Why My Kindergartner Will Save Us from the Zombie Apocalypse

Some days are just hard. Sometimes, when my daughter is having her tenth tantrum of the day and I am at my breaking point, I wonder why God gave me such a challenging child. 

To be fair, it’s not all her fault. My sweet, smart, funny and fierce daughter has ADHD and ODD in addition to a speech delay and other random kinks. 

But when it’s 2pm and I’m already pining for a glass of wine just to buffer me from the chaos that is my life right now, I can’t help but wonder: Why me?

Then I realize…the answer is clear. Some other parents would give up on their kid. Not everyone would shuttle the child around to speech two days a week, swimming because she is a born mermaid and the water is her home, gymnastics because she loves movement, a private school because she needs a nurturing environment, and horseback riding because it calms her. God may have given me this child because I might be the only mother who would do all these things.  And, let’s face it… God may have given me this child because I am the only mother who wouldn’t kill it! And it’s clear that she NEEDS to survive, because the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE IS COMING, AND MY DAUGHTER WILL SAVE US ALL.

Here’s How My Kindergartener Will Save Us from the Zombie Apocalypse.

1.She has extremely large, razor-sharp teeth that can slice through just about anything, and she isn’t afraid to use them. (Just ask her sister.) Seriously though, after knocking out her two front teeth on two separate occasions and existing as a toothless wonder for many years, her two front teeth have finally come in and they are FORMIDABLE. They are as big as Chiclets and sharp as daggers. They even protrude a bit from an ominous thumb-sucking habit. Zombies wouldn’t stand a chance.

2. She is restless and always-on-the-move. The zombies could never keep track of her. You think she’s in Spanish at kindergarten? Nope, she’s hiding in the bathroom, pretending to poop. You think she’s sleeping? She’s downstairs making a parfait. You think she’s taking a relaxing bath? She’s flooding the bathroom in a “wave pool” full of anti-lice shampoo. You think she's safely buckled in the back seat? She's in the back of the S.U.V. digging through groceries. I’m her fucking mother and I can’t even keep track of her!

3. Her blood-curdling scream is a battle cry that can be heard from miles away, and send even the undead running for the hills. She will call out other Zombie fighters from (I don’t know, aren’t there others out there? Help me out, Moms) and launch a Braveheart-style attack, complete with sharpie-face paint, sequin snowboots and a fur vest.  Her flair for drama will confuse and distract the zombies, enabling the fainter-of-heart to escape, and other zombie fighters to approach from behind.

4. Nothing scares her. Nothing.  Things that send her big sister diving under the covers barely elicit a response. “Michael Jackson’s jacket is really cool. Can I get a red leather jacket like that? And a zombie mask too, please. Is that brown blood coming from the zombie’s mouth? CAN I EAT A BUNCH OF CHOCOLATE AND LOOK LIKE THAT?”

5. She’s tough as nails with a pain tolerance that could rival a prize-winning fighter. Did she crack her head open and go to E.R. a bloody mess for seven staples in her head? Hell yes she did. No big deal. Home girl got her head STAPLED with just a TOPICAL and didn’t even cry until her Daddy passed out cold on the hospital floor. “What’s wrong with Daddy?” Chi-chi (staple) chi-chi (staple).

6. She isn’t afraid to engage in rogue and subversive tactics to distract and deter zombies.  The Truffle Shuffle, a Moana reenactment and deadly ball-pit dive are just a few items in her bag of tricks.

7. She’s eerily tenacious. Talk about having her eyes on the prize. She gets knocked down, and she gets back up again. You’re never going to keep her down. Is there something she wants? She never, ever, ever, ever gives up. Ever, ever, ever, ever…

8. She will fight to the death for the ones she loves. And her love is fierce. If you cross someone she cares about, she will take you down. 

Well, my love is fierce too. (So I guess God got it right.)

And after she’s saved us all from the Zombie Apocalypse and I finally get her through school, she will find her ultimate calling. I have no doubt she will move mountains. But for now, I’ll take that glass of wine…

13 Signs It's Time for Your Kids to go Back to School

It’s almost here. Can you make it? Just a few more days. A few more painful, excruciating, migraine-inducing days before school starts. Can you make it? You’re not sure.

