listed and budgeted and planned for each and every package.

Or maybe, because my children are not growing up poor, their reactions haven’t mirrored those of mine and my brothers as children because “meh, yeah, we got more stuff.  Again.”

We did things differently this year.

A couple of months ago, we decided as a family to spend a ridiculous amount of money on plane tickets to fly home to Iowa and spend the holidays with our family.  We also decided to put nearly every other penny we have towards our year of travel around the country.  We all agreed that we would accept the consequences of a reduced gift-giving budget.  A few weeks ago, I found out that I would no longer have a salary come January 1 (which is a fancy way of saying, I lost my job.)

Christmas was going to be done on a minimalist budget this year whether we liked it or not.

We decided to embrace it.

I read on some blog that I shamefully cannot remember to link to about parents having a tradition of giving their child three gifts each year.  One “wow” gift, one thing to wear, and one other something I can’t remember.  Something to read?  Anyway – we decided to go with that.

One “wow” gift: they each got bikes.  For my daughter, this was her very first big girl bike.  For my son, this was the first time he’s had a bike of his own since he lost his over a year ago.  Because who loses a bike!?!?! Yeah.

One “something to wear” gift: they each got pajamas.

One “something else”: they each got the Nintendo DSiXLs that were given to my husband and I last summer by Nintendo during a special event at BlogHer.  Yes, I did hold on to my swag for 6 months in order to regift them to my children.

How did it go?

Because we will be traveling over the holidays, we opened gifts this weekend.  They were both ecstatic.  When they haven’t been riding their bikes, they’ve been playing with their DSiXLs.  My daughter had her pajamas on within 5 minutes of unwrapping them and tried to convince me to let her wear them out in public – more than once.

They showed more gratitude for these three gifts* than they have ever shown for massive mountains of wrapped packages.

Perhaps less really is more.

*They will have a few more gifts from Santa show up in their stockings on Christmas morning.  I’m not made of stone!

Lately I haven’t been getting much sleep. Actually, no one in my family is getting sleep except for our cats but they could sleep through a Metallica tour curled up in Lars’ bass drum.

I could try to blame our inability to sleep on the recent time change but that wouldn’t be true. We’ve had a major schedule disruption and it directly effects our 5yo. Short of of the long, I’m now working in an office, not my home, and I’m no longer the person she sees the most every day.

The transition has been tough and she figures ‘why talk when I can display my displeasure through administering sleep deprivation?’ Obviously something needs to be done about her reaction otherwise I might start sleeping in bad places just to get a fix. So here I am, suddenly working with less time and my girl really needs me. Obviously I’m going to do my best with the little time available.

This is going to be kind of difficult considering I’m pretty much the most disorganized parent ever but she’s my only child. I’m not going to let her down. Well, not often. I hope. My plan is to make all our overlapping hours into our time. Time for us, just her and me. This means I need to actually start using all the organization tools on my phone and she might be hanging out inside fitting rooms plus being read to from USWeekly sometimes, but it’s quantity not quality, right? Oh wait, that’s from the Lucille Bluth parenting handbook. Scratch that last part but not the part about spending time with my child.

Do you want help making more of your time? Or just, you know, doing more awesome stuff with a cool phone? Leave a comment on this post – you can leave one comment every day – and you could win a brand new Windows Phone 7 for your very own self. You have until November 29, at which point we’ll pick a winner through Random.org. Full rules are posted here. (Note: Canadians can’t win the phone. I KNOW, this sucks. BUT: leave a comment and note your Canuckness and I will select a few Canadians and send them chocolate. Seriously. AND IT IS GOOD CHOCOLATE TOO.)

So, tell us: how do you do more with less? DO you do more with less? Can less really be more? HOW DOES A BUSY MOM MAKE TIME WHEN TIME DOES COME IN AN EASY MIX NO-BAKE PACKAGE?

(Note: this is not a skill-testing question, and involves no math.)

(You do not actually have to tell us what you do to do more with less to have your comment qualify. But it will impress us.)

(Want another entry? Leave a comment at Her Bad Mother’s Robot Hamsters post for MORE PHONE MORE CHOCOLATE MORE WIN!)

(Enter every day! It’s totally allowed!)

This giveaway is brought to you by the new Windows Phone 7. Less MIA. More PTA: Learn about Windows Phone online and see it in person at local T-Mobile stores today.

(Featured on Contest Bee! Bzzz…

The giveaway is now closed. The WINNER of WINDOWS PHONE 7 has been selected via Random.org and our winner is Adrienne Gordon. And the all-Canadian chocolate winner is Marilyn of A Lot Of Loves! Congratulations!

Barbies, princesses, and the colour pink: these are all topics that I have wrung my hands over again and again until they were raw and needed to be encased in totally unironic evening gloves. But I chilled my concerns about all things pink and princess-y when I realized how much these things inspired my daughter's imagination and independent play. I'm easygoing like that.

This means, of course, that I've also chilled out about Disney. Which is convenient, because Disney World is pretty awesome.

