mooshisms.

So every parent tells other people the funny things that their kids say. Well, at least it’s funny to them. Or the people who know the kid really well. Or people who are easily amused by “kids say the darndest things” type conversations.

I am not one of those people. Yet here I am, with “the moosh says the darndest things.”

  • “MOM! There’s the biggest most awesomest toasty golden brown bug outside the window.” (Yes, toasty golden brown, like toast, or cheese, or cheese on toast. I know.)
  • (insert the moosh getting into serious trouble in public place)

***sobbing***”I WANT MY MOM.”***sobbing***

“I am your mom”

*blank stare from the moosh*

She buries her face in a chair and sobs even harder.

  • “Hey, can we get a baby brother while we’re here?” (said in the textiles aisle of TJ Maxx.)
  • “YOU DON’T HAVE ANY OPTIONS!” the moosh’s closing line to an argument with a fellow three year old.
  • “Stop doing the lawn!” Said to the landscapers outside our window.

This afternoon I woke up from a little snoozer to this:

Drizella!

And the moosh screaming this:
“DRIZELLA!”

There’s one thing no one ever tells you about parenting. You never get to be the “cool” character. You always have to be the witch or the evil stepmother or the ugly stepsister or the horse. What I wouldn’t give to play Cinderella one last time. (Dude, I’m not even allowed to like Cinderella because Cinderella IS HER FAVORITE.)

My life is rarely ever boring.

Gah. Love. Her.

Whatever do you mean we have an integrated web cam?

Especially now that I know that little black square up there is a webcam. Who knew?

Gossip of the delicious kind.

gos·sip

n.

1. Rumor or talk of a personal, sensational, or intimate nature.
2. A person who habitually spreads intimate or private rumors or facts.
3. Trivial, chatty talk or writing.
4. A close friend or companion.
Where in the definition of gossip does it say “must be malicious and hurtful to qualify as gossip”? Yet when we hear the word gossip our ears are instantly perked with the hope of hearing that so and so has had a nose job, that girl over there sleeps with men for money or that guy likes to eat his toejam.
Gossip is even more fantastic when it’s about someone we know, especially if it’s someone we don’t like, or worse, envy.
Meh.
Gossip sucks.
Correction.
Catty, backstabbing, ruthless, mean, nosy gossip sucks. And it spreads like a toxic wildfire.
After seeing John and Jen at a little restaurant in Indy last week I was contacted by at least five fan sites and three major (MAJOR) news outlets looking for details. Imagine their disappointment when I told them they were eating food and looked genuinely happy doing it.
“Rumor or talk of a personal, sensational, or intimate nature.”
Who said that rumors or talk of a personal, sensational or intimate nature need to be rude or mean to be interesting?
How often do we admire someone’s (sensational) outfit, humor, skin, hair, shoes, laugh or bone structure but never say anything to them? Instead we may say something to the person next to us, and chances are they will concur. They will in turn say something to someone else. The fact that the two or three of you think that girl over there in those cute red shoes is the bees knees will probably never reach her ears. It will stay between you and your friends because chances are you’d feel a little funny running up to a stranger proclaiming your love for her choice of footwear.
Shame really.
There’s a girl who lives just down the road from me that has a face that was formed by angels. She has cheekbones ANTM contestants would kill for. Everyone who knows her talks about them, and everyone agrees that she is strikingly beautiful, but as far as I know no one talks to her about them.
So I did.
“Hey did you know that at least a dozen different girls think you are beautiful?”
She blushed. She had no idea.
This is the kind of gossip we need to share. If you hear something said about someone else and you agree, why not share with the person being admired?
I know I’ve never gotten mad at anyone who gave me a compliment.
(And no, this is not a shameless attempt to get compliments.)
For example. I think Lotus from Sarcastic Mom is amazingly beautiful. In more ways than one obviously, but the girl just glows.
So there you go.
What about the best compliment you’ve ever received, maybe one you were never meant to hear? How did it make you feel?
Or is there something you admire about someone, yet you’ve never put it into words to them?
Go.
Do it.
I dare you.

