I once gave an interview to a writerly friend about sex during pregnancy. I totally forgot about it until the wife of my husband’s work colleague came up to me and told me that she knew all about my sex life, she had read about it while at the doctor’s office.

Yowza.

But I think she was a little jealous. Because sex during pregnancy, well it kinda rocks. One of my usually reticent friends told me that her second trimester was the only time she has understood what it feels like to be a man.  I’m sorry if you didn’t feel that way.

thanks to Pregnantchicken.com

Obviously, Amy at PregnantChicken agrees that pregnant women’s sexual side deserves to be recognized because she came up with a series of “Hey, girl…” type posters that she entitled “Porn for Pregnant Women”. Truth is you don’t need to be pregnant to feel a little warm when checking them out. Who knew discussing car safety features or shades of green could be so hot?

thanks to pregnantchicken.com

Go to Pregnantchicken to see all the posters. You don’t have to be pregnant to enjoy (or a chicken).

What about you? Pregnancy: hot or not?

The following post is dedicated to all the parents who have ever felt guilty about a parenting decision that other parents may have judged or frowned upon. For all of us who have been in that position, deep down you knew that decision was the right one and completely necessary in conquering the quest to ‘just get things done without anyone losing a limb or sanity‘ but it’s still difficult feeling the eyes of Judgy McJudgerson on your neck.

Maybe you said ‘yes‘ to the relentless 7 year old who would not get dressed unless she could play one more round of Angry Birds and you just wanted to get ready for work without yelling at anyone before noon. Blackmail, shmakmail.

Or maybe you allowed the begging 4 year old to wear that Batman costume for one more day — despite the fear of a call from the public health department — all in the name of ‘getting out the door‘ because fabric is fabric and it all achieves body part coverage. That’s the important thing, right? Whatever it takes to get everyone on with their day.

Or maybe you let little Logan eat breakfast along side his beloved pet at the dining table because he promised to finish all his cereal and bananas without any whining…

OH MY HOLY GOOD GRAVY what the heck is that reptile-slash-horror-movie-prop creature and am I safe in assuming that it prefers KiX over Kids?!?! Someone say ‘yes‘ and confirm we are not watching whatever that is have it’s pre-breakfast bowl of cereal of KiX before having a bowl of KID.

Whatever it takes folks, whatever it takes.

Have you heard about our Dare to Draw challenge which kicks off today? Bad Moms ask you to join your kids in this awesome campaign to raise funds to help support kids, parents and grandparents who are working to turn the tide of AIDS in Africa — all you need is a creative child who loves to draw. Join The Bad Moms Club Dare Team and let’s show our kids we can all make a difference.

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Because is there really such a thing as a ‘bad’ school portrait? OK, there is such a thing as a ‘bad’ school portrait and that fact grows exponentially by the child’s age but regardless of the actual results of this annual rite of student passage, parents in general will buy the image to mark that year in history.

Even if they kid has a snotty nose, or a tangled collar with a soup stain down the front of the shirt (why do they do photo sessions after lunch?), or hair like Medusa (that’s my kid!), we love the snapshot of our progeny in their institutionalized state.

And what about those school photographers? I often felt that these folks were in photographer purgatory of some sort. Dashed dreams of high fashion or National Geographic assignments dead in the dustbin of life. That’s what I was thinking when I watched this short called ‘The Angry School Photographer’. His mission is to break every child’s smile so it matches his attitude but this time he has met his match:

School Portrait (2011) from Michael Berliner on Vimeo.

School Portrait (2011) from Michael Berliner on Vimeo.

Enjoy. Happy Monday and please share your worst school portrait story below.

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I have a broken wrist and limited typing ability. I will tell THAT entire story some other time. Until then, I will bring you: The Top 5 Christmas Carols For Bad Moms. Because I can do it with minimal typing. Phoning it in FTW!

5.  Queen – Thank God It’s Christmas.  “Oh my friends it’s been a long hard year.” The refrains of epic relief that another insane year is finally over is common to all bad moms, isn’t it?

