 | ||||
| This is my baby. With wine. In a box. Doing her crazy face. Yep. |
1) I babble on in a post where I make some terrific parenting confessions. (See: depriving my child of a jack-o-lantern, dragging her barefoot through Sears, screaming at her for wanting to change her shoes, etc.)
2)I get lots of private messages from folks making similar confessions. (If I owe you a response? I'm sorry! I really don't ignore people on purpose. I'm just unorganized.)
3)These notes make me laugh/feel better/etc, but they don't do much to foster a sense of community here on the blog.
To remedy this, I am going to take the high road. I AM GOING TO BRIBE YOU.
Unlikely Origins is, starting today, hosting what we're calling our Celebration of Imperfect Parenting Giveaway! The prize? A Target giftcard (conveniently in the exact amount that a 4-pack of wine juice boxes costs*) and a package of high-quality earplugs, to aid you in your continuing imperfect parenting efforts. Throw 'em both in the diaper bag and you're ready to go!
There are four ways to enter. Entry method one is required (no skipping to number two without jumping through my hoop first!) and the rest are optional ways to earn extra entries for a better chance of winning.
1)You must leave a comment here on the blog wherein you make an imperfect parenting confession of your own. You don't need to write a detailed tell-all. You don't need to try to outdo the person before you. You don't even need to be a parent! (If you are not yet . . . "blessed" with children of your own, give us some dirt on *your* parents. Or your siblings. Or what you did to your dog. I don't care. Confess to something.) NOTE: THIS IS MEANT TO BE FUN! Your "confession" can be something totally goofy or lighthearted. I'm not looking for tales of child abuse so I can tip off child services. I promise.
2) Like us on Facebook! That's it. Then come back here and leave a separate comment telling us that you've done so.
3) Subscribe via RSS/add us to your reader. (Upper right corner.) Then, same deal, leave a comment letting us know that you did/already are/whatever.
4)Pimp us out. Post a message on facebook or twitter or your blog or pretty much wherever with a link to this post, then leave a comment here so we know.
Entries will close on Friday (11/12) at 5pm (EST), because I feel like Friday at 5 is an appropriate time for a contest to end when there's wine involved. The winning entry will be chosen by random.org and I'll announce that lucky duck here.
*Of course, you don't have to spend the giftcard on wine. Though I will think a little less of you if you use it on something practical like diapers or nutritious food.
Ok, I am entering my sister, Carma (http://amrac.blogspot.com) because she blogs all kinds of funny stuff about my 2-1/2 year old nephew, TJ. She's also going to be having a girl (Isabella Dawn!) right around the time TJ turns three in March, so I'm sure the hilarity will only increase!
ReplyDeleteHere's one example:
http://amrac.blogspot.com/2010/10/adventures-in-potty-training.html
And another:
http://amrac.blogspot.com/2009/03/unfair-pillow-fight.html
Unfortunately, she didn't blog about the time TJ discovered the baby powder when daddy thought he was napping. There's still powder-covered surfaces in his room... they just can't get it all cleaned up.
Nor did she blog about how, shortly after moving him from the crib to a toddler bed, several days of crankiness led them to finally discover he'd been holding his own private play dates with the toys in his room all night!
Nat: Ha! I am a)now following your sister, and b)awarding you bonus points for being the first one brave enough to post/enter! (Also, you should post another comment saying you "liked" us on FB so you can actually get another entry!)
ReplyDelete**Sadly this giveaway has nothing to do with "points," so we'll have to figure out another sure-to-be-awesome prize for you ;-)
Just yesterday, Erik and I let Finn eat a whole bag of Skittles for lunch. Then we wondered why he wouldn't nap for more than thirty minutes!
ReplyDeleteWhen he finds a plastic bag and thinks it's funny to put it over his head, we just shrug and keep one eye on him to make sure he doesn't suffocate himself.
Finn LOVES the cats. LOVES. He will follow them around and hug them and lug them and sit on them until they've had enough, and then they either nip at him or swipe at him. Sometimes they actually leave scratches. We tend to side with the cats on that one.
In fits of desperation, in order to get anything done or ANY peace and quiet, we put Caillou on and he plunks his little butt down on the couch to watch. A tiny slice of heaven, and it's easy to tune the tv out.
Those are just some... Trust me, there's MANY more!
ps. Liked on facebook.
ReplyDeleteWhen I get home from work I generally take over the parenting for an hour or so to give my wife some time to herself to decompress or whatever while I spend time with our 17 month old daughter.
ReplyDeleteUsually, I'm pretty good. We play, I read her stories, things like that. But sometimes I want to check my email. So I let our little monkey thumb through our photo albums while I check my email. There have been a few times when she's grown bored of the photo albums, and snuck off while I was checking my email. I'll look and she'll be long gone and I'll find her in the bathroom sorting my wife's make-up or in my bedroom rearranging my nightstand.