You still have time for a Whoorlie do.

5 days left to enter the “Let the moosh Whoorl your hair contest extravaganza” where you will be put front and center over at Hair Thursday and I will pay for you to get your hair done up as Sarah and her thousands of readers see fit.

All you have to do is link to the original post, Hair Thursday and post a photo of a good hair day, a bad hair day and an average hair day. That’s it! One winner will be picked at random and announced between Thursday July 18th and Sunday July 20th. You have until Midnight EST on Monday July 14th to enter.

Worried about showing your bad hair day to the internets? All these women have already joined it. Will you be next?

Jia from Color me UnTypical

Melissa from Toast 2 Mom

Bridget from The Ivey League

Beverly from Glenys Lucky Mama

Kim from Strangers Still

Lauren from Lauren’s Knitting

Amy from Permission to Peruse

SuzyQ from Squirrel Chatter

Jean from Working Momma 24/7

Missy from Meanwhile Back at the Ranch

Emily from designHER momma

Holly from Holly Babble

Beth from Tale of Two Kiddies

April from ChiMonkey

Megan from Karma Rack Up

Isabel from Hola, Isabel!

Amy from Mama Nirvana

Betsy from My Pretty Little World

Alicia from Red Doll Shoes

Becky from Clearly Delirious

Amanda from Kicky Boots

Mary Beth from Cats…Books…Life is Good

Nichole from esmon

Emily at Mama’s Bloggin’

Jen from Mommy Instincts

ikate from Ka-Ka-Ka-Katy

Sarah from In My Blonde Life

Mandy from They Call Me Bobby

Amy from doobleh-vay

Jennifer from JeRom’s Journal

Bellamomma from The Mommy Years

Mommytime from Mommy’s Martini

Kerri Anne from Kerrianne

Nakie Bacon Berries.

I gave Costco $9 and Costco gave me a pound (!) of prosciutto.

Prosciutto.

I gave Trader Joe’s $8 and Trader Joe’s gave me two pounds (!) of raspberries.

Raspberries

I have seriously had to fight off the urge to wrap prosciutto around each of my fingers and suck on it like a lollipop.

I have also had to deny the intense desire to smear raspberries all over my bare flesh.

When I say I love food, I mean I looooove food.

Now quit judging me and tell me what foods you would consider bathing naked in.

The Superpowers of Motherhood.

To those of you without children, and to those of you with a newborn.

The day is coming that parenting will become second nature. Hell, it will pretty much become first nature.

Promise.

The memories of leaving a house with a newborn/infant still frighten me. The toys, the nursing pads, the bottles, the burp cloths, the change of clothes, the binkies, the blankets, the nursing cover, the bibs, the spoons, the baby food, the high chair cover, the holycowhowdidIevermakeitpastthisstagewithoutdrinking.

There will come a day (remember I only have one…) that you will switch over to a big girl purse and find that even without that artillery of a diaper bag you are just as prepared for anything a small human can throw at you (or fall in) than you were with it.

Take the pootastrophe on Friday. Cody watched her fall in and just stared with his mouth open grunting “EW EW EW”. I however was taken over, wipes appeared as if from no where (seriously, I had just packed them in my purse that day.) Plastic bags were found. Poo was cleaned off, no help from Cody who hid behind the car making stink faces.

I have seen moms catch balls thrown at their heads without missing a beat in their conversation. I have seen moms clean muddy shorts with nothing more than a sippy cup and a steel fence. I can carry a conversation in the car with the moosh about Pinnocchio and one with Cody about Rodger Clemens at the same time.

Someday the cries of a baby will no longer pull you from your warm bed at night and you will be able to fall asleep without thinking every squeak of a tire outside may be the squeak of a baby trying to wake up. However there will still by cries, cries of sick little kids with fevers or scared little kids with nightmares.