4. Boney M/Jose Feliciano: Feliz Navidad. Nobody can understand a goddamn word, but we all sing it anyway.

3. The Ramones. “Merry Christmas, I don’t want to fight tonight” (As we assemble this stupid toy for Santa)
Merry Christmas, I don’t want to fight tonight” (That has ten thousand goddamn pieces and instructions in Cantonese and German BUT I DO NOT SPEAK THOSE LANGUAGES)
Merry Christmas, I don’t want to fight tonight with you” (Even though you said you’d pick up batteries and you FUCKING FORGOT YOU TWIT)

Ahhh.

2. Fairytale of New York. “You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, happy Christmas you arse I pray God it’s our last.” Amen.

1.  Frankie Goes To Hollywood – The Power Of Love. Not always labeled as a Christmas song, but you remember being in the high school gym during the Christmas prom and waiting for the cute boy to ask you to dance but then he asked that icky Elizabeth to dance instead even though you know he was going to ask you but she came over first and oh never mind. It’s a good song.

This Bad Mom is loving this Star Wars Suess mashup because my little Star Wars fan — who incidentally loves to play Darth Vader’s theme whenever she feels like life is not treating her the way it should be and she needs that extra injection of little evil emperor in her life — has been requesting this non-stop since we discovered it this weekend.

Meet the Sith of Whoville, a great twist on the classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas:

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You know those times when you know you’re being a crap parent and you think, well, whatever, surely she won’t notice! She’s too young for it to REALLY matter!  I can just modify my own behaviour next week/year/month, sometime when it really has an impact! And then in an instant, all that stuff you’ve been thinking you’ll deal with later suddenly blows up in a LATER IS NOW BITCH right in your face? That.

This morning, my two year old was digging in the tupperware cupboard. I like to pretend that I leave that cupboard completely disorganized because hey! She’ll trash it anyway!  But the truth is it’s no more organized than any of my other cupboards, so. She reached her chubby toddler arms in and pulled out random items – an ice cube tray, a water bottle, a green tupperware lid.  As she wrestled with the awkward plastic, a tupperware dish suddenly tumbled and hit the floor. She shunted the rest of the stuff in to one arm and bent over to pick up the lid, grumpily muttering  “shit” as she leaned down.

Shit.

She said shit.

At least it sounded like she said shit.

And not only did it sound like she said shit, it sounded like she said it in context.

I couldn’t help but laugh. Of COURSE she knows how to swear at age two. She can’t put on her shoes or use pronouns properly, but cursing? She’s got it nailed. I put down my coffee mug and pondered exactly how to deal with this new and disturbing development. For the record, I don’t exactly have a problem with most curse words if used appropriately. This would be obvious to anyone, given my own peppery language. But there is such a thing as age-appropriate behaviour, and it is apparently up to me to ensure that my child acts like a two year old while she is two, and I suspect this does not involve a Jersey Shore vocabulary.

Yet – how to nip it in the bud? My instinct says not to call attention to it but rather to ignore it, that if I leave it alone the behaviour will burn off. However, there’s a weakness in this tactic: it will only work if I also stop modelling it. And given that the presence of a two year old in the house hasn’t caused me to modify my vocabulary yet, this could be an issue.

Sighing, I turned to the internet in a brief bid to ignore the problem. And as the internet often does, it provided an entirely new perspective when this showed up in my feed.

Why yes, baby doll’s just babbling random babble that coincidentally sounds just like “Hey, Crazy Bitch!”

The manufacturers say it’s all a coincidence, that it just sounds like something it isn’t.

Suddenly, I seized on the answer. Perhaps that’s what’s going on here, too: It just *sounds* like my child knows how to swear in context. But she really doesn’t! Honest!

Yeah, I don’t believe me either.

Still, I took heart. Perhaps she’ll get a lucrative job providing voice recordings for the next Offend-o-baby.

The Swiss Naturals folks have asked me to continue to write about how I continue to incorporate fitness and health into my life, and as the weather has now turned colder, it makes sense to talk to you guys about what my plans are now that the summer is but a distant memory.

During the late spring, summer, and early fall, my fitness routine consists of two boot camp classes a week (except for July and August, when I go four-five mornings a week), running 2-3 days a week, and the occasional home workout DVD. Once the weather turns cold, I have no desire to run outside. I know that there are people who run in sub-zero temperatures, but I am not one of those people. Besides, I am a natural klutz and it would take one miniscule patch of ice and I’d break a leg. Or two. And probably my arms.

