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My 3-year-old attends preschool, and a week ago… yeah, that’s right, A WEEK AGO, we were fortunate enough to be the first family to take home The Weekend Book. The Weekend Book consists of a basket, a stuffed animal, and a black-and-white composition notebook which you’re supposed to fill out, telling your weekend family story. It’s an adorable premise and I remember enjoying it with my oldest child, but life was a lot less complicated 7 years ago. When Monkey’s teacher handed me The Weekend Book this time I saw stars, spinning Bugs Bunny, and felt faint. I didn’t need to add something else to my list. I think Monkey’s teacher, whom I’ve known for a gazillion years, saw the look in my eye and promised I could keep the book longer than the weekend (as we didn’t have school this past Friday). That was 10 days ago, and I just sat down to fill out The Weekend Book now. Ultimate slacker. At least I’m consistent.

I’d taken pictures of all the smiley moments we’ve had in the past 2 weekends and I cut them out, glued them into the book, and wrote cute, anecdotal stories about the fun weekend and the nice things we’d done. The Weekend Book is like the real-world Facebook. Everyone is all “Ohhh” and “Ahhh” and “my kid is so cute” and “share if you’re the mother of a son with webbed feet and you love him no matter what.” The Weekend Book is a mirage for the family I wish I actually had. The family where babies never cry and toddlers never throw Legos at your ass and no one ever asks for lollipops at 6 AM: where you don’t itch your face and find poop on your finger, where there is no “he hit me” and “he hit me first.”

This got me thinking: What if I were to be honest with The Weekend Book? I mean, yes, there were good times during the weekend, Duh? I have the smiley pictures to prove it… but what if I were to chuck the ridiculous shit in there too? The real-deal truth that happens over here? So here I go…

The REAL Weekend Book.

We were sooo happy utterly mortified to have The Weekend Book this week. On Friday, Mommy made a fantastic dinner, which no one ate because the 3-year-old seemed to think there were onions in it. There were not. After dinner, Mommy did the dishes and cursed under her breath that the dishwasher is falling apart, while Daddy tried to bathe all the kids without incident to no avail. There were incidents. Many incidents. Including the one where the oldest boys wanted to both pee in the toilet at the same time. More clean up for Mommy. She lives for hates that shit.

After desert the brothers cuddled while watching a show attempted to beat each other into submission while fighting for couch dominance. No one was the victor here and bedtime was pushed up by 15 minutes.

On Saturday we had lots of soccer games, and Mommy was totally prepared a complete psycho trying to find all of our uniforms, water bottles, and socks. Mommy is so good at these things completely unable to focus and should probably be on a regular schedule with a mental health professional.

Saturday night we had another gourmet dinner which everyone enjoyed nobody touched again, because the 3-year-old was convinced he saw blood in a fully cooked, boneless, skin-less, chicken thigh. Then Mommy made S’mores for desert drank wine and pretended she was childless.

On Sunday we had a relaxing completely anxiety ridden walk to the farmers market while the 3-year-old rode his scooter scared the shit out of Mommy with his scooter riding fearless ways. Mommy bought 2 pounds of shrimp to make for dinner and it will be delicious no one will eat it because that’s how we roll.

Mommy is really thankful for the teachers’ of her children. She filled out The Weekend Book because there WERE good times in the last 10 days (she has the pictures to prove it) and because these poor teachers already have to deal with her kids at school.

They don’t want to know the crazy shit that happens at home.

 

 

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Life Chef

I love cooking competition shows.  I mean, I, really, really love them.  Top Chef, Knife Fight, Kitchen Nightmares, Iron Chef… that shit is the bomb.

You will often find me making dinner watching episodes from the DVR while hushing the children… “I wanna see Anthony Bourdain rip this guy a new one.  Can you just give me a minute.”

Of course, due to that fact that my whole life is based around taking care of my family and playing out little mini movies of things that might never happen in my head, I came up with an idea…. Ding, ding, ding.  Can you smell it? That’s me, thinking.  This IS your mother’s cooking show.

It started with this FB post…

“I used to really like Top Chef.
But now that I have a bazillion kids I think Top Chef is bullshit.

Now here’s a cooking show idea that we would all totally watch…. Take a world renown chef and strap a 3 month old baby on them in a front carrier, then give them a 9-year-old who needs help with 6 pages of algebra…. and just for shits and giggles, chuck in a 3-year-old who wants to “help them cook”.

Here’s my pitch ‪#‎NBC‬. I call it ‪#‎LifeChef‬

I really think this could be a cool ass show.  But replace world renown chef’s with just parent chefs… people who have kids who try to actually cook a meal.  Shit, even if you’re just taking something out of the freezer with a gaggle of kids… that’s still cooking.  I’m down.

So tonight, as I had to run off to soccer, I thought more about Life Chef, now it’s a kinda funny baby to me… and I posted more on my FB page…

“Tonight, on Life Chef, our favorite Outnumbered Mother hits up the last soccer game of the regular season with the whole fan-damily in tow.
Can she reheat the rigatoni afterwards without everyone starving to death, while wearing the baby, giving 3-year-old a bath and helping the oldest with a 3-d diorama of Ferdinand Magellan (that’s due on the 30th and she just found out about today)?

Tune in and find out.”
‪#‎LifeChef‬
‪#‎ThatWhcihDoesntKillMeMakesMeDrink‬

But sadly, tonight wasn’t my night… I can see Bravo with the sad music as my update episode plays…

“If you’re been waiting with bated breath for tonight’s Life Chef results….

I would have been kicked off the show.

Got home, heated oven, put baby to bed, got big guy in PJ’s, played a game with middle monkey and then, only then, realized I had yet to put the rigatoni in the preheated oven.

“Outnumbered Mother… please pack your knives, your front carrier, your paci’s, your pack N play, your son’s algebra HW, your annoying toddler, your husband, your baby, your older son, his soccer ball, your shitty attitude and go.”

#‎IJustWantedToMakeTheFinal3‬
‪#‎LifeChef‬

Padma Lakshmi would be happy to see our 5 little silhouettes fade into the horizon.

After all, she’s a Mom now too…