Verrrrry Pinteresting...

I try to make a couple things from Pinterest each week--otherwise what's the point of pinning all of that stuff. I mean, yes, I pin photos taken from million dollar houses of bathrooms that would take up all the square footage of our tiny home, but since I can't make those happen...I can craft (in my mind) and cook (also in my mind). So last night I made strawberry lemonade cupcakes, but then it was too late for the kids to eat them. I promised that they could have one with their breakfasts, thus ensuring that I am the greatest mom who ever lived. Luckily, they haven't had many cupcakes before because they are an abomination to the word cupcake. They are hard, they are dense, they are gross...but my kids are excited because they are eating "cupcakes" (sponges that taste vaguely lemony) for breakfast. I win!

Dino For Life, Yo!

I am at the point in my life when I meet people and I think to myself, "What did your parents do to make you such a wonderful person?" and then I pry for information--poking and prodding them until they determine that I'm crazy and refuse to answer further questions from me, despite my pleading because I want to be a good mom and I think there are some truly amazing people out there.

More often than not, however, I meet people and I think, "What did your parents do to help make you the douche that you've become?" and then all of my parental actions for the day are suspect. Will Tommy become a super douche if I continuously allow him to eat only Dino vitamins each day. He thinks that the other ones aren't as tasty...whatever, it makes him happy so we scout out a Dino each morning and I warn him that like fossil fuels, we are going to run out of Dinos at some point.  Or should I force him to try the Freds in the hopes that he will never grow up to be half of the kids that we meet? Or perhaps the Dino Hypothesis for creating douchey kids is perhaps faulty?? Who knows?

 I'm having trouble keeping my mouth shut. I'm currently living in a world where mothers sit silently on the edge of the pool, waiting to fly in and save their child from any moment of unpleasantness (visions of lionesses waiting at the edge of the watering hole come to mind).  No one wants to talk to one another unless it's to brag about what class so and so just finished or to talk about how frazzled they all are as mothers. Oh boy! Fun conversation time!  Meanwhile,they are making sure that no one is touching their kids' precious pool toys and faking polite tones while keeping their kids isolated in the pool (seemingly impossible when there's about 3,000 kids in a kiddie pool). When my boys splash or wrestle, or enthusiastically yell about dinosaurs they are met with looks of distaste. It's weird Stepford child world people are creating...or my kids are just cretins and I am unaware?  No idea. But I do know that in the past few days both of my kids have come crying to me and telling me things that weren't earth-shatteringly mean but mean enough for a 2 and a 3 year old but I'm trying hard to not micromanage them. I tell them, "if kids are mean to you, just don't play with them, it's that easy!" and other mothers ruffle at that. "Is my son being mean?" they ask, as if they didn't just hear their kid tell my kid that his name was stupid and that he was ugly.  What the hell do you do there? Me? I shrug and say, "My son perceived it to be mean, his feelings are hurt, he tends to follow around kids and try to get them to like him, I didn't want him to pester your son".  Meanwhile, what I wanted to say was, "Why is your kid so mean? Why are kids mean??"
This motherhood thing is hard, yo.