You’re tapped out. The well has run dry. The dead horse has been beaten. The source of this despair? This chaos, this destruction, this heart-wrenching suffering? Your beloved offspring. The ones you can’t wait to kiss goodbye, never to see again. Well, at least for seven hours.

Is it time for school to start? If you’re a complete sadist and you’re not sure, here’s a handy checklist. For the rest of us...well, this will just confirm our suspicions.

    1.    You plan your day around wine. You actually try to get yourself stuck out of the house, in parts of town where you will be forced to eat out for lunch, which means you can order wine. “Kids, there is NO WAY we can make it home for lunch after Nordstrom Rack, and still make it to music class on time, so we MUST eat out, or we will surely starve. (Sigh.) Oh look, there is a (enter favorite chain restaurant that serves alcohol). I guess we’ll have to eat there!”

     2. Wine doesn’t cut it anymore, and you’ve moved onto vodka. This happens! Last week I had lunch with two girlfriends and they BOTH ordered vodka tonics, and confided that it was too late in the summer to drink wine and get a proper buzz. And these girls are winos like me. Also, I guess vodka has less calories. Should I give vodka a try? I do have a few days left…

     3.  You are in the worst shape you’ve been in ALL YEAR. How are you supposed to run, and go to yoga and Pilates with these KIDS attached to you all day? How does that work? How do moms stay in shape over the summer without starving themselves?  Oh that’s right, they starve themselves. Except for my friend Kelly. (See exhibit A below.) Here, Kelly sports shockingly flat abs after birthing three children and orders a burger at Islands and eats it. With the bun. You go, Kelly!

Exhibit A. Kelly Snodgrass looking amazing!

     4.  Every single thing your kids say irritates you. Every. Single. Thing. Even an innocent “Mom, may I please have a healthy fruit snack and a refreshing glass of water?” can elicit an angry “What’s with your attitude? Go to your room!” Don’t even try, “Mom, can I put my old clothes in a bag for homeless people?” NO, YOU DIDN’T! THOSE ARE FIGHTING WORDS.

     5.  You fantasize about hiring a nanny and going back to work. To work! You could get dressed in real clothes. You could stop at Starbucks. What job could you get? You have skills, right? Of course you do! Amazon Prime skills….Facebook skills…Nun chuck skills….

     6. You are parenting poorly. Duh. This one is obvious. You’ve straight up stopped disciplining your kids because a) It doesn’t work and b) you have no energy. When you DO discipline (take away an iPad, or dessert) you forget ten minutes later when you are throwing electronics at them and shoving cookies down their throats so you can get five. Minutes. Of. Peace.

     7.  You are wife-ing poorly.  When your husband gets home from work, he takes one look at your face and immediately goes into the other room. Your entire being radiates despair and doom, and your eyes are two vapid pools of helplessness and fatigue, mixed with a healthy dose of ANGER AND ACCUSATION because HE GAVE YOU THESE CHILDREN. That’s right, you better run!

     8.  You fantasize about what it would be like if you didn’t have kids. Like, what if you decided not to have kids, or couldn’t get pregnant? Would you eventually recover and move on with your life? Hell yes, you would! You and your husband would be in the South of France right now, drinking rose on a beautiful yacht. BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT PEOPLE DO WHO DON’T HAVE CHILDREN! I’ve seen it on Facebook! You would both look super hot and ten years younger because you didn’t have KIDS. (In real life, your not-even-40-yet husband is sporting a GREY BEARD. A GREY BEARD. People ask him if it’s because of his stressful job, and he laughs but you know better. THE KIDS DID THIS TO HIM.

Your Life Without Kids

     9.  You get stupid ideas like taking your 6-year-old off her ADHD medicine to “give her a break” because it’s summer, or take away everyone’s electronics for a few days to clear everyone’s mind. WHAT STUPID FUCKING IDEAS. Why don’t you just stab yourself through the heart with a corkscrew. That would feel better, I fucking promise.

    10. Your self-care has gone out the window.  Your legs are hairy. Your roots are grey. You haven’t meditated in weeks. I won’t even go into your bikini line (unless you have experienced the glories of laser hair removal. Thanks, LaserAway!) Your nail polish is so chipped it’s almost completely gone. You probably have three new cavities due to a summer of poor flossing.