Disney World is – what's the word? – magical. Castles! Haunted houses! Pirates! Princesses! Pixies! GIANT MICE! (Meeting, for the first time, the six-foot tall rodent who has been part of the backdrop of your entire life? MAGIC. Mickey got to my closely guarded heart strings within the first five minutes of me entering his home. And I was a grown-up when that happened.)

And now I can't wait to share that with my daughter.

Next week, Catherine and I will drive from Toronto to Orlando (passing through Cincinnati, Nashville, and Atlanta along the way) to participate in a half-marathon Tiarathon at Disney World (Catherine, not me, because I'm sane) and we will bring our children along for the ride. Because you know, traveling with two four year olds and the world's strongest two year old is a freakin' cake walk. And we are doing this adventure with the generous help of GM Canada, who are making this trip possible, probably because they're interested in seeing whether SUVs get better mileage when they're filled with glitter and awesome.

Why embark upon this insane adventure? To raise awareness about Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy and Catherine's mission to do 100 miles For Tanner:

And, yes, despite my previous issues, we will be wearing tiaras, and very possibly ballgowns, the entire way down. Because, princess stuff is fine when done in moderation, or when indulged in to total excess for a good cause. And because young mister Jasper will be wearing a tiara too, we get to keep our Gender Stereotypes Avenger credentials.

Princess Power, FTW!

I've been sick. Like, Island-infection-dip-me-in-the-Temple-hot-tub sick. So sick that I've barely been able to raise my head to slurp my Benylin DM, but not so sick that I couldn't watch Lost. And I'll say this: Lost makes a little more sense when you're hopped up on meds. Not enough to be comprehensible, but still. Every little bit helps.

Anyway. Seeing as we watch Lost every week, and further seeing as we are always totally confused by it, we though that we might bring our confusion here, to chat about, just as we might do if we had actual real relationships with you people and, you know, hung out. So, like, not a recap – if I could follow things closely enough to produce a recap, I wouldn't be this confused – I think – but more of a discursive WTF, a sharing of the things that are confounding us, an airing of our grievances concerning too much Kate/not enough Sawyer/will Jack stop grimacing already, etc.

(Spoilers ahoy, if you haven't watched the first two weeks' episodes)

For example:

1) What was the deal with the title of last week's episode, LA X? Yes, I know, LAX is the airport, but the episode is LA – space – X. What does that mean? Are we meant to take the X as Roman numeral X – that is, 10? If so, why? Or is it just something really boring, like X refers to the unknown, blah blah blah? And don't tell me that it doesn't matter: this is Lost. Everything matters.

2) Just before Juliet died, and she was babbling about going on a coffee date with Sawyer? That was her transitioning to another parallel reality, wasn't it? Where everything is rebooted and she and Sawyer are destined to be together and they go to Starbucks – right? Hence the: "it worked." So would that mean that the Island is purgatory, or an afterlife, or…? (Yes, I know that the other characters is Sideways world aren't dead – or most of them aren't – but I don't know that that matters. Maybe it's just that your consciousness gets transitioned there when you die?) (These meds are AWESOME, by the way.)

3) Dogen = cool. "I don't like the way English tastes on my tongue." Lennon = whatever. I've never really liked hippies.

4) Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (the book found in the corpse's hand) is an extended reflection on the nature of faith – but doesn't it also closely analyze (it's been a few years since I've read it) the story of Abraham – who struggled with, but gave into, God's command that he sacrifice his son – and hold Abraham up as an ideal of faithfulness? What might this tell us about Jacob and the Man In Black? Did MIB 'sacrifice' Jacob? (Although MIB had Benjamin murder Jacob, so, that maybe doesn't work.) (But! What about the father-son duo of Christian Shepherd and Jack Shepherd? Sacrifice, ahoy? Or?) (What was I saying about those meds?)

5) The Man In Black/ Fake Locke/ Flocke/ The Smoke Monster/ Whomever: he's pretty creepy, right? But what do you want to bet he turns out to be the good guy?

6) Sayid: is he a zombie? is he possessed by someone/something? Smoky/MIB? JACOB? (If dead Locke is possessed by MIB, could dead Sayid possessed by – wait for it – Jacob? Because wasn't it Jacob who directed everyone to take Sayid to the Temple and the dirty hot tub, etc? Where he got, you know, deadified? Hmmm?)

7) If there are going to be undead on Lost, could they pretty please bring back Boone in his current incarnation as Damon The Hottest Vampire Ever After Edward?

8) So that crazy Australian stewardess is back, and in the Temple, but what about all those children the Others grabbed along with her (and before her, and after her…)? There don't seem to be any children in the Temple. WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?

9) Gun-toting crazy-haired Rousseau Claire! How awesome is she? And? If she is a zombie? That will be even more awesome.

10) Is it terrible to say this? Bereaved Sawyer: NOM.

Feel free to share your thoughts, confusions, and random outbursts of Sawyer-directed lust below…