Underdressed Kids ... Let Them be Comfortable! #LazyParentsGuideToLife

Do you care what your kids wear?

Sometimes I do, like when we go to church. I make sure they have on a decent shirt and pants (not jammie pants and not sweatpants and not even jeans).

Sometimes I do, depending on WHO I’m going to be around. Like if we’re going to be around a bunch of people who are ridiculously judgmental and would call The State on me for mal-dressed kids, I make them wear normal clothes.

Otherwise, I plead “part of why we homeschool is so we don’t have to worry about dress codes and wearing what everyone else is wearing.”

Like when we went to the first day of our parks and rec homeschool art class. I knew there would be dressed up Duggars there, but my boys are most comfy in loose-fitting pants with designs on them that closely resemble jammies. Besides, it’s ART CLASS … they’re gonna get messy!

We had a doctor appointment right after that and I had to take all 5 kids and didn’t have time for them to change clothes, so I took them to the doc in their comfy clothes, too. Normally that’s a place where I want them to look a little nicer, but that day I just didn’t have the brain power to care.

I mean, other than wearing their jammies in public (like you wish YOU could), my kids are happy, healthy, clean, well-educated, well-exercised and well-fed and are just generally good kids.

I can’t wait for Anonymous to comment about how I’m a lazy parent, to which I will pre-respond that I (literally) wrote the (e-)book on lazy parenting and am currently tweaking it, so I agree with you.

UPDATE as of April 23, 2016, still working on it .... haha!

And as of January 31, 2020, I have not had time to work on it! Moved to the country and too busy keeping up with homeschooling, a house, a pool, friends, family and fun!

When Children Die

My friend Eva recently told me that the friend of a friend just had a baby who had meconium aspiration like my baby Sam had when he was born. This baby was in the NICU a couple of days, and then he died.

This story haunts me. I keep asking myself this impossible question that I will not know the answer to until I’m dead: “Why did my baby live and her baby died?” It’s not like I’m a better person than that baby’s mother. I’m certainly not more worthy.

A few weeks later at gymnastics class I met a woman who told me she had 4 kids, but one had passed away only 8 months earlier. And she’s pregnant again. Her son was 3 ½ when he wandered into their pool … a pool that normally had all gates locked and an alarm system. I didn’t get all the details because I didn’t want to pry too much on our first meeting. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, so I told her I was sorry and that she’s amazing and congratulations on the new baby. I savored a little book of photos she had of her son.

They’re in the process of tearing up the pool. She came upon Hell and couldn’t go around it. She had to go through it. She is amazing because she came out the other side. She’s trying to live a normal life, taking her kids to gymnastics (among other things), when I’m sure she would much rather crawl into her bed and stay there all day, every day.

She mentioned getting together sometime. I gave her my “mommy card” (my business card with email, phone and web site). She told me she’s writing a book about her experience of the first year after a child dies. I believe there is a reason for everything. For sure these days I’m seeing my kids differently, taking them less for granted. What if today is the last day of life for one of my kids? Accidents happen all the time.

I still look at Sam and wonder what I would have done if he had died. We never know how we’ll respond to something like that. Divorce often ensues. Relationships with the other children are damaged. It’s hard to comprehend that the dead one is most likely better off than we are; happier, at peace, looking down on us or hanging out among us wanting us to live life to the fullest and probably not wanting us to let the death envelop us.

Thank you to that mom for sharing her story with me. And now I’m sharing it with you. Maybe you want to share it with a mom you know. Or maybe you want to go eat a pint of ice cream. Now go hug your kids.

Google Pictures of My Freaking House

Aron just left a message to close the front shades because the Google van is driving around taking pictures and I probably don’t want them getting a photo of me breastfeeding in my own home. I hate that they take pictures of houses. How dumb. I called him back and told him, “Thanks for my next blog post because that is too funny!”

I already have pictures they took of my house, by the way. My dad found it when he was messing around one day looking for pictures of where I was born and where we lived in Germany in 1970 and 1971. Anyway, on both photos they have the wrong address typed on the top, so I don’t know how anybody finds what they’re looking for anyway!

Back to Sleep Campaign

Okay, so if you're a GOOD PARENT you put your baby on his/her back to sleep, right? I mean, if you don't want your baby to DIE of SIDS, you put your baby on his/her back. RIGHT?

Or did you?

In my vast experience, babies seem to want to sleep on their stomachs. They feel all cozy, snuggled up to the mattress. If you lay them on their back they do that funny thing where their arms splay out to their sides and they often wake up.

Feel free to post as Anonymous on this one. No judgments from me since we have had a family bed for over 8 years (and nobody has ever even come close to suffocating or dying). I'm just curious about what you're actually doing. People don't talk about it much because they don't want to be perceived as "bad parents" if their kid sleeps on the belly.

And yes, the post is coming up on SIDS being linked to a serotonin deficiency. Be patient.

Women and Financial Responsibility

Recently on one of my favorite shows that my mom tapes for me, The Real Housewives of Orange County, Lynne was mad at her husband that she and her family got evicted from their $10,000 a month home they had just moved into. She was mad at her husband that he didn't tell her that he didn't have the money to pay the $10,000 deposit and so he simply hid it from her.

Here's the thing ...

I know what's going on with the bills in my house, and we aren't talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And ... I think that if Lynne knew they were having financial problems, she would have held off on her (unnecessary) facelift and the nose job for her 19-year-old daughter. I think she is a reasonable woman that way.

I think a husband who tries to give his wife EVERYTHING even when he can't afford it is a D.A. (remember how I can't cuss on here anymore b/c I've sold out to Coupons.com, a family-friendly advertising venue?).

What do you think? Do you watch this show? Do you think I am shallow for watching this show? Do you think I really care what you think about my TV habits? Do you know what's going on with the bills in your house? Are you on something right now? Do you want to be?