    11.  Your toilets get clogged on a daily basis. Apparently your plumbing can’t handle around-the-clock use by a six-year-old and a nine-year-old because they get plugged up every day. EVERY FUCKING DAY.

    12.  Everything makes you cry. The theme song to Moana. When the Grandma dies in Trolls. When you run out of hand sanitizer. When you can’t find a ripe avocado.

    13.  Your kids are fighting to the death. Their hair pulling, face scratching, biting, hitting and sucker-punching would put the worst barbarian to shame. You think of showing your kids Gladiator to put things in perspective, and you cheer up for a moment because—Russell Crowe-- then you realize that's the happiest you’ve felt all week and you start crying again.

No caption needed.

 If you answer YES to any of the above, guess what? It’s time for your kids to go back to school!!!

First World Problems on the Family Ski Trip

I know, I know. I shouldn't complain about first-world problems on a family ski trip. I'm lucky to even GO on a ski trip. It's elitist and bourgeois to complain about it.

Furthermore, you might think it's terribly self-centered--even rude--to write this post when there are things like riots, poverty, melting polar ice caps, and whatever the rest of the world is worried about. But I can assure you, that's not entirely true. All problems are relative, and the issues we faced on our skip trip may have lasting and damaging effects, both psychological and emotional. The consequences are far-reaching!

Don't believe me? Read on.

Top 11 First-World Problems on the Family Ski Trip*

1. Your airline will offer a complementary glass of wine on the flight over. You graciously accept, because there's no sense in being rude. Apparently the other passengers thought that 9am was too early to drink Chardonnay, and the flight attendant keeps coming by to refill your glass otherwise she will have to throw the bottle away, and it makes her "feel really sad to waste." (I couldn't agree more, sister. ) Now, you're drunk.
2. Your kids are so engrossed in mindless electronics that you are able to read an Elle magazine from start to finish. That damn magazine has been sitting on your bedside table for 3 months and it gives you indescribable satisfaction to read it. But now you've finished it, your kids are playing happily on their iPads, and you have nothing left to do but talk to your husband. But he doesn't want to talk because he's wearing his new noise cancellation headphones.
3. When you get to the hotel, you make a grisly discovery: All humidifers are not created equal. The humidifier in you and your husband's side of the suite is much louder and less effective than the newer model in your children's room. Do you selfishly swipe humidifiers or suffer in silence?
4. Your kids look so damn cute in their ski outfits you are tempted to dangerously over-post to Facebook. You realize you're morphing into one of those people that you hate. You promise to take some really lame and unflattering pictures of yourself and the kids to balance things out. Your husband looks like a male model in every pic, so you avoid posting photos of him unless absolutely necessary.
5. Ski school. The resort makes it too easy to dump your kids and snowboard virtually all day. Throw enough money at them, and they will take your 3-year-old and 6-year-old from 9am to 3pm and teach them out to ski. What? Are you fucking kidding me? Granted, your 3-year-old was a train wreck, but you couldn't REALLY hear her crying when you were zooming overhead on the chairlift. No harm, no foul. But now your 6-year-old thinks its normal to attend ski school every day of the vacation and freaks out when you tell her she can't go the last day.   What, Daddy doesn't sell enough boats to go to ski school three days in a row?
6. You couldn't pack your nice juicer so you are forced to drink non-organic, processed, store-bought juice. The horror! You miss your zesty blend of spinach, kale, carrot, cucumber and jalapeño. But you find yourself rather enjoying the fun spike in blood sugar!
7. A family member can--and will--contract a stomach virus and puke all over the bed in the middle of the night. (Ahem. Your 3-year-old.) You will conveniently come down with this virus at your husband's Christmas Party several days later.
8. A second family member can--and will--contract a nasty cough, and will proceed to cough REPEATEDLY IN YOUR EAR ALL NIGHT for 2 days running. (Ahem, your 6-year-old.)
9. The ski conditions are so beautiful that you feel guilty for NOT snowboarding all day. The truth is, you haven't boarded all day since you were 25. And now, at 37, you're old and tired and only want to board half-days, because you're old and tired. But you feel like such a pussy for going in early. You secretly pray for some weather so you can sit on your ass by the fire, drink wine, and watch TV.
10. Are there any elevators in the resort? Great! Your 3-year-old will inevitably dart ahead of you and disappear into an elevator for about 12 minutes while everyone searches for her on multiple floors.
11. On the plane ride home, your family is ordained to sit behind Perfect Organic Mom and her Perfect 2-Year-Old. The Perfect Organic 2-Year-Old is content to sit quietly on Mom's lap, flipping through her HANDMADE BOOK made up of pictures from magazines, cut-out, glued to each page and labeled. We're talking stuff like "Dog" and "Jumprope" and "Rainbow" and "House." Obviously the mom made this stupid book, and you want to slap her. Who has time for this shit? The Perfect Organic 2-Year-Old has better speech and articulation than your 3-year-old who throws her iPad at you when Peter Pan doesn't load. Your eyes bore holes into Perfect Organic Mom and you're pretty sure you have a visible snarl on your face.