I've also been known to bribe her with a cookie in order to get her to eat her dinner a couple of times.
Well, as you just read on my blog, here's a few nuggets:
ReplyDelete*when driving, tends to unconsciously entertain the children while singing a brokeback version of the top 10 pop hits on the radio. They beg me to stop once the ear bleeding begins.
*totally believes in primal scream therapy. When all else fails, let the kid cry his/her heart out until a sense of achievement occurs.
*thinks goldfish crackers are a food group.
*pees with the door open. What’s the point of closing it when, within seconds of me de-panting, I will be surrounded by an audience anyway?
Also just 'liked' you on Facebook. So do I get a gold star now?!
Tara, I ALSO pee with the bathroom door open! If I close it, I have kid and cats at the door like I was going to climb out the window and run away (which would be more true if there were any windows in my bathroom)!
ReplyDeleteAnd, like Perplexio, I also check my email right when I get home from work. While daddy plays Warhawk on the PS3. And Boo runs amok around the house.
P.S. liked on Facebook too!
ReplyDeleteP.P.S.
Thought you might find this... interesting/horrifying/amusing/astonishing. A friend (ex-friend) of my sister's has gone all "tea party" in recent years. She recently had a surprise baby and named her Bristol. Her current Facebook profile picture is of her 2-month-old infant flipping off the camera. She's also posted several pics of that same infant holding a hand gun. :-| Big parenting FAIL.
god, i don't even know where to begin.
ReplyDeletewe have some smoked gouda cheese from trader joe's. we're not the type of people who 'should' have smoked gouda (it's pretty pricey). i was sharing a slice with alice for snack, and she dropped hers on the floor. it was either dust it off & hand it back to her, or give her some of my half (which was really like 7/8 slice). it's pretty gross under our kitchen table, but i brightened seeing the cheese square had fallen upon a piece of relatively clean paper.
i'm sure i can come up with more.
you'd better believe i am a facebook fan!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI once told my 9 yr. old niece that it's really okay to pee in pools, and that I do it all the time. That was the last time she swam in our house.
ReplyDeletewww.theteethingmom.com
i just sent out fb suggestions to a bunch of friends who were in my due date club with alice, and some writer friends. hope you get more readers! you rock!
ReplyDeletei am a blog follower and i just tried to subscribe to the RSS feed but i am not sure i did it right.
ReplyDeleteOkay, today's events have convinced me to play. First: I put my 2-year-old (who recently transitioned to a toddler bed) down for a nap, then decided to lay down in my room. I heard him call me, but sometimes he does that for a moment. I nodded off. He was quiet, too, for a while. Then I heard him call me again. Then he was quiet again. I went back to sleep. Then I heard him SCREAM my name. I rushed into his room and he was not there. I went down to the living room and he was not there, either. He was crying in the kitchen. He wandered out of his bedroom (never before, and he'd been in a toddler bed for weeks!) and couldn't find me, which apparently scared the crap out of him. All of this, of course, scared the crap out of me. Thank god he hadn't gotten into anything harmful.
ReplyDeleteThen I took him to the grocery store and bonked his head on the top of the car as I set him in his car seat. I swear I do this at least once a week. What the hell, dude? Do other parents have this problem, or is just me?
At the grocery store, we had a lengthy conversation about beer (for the complete mental image: I am 9 months pregnant). In fairness, the beer was not for either of us, but I'm sure I looked like mother of the year.
And of course I like you on Facebook AND in real life.
Here's a good one my mom did to me. hat I totally deserved.
ReplyDeleteMy sister and I had these sweatshirts, gift of some nice elderly clueless relative, that played music when you pressed the heart on the front.
We were on a car trip. My sister and I kept pressing the button.
And my mother eventually grabbed them from us and *threw them out the car window.* Without warning.
We tried to bust her for littering, but she stuck to her guns.
I also locked my dog in the bathroom for about an hour. But that was an accident. I swear.
ReplyDeleteI'm past the deadline, but I'll confess something anyways! Is it wrong to pick up your cat and and run them around the room so they're "flying?" Let's just say on a whim that the cat became "SuperCat"... and yes corresponding sound effects may have been added. It was all good until my husband caught me and gave me the most quizzical look ever. It was hard at that point to try and put the cat down and go about my business like nothing happened.
ReplyDeleteKarinya, just realized you had a blog...I'm a bit slow, I guess.
ReplyDeleteLet's see...a parenting imperfection....
Sometimes I feed my kids junk food, plop them in front of the TV so that I can read blogs! ;)