Archive for January 2011
- In: Motherhood
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Here’s your laugh for the day via one of those emails that continually make the rounds 🙂
11 step program for those thinking of having kids:
Lesson 1
1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.
Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their…
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.
Lesson 3
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel…
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)
Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.
Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? T o find out…
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?
Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this – all morning.
Lesson 6
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.
Lesson 7
Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.
Lesson 8
1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.
You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.
Lesson 9
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you’re thinking What’s ‘Noggin’?) Exactly the point.
Lesson 10
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying ‘mommy’ repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each ‘mommy’; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.
Lesson 11
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the ‘mommy’ tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.
This is all very tongue in cheek; anyone who is parent will say ‘it’s all worth it!’ Share it with your friends, both those who do and don’t have kids. I guarantee they’ll get a chuckle out of it. Remember, a sense of humor is one of the most important things you’ll need when you become a parent!
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Now back to me 🙂  Whoever thought this one up is entirely right, it IS totally worth it, but if you don’t approach this whole adventure with a sense of humor whatever sanity you started out with will probably abandon you within the first month.  Not that insanity is a bad thing, per se, just that people without a sense of humor seem to have a difficult time dealing with a lack of sanity so it could cause some problems 😉
I stumbled on this blog today via a long and convoluted route that I won’t get into right now, but this particular post, which wasn’t the first one I read, is one that I really felt needed to be shared.
#54 – Writing Hacks, Part 1: Starting « Scott Berkun.
It’s amazing to me how many things in our lives get put to the side because we can’t accomplish them perfectly. Â I’ve mentioned this before, but since it’s something that I still get hung up on, even knowing that it’s a sticking point for me, I suppose that it won’t hurt to mention it again. Â I truly think that if I can convince myself to let go of the need for perfection there would be so many more things that I would try. Â If I didn’t have to do everything the RIGHT way, if I could just do them any way at all I can only imagine how many more experiences I would have and how much richer my life would be in general. Â For example, I’ve been thinking about taking Salsa lessons for at least the past ten years (living in Miami will do that to you). Â I’ve had plenty of opportunities but I haven’t gotten around to it. Â Why? Â Partly because of time, but mostly it’s because I know that I’m clumsy and uncoordinated and I frankly feel like an idiot on the dance floor unless there are large amounts of alcohol added the equation (at which point in time I STILL feel like an idiot, I just care a little less).
I wonder how many people never accomplish even half the things on their “bucket lists” because they’re afraid that they won’t be able to do them the “right” way, that they won’t be perfect.  Looking back over this blog entry I can see at least a dozen things that are driving me crazy about it and normally I would just scrap the whole entry and not end up posting anything for the day.  But in the spirit of cutting myself some slack and letting go of perfection a bit I’m going to finish this line and hit publish. 🙂
Something that makes you smile…
Posted on: January 3, 2011
The topic today on the post a day/week challenge blog is to share something that makes you smile. Â My little “show and tell” object is actually somewhat related to some of my previous posts and something I’ve wanted to share for a while, I just keep losing it. Â In the back of the Mahzor that my Synagogue uses are some supplemental readings and home ceremonies which I always browse through when I’m not necessarily paying attention to the service (yes, there are definitely times I’m not paying attention, I admit it). Â One of these has always stuck with me and I finally got around to asking our Rebbetzin to make a copy of it for me so I could have it. Â It’s called the “Little” Resolutions and can be found on page 873, although I have no idea what the specific Mahzor we use is called.
“Little” Resolutions
A little less impatient with those we deem to slow;
A little less arrogant because of all we know.
A little less conceited since our worth is slight;
A little less intolerant even when we are right.
A little more forgiving and swifter to be kind;
A little more desirous the word of praise to find;
A little more eager to help others to rejoice;
A little more careful to speak with gentle voice.
A little more effort to see another’s view;
A little more determined to live faithfully as a Jew;
A little more willingness to extend a helping hand;
A little more commitment to our people and our land.
A little more eagerness to listen and understand;
A little more readiness to respond to God’s command;
A little more resolve to do what must be done;
And a greater understanding that, truly, “we are one!”
This may seem like an odd thing to make me smile, but picturing the world that would ensue if we all managed to do even a portion of the things suggested in this poem is something that could bring a smile to anybody’s face.
No Resolutions here….
Posted on: January 3, 2011
I’m pretty sure that there is some sort of law of the universe that makes it almost impossible to actually keep New Year’s resolutions. Â I’m definitely not alone in my inability to stop biting my nails, to take more pictures, exercise more, eat healthier, live within my means, or actually post to this blog like I intend to. Â I think the problem with resolutions is that they place an awful lot of pressure on us and like rebellious children we quickly find ways to shirk our duties and by the time April Fool’s Day is here, most of us have stopped feeling guilty about ignoring the resolution, if we even stop to remember that we made it in the first place. Â So this year I’m not making any real resolutions. Â I have a few suggestions for my own life, but that’s all they are. Â Suggestions for things that may make my life run smoother and make me feel happier in general. Â Little goals that don’t hover over me and buzz at me like pesky flies reminding me of all the things I am not accomplishing instead of allowing me to focus on the nice things I DO get finished.
With all that in mind, here is one of my “suggestions” for myself.  Wordpress is doing a postaday2011 and postaweek2011 challenge of sorts which I think I might want to participate in.  In previous years I would have determined that I was going to do the postaday challenge and set off all gung-ho and stopped posting by week two.  But in my more reasonable and realistic mind frame I’ve decided that I’ll try to get in a post a week, but if that doesn’t happen, just once a month would be a step up from how I’ve been doing, so I’ll view that as an accomplishment.  Overall I think it’s a pretty reasonable goal and it doesn’t have the pressure of a true resolution so maybe it’s something I’ll actually accomplish. 🙂
Delusions of Grandeur 
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