Last winter, I just took running out of my routine. Boot camp four days a week (two different camps, on alternating days) and home workout DVDs on the other days. Come spring, however, I had to start from scratch with building up my running stamina. I managed to run a 10K, but I think my time could have been better if I’d kept running throughout the winter. This year, I decided to join a gym near my office so that I could run on a treadmill a few lunch hours a week. I still have boot camp two evenings a week, and have asked for some new workout gear and equipment (Kettlebell!) for Christmas. My family has also decided to take up skiing this winter, which is an excellent workout.

How does your workout routine change during the different seasons?

You can find out more about Swiss Naturals at their website and at their Facebook page. They also have the Total One^® Sport Multi Vitamin and Mineral with B Complex Vitamins, Iron and Antioxidants Caplet Box

–      Total One® Sport is for men & women with higher levels of physical activity. A specially formulated, high potency, multi vitamin and mineral supplement that helps support peak performance.

–      Contains iron, B vitamins and antioxidants to help energy production during exercise and reduce oxidative stress caused by physical activity.

–      Get more out of your workout. Get Total One® Sport.

Yes I know Hallowe’en is sooo last week and that you are already planning the holiday shopping but this video was too good to not share. If I had told my daughter that I ate all her Hallowe’en candy she would have never displayed the restraint of these brothers. These boys were delivered the news by mom and they really showed a maturity that even I lack.

Best part? When CJ tells his mom ‘you’re going to get belly ache.’

‘YOU SNEAKY MOM!’

Apparently this was inspired by Jimmy Kimmel who solicited videos from parents last week. Well done Mom, hats off to you for raising such reasonable young men. If this was me, I’d still be cleaning up the the aftermath of my 6yo’s wrath. Hell hath no fury like a 6 year old who’s lost all her Hallowe’en candy.

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It’s time for another awesome round of  ”Bad Moms Love Guest Posts” – a.k.a. Posts Submitted By Friends of Bad Moms Who Simply Can’t Restrain Themselves From Expressing Their Badness. Please enjoy this post from Corinne, aka @hvbabywilltrvl and founder of Have Baby Will Travel, , this week’s Bad Mom Guest.

The Globe & Mail added an anonymous column to their Life section for parents to share “parenting secrets.” Until last week, there’s only been one entry. That type of column suggests to me such egregious actions as preaching healthy eating to your kids and then finishing all the ice cream when they go to bed (guilty) or limiting TV time to educational shows and then devouring America’s Next Top Model All Stars (also guilty). So I was pretty surprised to read the confession from a dad who drugged his 3 ½ year old son on a flight. Not with the usual suspects like Gravol or Benadryl, but with the Schedule IV controlled pharmaceutical known as Lorazepam, better known as Ativan.

And it’s hard to tell what “Family Pharmacist” is more disappointed by, the fact that his son was not knocked out, or that his son threw up on him – clearly reacting appropriately by ridding his system of a tranquilizer not meant to be ingested by anyone under 18, unless especially prescribed.

As a traveling parent, I approach flying with babies and toddlers as surviving the flight, not about adhering to best parenting practices. I am not above bribes, and my drugs of choice to keep little ones quiet are junk food and TV. I’ve thought about Gravol or Benadryl, but having given them to my kids for their prescribed purpose, I know it makes them the opposite of sleepy — not what you want on a plane.

Last year I wrote an article for Canadian Family magazine on this very topic, and I was surprised that the doctor I interviewed offered advice, as opposed to condemning the practice outright. But then I realized doctors must recognize parents like “Family Pharmacist” (and I think actual pharmacists should take real exception to his choice of pseudonym) exist, and if they are going to tranquilize their kids they should at least do so responsibly, with appropriate dosages and medication meant for children.

