Things That Need to Stop

Use of the terms "preggo," "preggers" and "knocked up."  Ick.

Show-and-tell based on the Letter of the Week.  Michael took a plastic banana to school today because the letter was Y and bananas are yellow.  Don't ask me about the week when the letter was X.

Names that look like they were randomly drawn out of a Scrabble bag.

People who say things on Facebook like "Re-post if you are against child abuse" or "Re-post if you hate cancer."  People, everyone is against child abuse and no one likes cancer.  Stop being so annoying.

Wedding invitations that say things like "Our friendship has blossomed into love and marriage."  Blech.  We know.  You don't need to announce it.

Referring to a child as an "accident" or a "mistake."  I don't care if the pregnancy wasn't planned and I don't care if you think it's a funny joke.  No child should be made to feel like either of these things.

Overuse of the words "luxury" and "artisanal."

DVDs that take 25 minutes to get to the menu screen.

People who post on Facebook every time they exercise.

Multi-level marketing.  All of it.

Wedding invitations that say "Registered at..." right on the invitation.

Strangers and casual acquaintances who ask questions about my family planning.

Games that don't fit in their boxes (Hungry Hungry Hippos, I'm talking to you).  Also, the game box redesign that made it so the Monopoly money doesn't fit in its tray.

Misuse of apostrophes (grape's, anyone?) and the wrong usage of you're/your, their/they're/there and it's/its.

People who say, "I could care less."  It's couldn't, people.  Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't.

Homework for kids in elementary school.  Especially homework that is for the "kids" but isn't do-able by anyone without a master's degree in diorama-making.

And last, but not least, referring to husbands as "children."  But you already know that, don't you?

Don't you?

If not, you should visit my blog more often.

What things would you like to stop?

More Than Words

Yesterday morning I told Michael what I really wanted for Mother's Day:

"I want you to stop calling people 'goo goo eyeballs' and 'hot dog.'"

It may not sound like much, but believe me, after the sixty millionth time your son responds to you by saying, "Okay, goo goo eyeballs," you'll be ready to poke a stick in his eye.  (I'm pretty sure when the admissions clerk looks over my paperwork to enter the loony bin, the cause of breakdown will be listed as, "Her son called her 'goo goo eyeballs' one too many times.")

Did my request work?  Yep.  For about 7.2 seconds.  Longest span of time so far.

But, Michael did manage to make me a really sweet card at school that had cute little fill-in-the-blank spots for information about me.  Well, mostly cute.  One of the spots said -- I am not making this up -- "My mom weighs..."  Um, hello, this is a Mother's Day card - don't you think that handing sticks of emotional dynamite to a batch of kindergartners is a risky enterprise?  (Luckily, Michael filled it in with "100 lbs." and not, "I don't know, how much does a blue whale weigh?" but I have a feeling I owe the teacher a thank you card for that one).

David made breakfast and gave me a really sweet gift, and I got a giant homemade card from the kids that said "We love you THIS MUCH..."  Which, apparently, is enough love for them to give me hugs and kisses, but not enough to stop them from climbing in my bed at 5 a.m.  Or to stop Matthew from following his Search and Bother radar to find me in the bathroom so he could ask me to cuddle.  (Uh, son, do I look a little busy to you...?)

For dinner I wanted to attempt a new pizza recipe which required cooking the individual-sized pizzas one at a time.  I saved mine for last, and somehow in the transfer between counter and oven, folded the whole thing over on itself and dumped half of it on the oven door, which caused a little panic.  Partly because I was afraid I was going to burn my hands off, and partly because my beautiful dinner had become a pile of slop withering on the oven door.  I admit it, I said a bad word.

As David scraped smoking pizza guts off the oven door he said,  "It wouldn't be Mother's Day if there weren't some swearing."

"For my Mother's Day present I want you to never mention this again," I replied.

He returned to the table and all of fifteen seconds ticked by before he added, "I can't remember the last time I heard you swear."

So much for my request...

But what are mistakes for if not to learn from them?  I've totally learned from mine:

Next year I'm not making dinner.