But this time it will be your heart that wakes you up, not your ears.

It will be your heart that will pull you into the other room because the little body lying in that little bed is a piece of your heart walking around on the outside of your body. There will be no referencing of parenting books at one a.m. There will be no googling of Croup symptoms at two a.m.

You will just know.

And you will fix it. Whether it’s a warm compress on little chubby legs suffering from growing pains or a cold washcloth across a sweaty fevered forehead. You will be able to fix it. Because you are the mom. And moms are superheroes.

Even if you never realized it before.

Poop, Pastrami and John Mayer.

Are you ready for the craziest segue ever in the history of blog posts?

You see, my little family headed out for some 4th festivities. As we were leaving to go to lunch the moosh slipped in an enormous squishy pile of dog poo that covered her legs, her skirt and her shoes. So lunch was changed to bath. Because dog poo? PEE-EW. Especially when the person covered in it has to ride home with you.

The whole way home I fumed a post in my head about dog owners and their responsibility to clean up after their dogs. While many people look with disdain upon both dog owners and toddler owners, I can assure you I will never allow my toddler to leave behind a pile of crap for you, or your dog to step in.

Seriously. Pick up the crap people.

We made it to lunch about an hour after we would have originally gotten there had the poo been cleaned up appropriately. (Seriously dog owners, seriously.) Our choice of dining establishments was a deli called Shapiro’s. I accidentally found it when I drove by lost and forlorn yesterday. It looked like a complete dump from the outside, yet it was filled with normal looking people both old and young inside.

By far the best sign a restaurant is good.

We walked in ready to order our pastrami sandwiches (holy pile of magnificent pastrami sandwich it was, do you live in Indiana? Go. eat. here.) when Cody said “Huh, that lady looks like Jennifer Aniston.” Cody’s judgment of celebrity look alikes can be a little wonky, so imagine my utter shock and surprise to turn around and see that yes, not only did she look like Jennifer Aniston, SHE WAS JENNIFER ANISTON. And since celebrities tend to date celebrities OH MY GAH SHE’S HUGGING JOHN MAYER.

And that’s how poop landed me two tables away from John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston for lunch. (Did I have my camera? NO! But I asked one of the girls who did to email me proof that they existed, are you reading this girls from the parking lot? Please send proof. xo-Casey)

Mah lucky bloggin’ shirt.

I went out and bought all new outfits for BlogHer last year (Oh shut up, you know you did too.) One of the things I bought was a navy blue shirt with a white polka dot empire waist tie. It’s the only navy blue thing I own. It was also the only thing I owned at the time with polka dots. (My polka dot clothing count has since been raised to three.)

I was wearing my navy blue shirt when I had my first picture taken with my complete blog crush from last year. Seriously, I was star struck over her. A total redneck mommy groupie. This year? If she doesn’t bring me Wunderbars I have full license to strangle her with the navy blue shirt whilst she sleeps. (Be warned T.)
Redneck Mommy and Moosh

I wore my navy blue shirt again when BOSSY rolled through town on her excellent road trip.

BOSSY et moosh

The navy blue shirt made yet another appearance when I made my first local television appearance about the blogging I do that caused me to buy the navy blue shirt in the first place.
My big debutMy dentist is prrrooouuuudddd

The image “https://i0.wp.com/farm4.static.flickr.com/3133/2633906122_0d44cd3bb3_m.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.Blah Indy Blah

I have an official lucky blogging shirt. Would anybody judge me if I wore it all four days in San Fransisco?

P.S. You probably won’t be seeing any video of me on TV, I don’t have that fancy Tivo, I have no idea how to get it off my DVR and I’m not really even on the screen a whole lot, they showed a lot of clips of the stuff I was talking about. Besides, I said “ERM” instead of “UM”. I don’t need that circling the internet and reminding me, oh, ERM, everyday of my slip on live TV.

Wii’s kinda snarky. I’s snarky right back.

Who’s played Wii Fit?

