Restaurant Bingo for Parents

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Restaurant Bingo for Parents

Going out to eat is one of my favorite things in the world. However, I have two toddlers, and this makes things tricky. Truthfully, I think we’ve trained them pretty well: we repeat our simple “restaurant rule” in the car (“bottom in seat!”), I have a bag of plastic animals in my bag that they’re only allowed to play with at a restaurant, and we keep trying and practicing, which is key. They do about as good of a job as two toddlers can do, but also? They are, undeniably, tiny sinners.

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Dear Diary

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Dear Diary

I recently flipped through the diary I kept sporadically from age 8 until I entered sixth grade. It’s the devastating tale of a pure-of-heart elementary school student who hated hand chimes (this is the depressing stepping stone to the glorious handbells of Christmas carol fame) and kept meticulous record of when she brushed her teeth, and how she grew into a nightmarish sixth grader who smiled on the outside but spewed sass in her diary and had dreams of her diary being as famous as Anne Frank’s while also confessing her deep and irrational fear of Anne Frank.

I spent the majority of the entries addressing the diary as one would a parole officer: sharing dutifully every single thing I did and apologizing if I listed them out of order or forgot to write one day, which of course I did, constantly. Every single entry contains an apology of some sort to this inanimate but oppressive diary, and this is totally, exactly how I am: enslaving myself to expectations no one else ever set, feeling terrible about it, and then eventually shaking my fist at the sky in resentment when I realize I can’t meet them. OH, HELP.

The scariest part about reading an old diary is not who you were, but who you STILL ARE. Have mercy. Here is what my diary taught me is (probably) eternally true about me:

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Nonsensical Thoughts: Halloween Edition

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Nonsensical Thoughts: Halloween Edition

I love Halloween. I always have. Candy, costumes, celebrating for no clear reason — these are, without debate, the best things ever. I tend to take costumes pretty seriously. If I get an idea in my head, you will need to sedate me and surgically remove the idea from my brain in order to get me to change course. My personality is a little off-kilter like this: I spend a good deal of time yielding to other’s opinions, very go-with-the-flow and “whatever you think!”, and then, out of nowhere, I’ll dig in my heels on something inconsequential, and you’ll never change my mind, not in a million years or for a million dollars. Ask my husband how he feels about this. (SPOILER: HE LOVES IT.) (Editor’s note: No he doesn’t.)

I remember having a crystal clear vision for my Halloween costume in fourth grade. I wanted to be an artist: have a tiny mustache, a painter’s palette, a beret. Oh, it would be very inspired! Very meaningful! Very French! Here’s how it turned out:

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Existential Crisis

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Existential Crisis

Last week, while we were on vacation, I was convinced that my children were not missing their Parents’ Day Out, because the school was on Fall Break. I told multiple people this, like, “How convenient that the school Fall Break fell on the same week as our long-planned vacation!” Isn’t it nice when life is like that? Except I was talking with my friend Megan, whose daughter Ellie Kate goes to the same PDO program, and she mentioned something about taking Ellie Kate to school. “Wait, what?” I said. “I thought they were on Fall Break!” Megan was confused, but I ended up deciding Fall Break must be next week. Silly me, getting my dates switched up! Megan and I bond over this shared muddled calendar tendency. We are silly!

When I get home, I check the calendar, and you guys, there is no Fall Break. As in zero Fall Break. As in I completely invented the entire idea out of nothing, and it was never, ever on the calendar. 

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Nonsensical Thoughts on Parenting and Mirrors

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Nonsensical Thoughts on Parenting and Mirrors

My daughter snagged herself some twin husbands that are twice her age. I mean, she’s three and the boys are six and they were really just playing house at the playground, but the point was that she would tell them “come wif me,” and they would, following her around and completing her demanding “honey do” lists for a solid thirty minutes until their mom dragged them home. Upon reflection, I realized that 1) I could learn a lot from her, and 2) I need to pray more specifically for her future husband. My daughter is her daddy made over, and that means we’re navigating through some tricky waters we call “bossiness” or when we’re in a better mood, “leadership skills.” I love her for all the reasons I love her daddy: she’s decisive, she speaks her mind, and she doesn’t get swept away in the opinions of others, three things I happen to be terrible at. So yeah, we marry our opposites and then give birth to our opposites and it’s all a little confusing to navigate. 

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