*Disclaimer: We are not the type of family to spend thousands of dollars on a beautiful, pristine ski-in, ski-out resort in Park City. Not because we don't want to, but because we are too damn cheap. This trip was courtesy of a generous grant by the Donna Van Tuyl Foundation. Because mother-in-laws can, and do, plan amazing vacations for their children and grandkids. But we did pay for our airfare, so go ahead and judge us.

Top 9 Reasons Being a Stay-at-Home Mom Isn't the Hardest Job in the World

Don't get me wrong. Being a stay-at-home mom is hard. Sometimes it downright sucks. It definitely makes you crazy: shifty eyes, an unfocused gaze, slurred speech, an inability to comprehend anything beyond a first-grade level. Lots of yelling, some swearing, possibly tears and moments of violent aggression. A state-of-mind similar, perhaps, to drunkenness--or some forms of mild retardation.

Some stay-at-home moms start to look pretty crappy, too. You know one when you see one. The token spit-up stained sweatshirts, oily hair, over-grown eyebrows. It's even scarier when you see it in the mirror.

Not to mention the pressure of surviving each new day...changing diapers, doing dishes, surviving a grocery store trip with two wild children, one of whom is intent on knocking over every display in the store. Excluding passing banter with your husband, sometimes conversations with another bonafide adult are days apart. It's not easy. Its actually really, really hard.

Whatever. It's still not the hardest job in the world. Here's why.

1. I know what my goals are. Keep the kids alive. Don't burn down the house. I set the bar pretty low, but at least I know what my expectations are.
2. I'm my own boss. Not some asshole in a suit.
3. I can't get fired.
4. If I'm feeling really lazy, I can wear jammies all day. And so can my kids.
5. I might not have time to shower, but I can still make time to order some awesome shit online.
6. I can start drinking wine at 5:00pm. Heck, some people are still at work at 5pm!
7. I can work out every day! If my kids are healthy, and weather is agreeable, I can load them up in the Double Bob, hit up Stroller Strides and go for a run. Or throw those little fuckers in the bike trailer and ride uphill. It might not be Pilates, but it burns a boatload of calories.
8. I don't have to worry that the nanny isn't spending enough time reading to my kids. Those days when we watch back-to-back movies all day on Apple TV? I've only got myself to blame!
9. Each new day is a new adventure! That's right. It's never the same. Today your baby barfs when you give her milk. Tomorrow it's soy products. You never know what you're going to get! Wow! That's the beauty of it!

To be sure, it's a thankless job. No one comes home and says, "Hey, the house isn't on fire! Both kids are still alive! Honey, great job!"

But if something goes wrong, I'll know it's my fault. There's some freedom in that. And those tears, those blowouts, those tantrums, those projectile-vomits...I'm the one that's there to see it, I'm the one that's there to witness it. I'm the one that's there to chase the tears away, to clean up the puke, to sanitize every corner of the crib. And when the smiles come, when the "I love you's" come, when those absolute squeals of happiness come, it makes it all worth it.

Almost. :)

P.S. And if you think I wrote this to cheer myself up after being stuck inside with two sick kids for almost three weeks, you might be right.