Family Pharmacist’s second mistake was mixing the drug with apple juice. He laments it was as though he had given his son a sugar pill, and in fact, he had. Instead of a benzodiazepine drug mixed with sugar water, had he given his son a glass of milk and some cereal or a low-sugar oatmeal cookie, he may have found that the complex carbohydrates, protein, and calcium would have helped to relax his son and send him off to sleep, says Lianne Phillipson-Webb of Sprout Right. Following similar bedtime routines as at home, modified for the flight, may also have helped send his son the message that it was time to nod off, offers Tracey Ruiz, the Sleep Doula. And I can state that knowing his child reacts poorly on flights, FP could have chosen an alternative to the red eye, so being awake the whole time would be no big deal. And he also could have taken the Ativan himself, chilled out, and actually parented his son. For a long flight you need more than just a handful of DVDs in your carry-on, let’s hope FP packed a little more than some pharmaceuticals and Fireman Sam.

At the end of their journey, Family Pharmacist is lucky – lucky his son did not have an adverse reaction mid-flight to an adult anti-anxiety medication he administered to his preschooler on a whim, and lucky The Globe & Mail thought his story sensational enough to publish instead of irresponsible enough to call the authorities. Giving your child Ativan to knock them out on a flight is not a “dirty parenting secret”. It could be considered child endangerment. And it sullies what family travel is meant to foster – quality family time.

Corinne McDermott, aka @hvbabywilltrvl, is the founder of Have Baby Will Travel, and on a mission to inspire, motivate and help families traveling with babies, toddlers and young children. Her well-traveled kids don’t whine “Are We There Yet?” but “When Are We Going?” which at first was cute but now is quite possibly even more annoying. She enjoys travel (obviously), terrible reality television, and teasing her Albertan husband about marrying a Torontonian, and then fathering two little Torontonians.

So thanks to Laid Off Dad, along came this little article in to my twitter feed that listed a mere dozen ways that we’re effortlessly, gleefully screwing up our kids for life.  Life, I tell you! Yes, they’ve gathered child psychologists! Psychiatrists! and OTHER EXPERTS (who’d they call? your mother-in-law?) to come up with this handy list of everyday things that you, too, are probably doing which will inevitably result in gigantic bills to either a therapist or bail bondsman later in your child’s life.   And what are these things we’re all doing to mess with our kids, pray tell? Are they things like violence? Verbal abuse? Oh no, no. Far worse. Much more insidious. To mess up your kid for life, you merely have to:

• threaten to leave your kids behind (guilty)
  lie to your kid (guilty) (No, honey, Elmo’s asleep right now, he can’t come sing on the big TV…)
  Ignore your own bad behaviour (guilty) (you should have heard the curses coming out of my mouth this afternoon when  I stubbed my toe for the goddamn 4,682nd time on that goddamn corner..)

Anyway, for the sake of brevity and to keep you from reaching the point where you really just want to call children’s aid on me already, I will let you know that I’m pretty much guilty of every single sin on the Atlantic’s list. And so, probably, are you. Because there is nothing that isn’t on it that we, as parents, don’t do every day just to get through the day.  We’ll rush, and we’ll serve junk food, and we drive our cars, and we just do whatever it takes to keep everyone alive and healthy and happy. And even by doing that, we’re screwing it up. So thanks, Atlantic, for providing us with yet another impossible measure, yet another list that tells us how we, as parents, are irrevocably screwing up the next generation and how the downfall of western society is ENTIRELY OUR FAULT.

So the way I figure it, given that we can do exactly nothing that does not screw up our kids, here’s a list of things I am henceforth not going to give a crap about when it comes to parenting.

1. Kraft Dinner. I have had quite enough of making homemade macaroni and cheese with wholewheat pasta and 1% organic freerange whatthehellever milk and cheese made from unicorn farts. A couple of bowls of KD are not going to kill her, and frankly, not having to stress one more ounce about making that carb-laden shit from scratch is better for both of us in the long run.

2. Swearing. She’s gonna learn the words somehow, might as well learn how to use them appropriately and in context. Bonus: She’ll be the cool kid on the playground. And I’ll get to know the Principal really well.

3. What anyone else thinks. Yeah, I might do things you’d never do as a parent. Tell you what: You call me in 25 years and remind me of that time I did that thing at the mall that you rolled your eyes and huffed at. And then I’ll laugh at you, then you’ll laugh at me, and then we’ll pop our teeth in and go have a drink and chortle at the things we all used to take so damn seriously.