Has it made you cry yet?

Have you at least sworn at it?

I have.

You see, Wii Fit is a computer. It could care less if you’re a hulking beast of muscle. All it knows is that you’re 5’2″ 26 years old and that you weigh 127 lbs. It doesn’t know about your delicate wrists or your slender neck. It just knows that mathematically the BMI for a 5’2″ 127 lb. 26 year old woman is 21.47.

21.47 is normal, 21.47 is healthy. It even tells you you’re normal and healthy. It will even indulge you with a Wii Fit age of 24 years old.

Aw, Wii Fit, you’re making me blush.

Hop on Wii Fit a week later after two days of period water weight bloat and a half box of Oreos from the night before and the Wii Fit will notice that you are now a 5’3″ woman who weighs 128.2 lbs. The Wii Fit will then draw an ENORMOUS RED LINE at a very steep angle from your previously recorded weight of 127 lbs. followed by a screen giving you six options as to why you’ve gained weight.

Why do you think you’ve gained weight this past week Casey?

a. I eat too much.

b. I eat before bed.

c. I don’t exercise enough.

d. I watch too much SYTYCD.

e. I eat half bags of Oreos in one sitting.

f. I don’t know.

No where is there an option for “I am a bloated heifer carrying around enough extra water weight to drown a small dinghy”.

So I selected “I don’t know.”

Wii Fit came back and told me some garbage about me being accountable for my eating habits and he’s just sure I know why I gained two pounds and to play Wii Fit everyday and he won’t let me get tubby like I’m letting myself get tubby without his cute computer sounds and addictive games.

This is when the Wii Fit was formally told to suck it.

Wii Fit then made my Mii avatar chubbier around the midsection, to reflect my newfound weight gain.

Touché , Wii Fit. touché .

Crazy Sober Mormons.

I don’t drink. Used to. Don’t anymore. In my choice of religion we are commanded to follow the Word of Wisdom. The word of wisdom basically breaks down to “eat stuff that’s good for you, avoid the stuff that’s bad for you.” Included in the list of things which are good for you are fruits, vegetables, whole grains and meat (in moderation). Duh. The things that fall under the “bad” category are alcohol, tobacco, coffee and tea.

(By the way, to any new readers, HI! I’m a Mormon. If you hate Mormons, kindly keep your mean emails and comments to yourself and just click away, hit unsubscribe and forget that 12,000,000 of us share the same planet as you. kthxbai)

So there you go. I don’t drink. That isn’t to say that I never drank, because WHOO did I drink. And you know what? It really isn’t for me. With my depression and inability to control myself as a hot drunken mess it’s really just better that I don’t. So even if it weren’t for the religious direction not to drink, I still wouldn’t drink. Same with cigarettes, tried one once, gagged and vomited in my mouth a little. Plus I spend a lot of money to smell good, why waste all that effort? As for the coffee and tea? I’ve had one sip of coffee in my entire life. Totally not for me. Icky. Tea? I broke down and tried some “magical” ginger tea whilst I was pregnat. Let’s just say that vomiting up ginger tea solidified my passionate hatred for all things ginger.

So that brings us to BlogHer, where the liquor and coffee flow pretty freely. I won’t be drinking any of it. However, I’ll probably be keeping a Shirley Temple and hot chocolate count somewhere in my sidebar. I personally am a lot more fun sober. Although when you see me dance, you may wonder if I didn’t take a little nip when no one was looking.

Are you worried I’ll be talking to you all the while silently judging you and condemning you to hell for that gin and tonic in your hands?

Depends. Are you going to be accosting me insisting that I shove liquor down my throat, calling me a big holier than thou sissypants sissy for not drinking?

No? Didn’t think so. Just as I know you will respect my reasons for not drinking, I wholly respect your decision to drink. You’re a big girl, you can handle yourself. So assuming Shirley Temples are free, I’ll have a few drink tickets up for grabs.

See you in 19 days ladies.