Listen up, folks.

Let my folly be a lesson to you all.

If you ever want to save a doctor’s visit by COMBINING both your kids’ check-ups and somehow end up unwittingly combining their vaccination shots schedules, DON’T DO IT, and oh yeah, GOOD LUCK TO YOU!

Perhaps you’ll make out better than I did. Because the fallout from a six-shotastrophe is not pretty.

Four, count ‘em, FOUR shots for Ruby; and two shots for Maxine. I don’t know who was in more pain, Ruby, Max, or Dot.

I do know who was the loudest.

Have you ever heard a four-year-old scream at the top of her lungs?

Well, all seven floors of the medical building sure did.

Sorry about that.

To the person who came up with the toy that my kid is screaming about as I leave the toy store without purchasing it, this is for you.

DID YOU NOT PLAY WITH STICKS AS A CHILD?
Merge mermaid, fairy, and princess. Behold: The Mer-Fairy-Princess. Who cares if it is impossible to fly underwater? Don’t tell the scientists at Barbie HQ.

DON’T CALL IT PINK, IT’S MAGENTA!
Pinkify the crap out of it.

WHY YES, I NAMED HER JUSTINIANNALYN-CRYSTAL.
The Mer-Fairy-Princess’ name must have more than four syllabuses. Bonus if the parent is unable to pronounce or spell the name.

I know how you think. I’m coming for you.

In the beginning, there was life.

And life was documented in ways not unlike scratchings on a large piece of rock. An upload those days meant pushing – with 10,000 of your other slave peeps – a gigantic stone up a hill and loading it onto a structure not unlike Stonehenge.

We’ve come a long way, baby.

With every LIKE of a baby photo, you, my living, breathing humanoid with access to a computer, have changed parenting forever.

Please to read.

Stage “OMG I AM HAVING A CHILD AND I NEED TO TELL EVERYONE BECAUSE I AM SO FREAKING EXCITED” 1: Status updates are all-caps and everything from positive pregnancy tests to ultrasound pictures is uploaded.

Stage “Isn’t my child the most gorgeous thing on earth” 2: Child is born and by golly, isn’t it the most gorgeous thing on earth? Every status update is a photo, taken every hour. Keep liking my photos, I need the validation.

Stage “You are my Facebook friend so you really need to know everything that happens to me and my child” 3: “I am feeding my child.” “Breastfeeding hurts.” “My child’s poop is green.” “I am spamming your timeline with unnecessary insight into my life with child.”

Stage “Enough with the cute photos, now I need to be witty and snarky about the child” 4: I have learnt the folly of my gushing ways and will now restrict my updates to making fun of my child and unflattering photos to show that I can be ironic about it all.

Stage “Kids are older and all I can talk about is how they are driving me to drink” 5: Just don’t call Child Protective Services.

Stage “Stalking my child through Facebook” 6: I am the mom commenting on every update (I’m allowed to see) and posting how proud I am on the child’s wall.

Stage “Friend me please” 7: I’m sure she’s not simply ignoring my request, is she?

Full disclosure: I am a Stage 4.5 parent using a Stage 2 photo.

I hate being sick because there is no time to get better.

And while you’re throwing yourself a pity party for one, life trucks on. In my case, the semi-trailer of Life barreling down on me is driven by two mini-beings who did not get the memo on mommy’s need to rest.

Worse, one of them has the nerve to get sick too! WHAT? People, it’s MY TURN! My turn to experience the joys of nasal congestion, feverish chills, sleep deprivation and general blahness without catering to the whines of a similarly-inflicted human! AH! Seriously.

In times like these, I really, really want to reach out and punch scientific-type people who, for the zillionth time since flickering light was invented on a screen, publish important studies telling parents our children will die, DIE of stupidity, if they watch any television.

I don’t care what kind of outfit other families run where perfectly-behaved kids play perfectly by themselves without the use of the Evil Screen. The only thing that holds my kids’ attention for more than five minutes is said Light of Death.

You know what?

For the fucking record, I watched a shitload of TV growing up.

And for what it’s worth, I am a (semi) high-functioning 38-year-old mother who is (barely) holding it together, prone only to the occasional outbursts against TV researchers.

Especially when I am sick and all I want to do is lie down and fall asleep to the sound of my friend, the TV. Who cares who I’m taking down with me?

Kids: Casulties of the War of Sick Mommies Who Are Too Tired To Give A Shit.

Death by TV. I like that.

P/S It may surprise you, Gentle Blog Reader, that we do not have a TV per se. All mentions of “TV” actually refer to streaming on our computers. Eat THAT, TV researcher!

Nothing makes something more exciting than an exclamation point!

Or two!!

This isn’t just a photo of Ruby and her arrangement of toys.

This is a photo of Ruby and her arrangement of toys!

Ruby! Who is FOUR! FOUR! YEARS! OLD!

Holy exclamation points! How did 1,460 days pass so quickly!

Yes! HOW!

I LOVE ME SOME EXCLAMATION POINTS AND WHY NOT ALL-CAPS THIS AS WELL!

I ONLY GET TO DO THIS WHEN MY FIRSTBORN TURNS FOUR, RIGHT?

You know what this means? I’ll have to throw on even more exclamation points when she turns five!!!!!

If you’re going to up and walk all over the place, you might as well give yourself a big hand.

So my kids hate wearing socks.

Even if it’s 10 below zero outside, I’ll be lucky if I can get Ruby to put socks on, and Maxine to keep her socks on.

Everyone pretty much runs around shoeful and sockless.

Do I blame them? Well, I don’t wear socks.

Much.

I do not like wearing socks with my Vans sneakers and my New Balance shoes. I do like wearing socks with my Birkenstocks. But I digress.

Perhaps it’s a case of monkey see, monkey do, but I really don’t feel like modeling sock-wearing behavior for my kids just because I need them to wear socks. Shouldn’t my COMMAND to put socks on be good enough?

Jay points out that Ruby does not have proper shoes for playing outside. Technically, she does, but she just doesn’t want to wear them. I can relate. Don’t you remember playing outside with your slippers (called “sandals” here) all day? I don’t think I owned track shoes (called “running shoes” here) till I was in secondary school. Okay so it was a tropical country, but a little cold shouldn’t stop people from wearing nothing!

I’m not sure what socklessness does to their psyche.

I suspect that years on, I will somehow be responsible for their time in therapy. Mommy’s socklessness. Sockless preference. Playground ridicule. Self-confidence annihilation. Hey, it always starts small!

You know what will help?

They need to start wearing socks with slippers. Now that’s a style DO to earn props among kids.

I don’t have enough things to keep track of in my life.

No, seriously.

Right?

So I decided that I was going to photograph everything I ate this year.

Everything.

It’s a pain.

But here you go. I am taking a picture of every random thing I am putting into my mouth. Once you do that, you really see what you’re putting in your body.

And you know what?

Damn I eat a lot of noodles.

Poor Maxine.

She won’t remember the last two nights, and neither will we, in the scheme of things; but right now, right here, I’m telling ya so all of us won’t forget.

All Hail The Caffeine Overlords. I’m pretty sure they are parents too.

In fact, I just have no time to rant. Between two needy kiddos, work, the house, and our new goldfish, YES GOLDFISH, I have forgotten what free time looks like.

Next order of business: Sleep, then blog.

I’ll be back.

P/S Can fish give the evil eye? I believe I am being dissed by two three-inch aquatic organisms.