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25May 2014

This One is a Girl

As a general rule, I don’t discuss a woman’s pregnancy status with a stranger… that is, unless she’s about-to-pop, dropped-to-the-knees, 9 months pregnant and wearing a shirt that says “Baby” with an arrow pointing to her belly. I thought this was the common consensus of “normal” people. Obviously, I’m giving too many people credit for being normal.

We’ve had a soccer tournament for the 9-year-old this weekend. After losing our game this morning we went out for lunch and a bit of day drinking with our son’s teammates and their families. I love day drinking on a holiday weekend. Something about it screams “I’m still young” while twirling like Maria in The Sound of Music. It was lovely.

We are having a huge barbecue tomorrow with lots of family and friends invited. Which means I had to do some serious shopping at Costco. Hubby and I don’t usually shop together but since we were right next door to our local Costco, the whole crew went shopping. So there’s the 5 of us… 2 carts, and a whole lotta crazy. I’m pushing the sleeping baby while hubby is pushing the 3-year-old (and he’s muttering something about fruit smoothies and butterflies.) Yeah, don’t ask. I find I’m a lot happier when I don’t ask. We find all the items on our list and hit up the checkout line.

If you’ve ever been to a big-box-store, especially on a holiday weekend the checkout line is the fucking worst. Especially with kids, especially with 2 carts, especially after a touch of day drinking. It almost makes you want to throw up your hands, say “Fuck this” and leave. But we had to put on our adult panties and complete the task. Sometimes being an adult is lame.

As we’re waiting in the line the older woman behind us starts talking to us…

“Well what a lovely family!”

{Yeah, thanks lady… I’m thrilled we meet your standards…}

Oh, thank you.

“And are they all boys? My word!”

{That’s not the word that I’d use}

“Oh but I’m sure… THIS ONE (pointing at my belly) is a girl!”

{OMG!! Is this lady fucking serious? I have a 3 MONTH OLD BABY in an infant seat right in front of me, I know I’m not “thin” or “in shape” but for Christ sakes I’m not pregnant}

No, THIS ONE (pointing at my post-pregnant pouch) is just fat. I’m done having babies.

The only cool thing about being mistaken for pregnant is the look on the idiots face when you set them straight.

If you need me I’ll be planking next to a glass of wine in the kitchen.

22May 2014

Life Chef (Top Chef for Real Moms)

by outnumberedmother ⋅ Image

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…
‪

14May 2014

Bad Birthday Cake Karma

by outnumberedmother

My oldest is about to be 9….

While I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I’m going to have a 9-year-old, I’m also trying to plan his birthday party. As everyone knows, one of the most important parts about being a kid, is desert, and so birthday cake is a big part of the whole birthday party spectacle.

This scares me.

Frightens me to my very core.

I have Bad Birthday Cake Karma.

It all started back when my oldest turned 1. Although I do like to bake, I wouldn’t have even attempted to make a cake for the 1st birthday of my 1st child. Way too much pressure. So I instead did what every overwhelmed parent of a 1-year-old does… I went to the supermarket and ordered the coolest and prettiest cake I could find. It was this three-tiered job that looked like The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party had mated with Joseph’s Technicolor Dreamcoat. We ordered it in advance and when the day of the party came around, hubby and I were way too busy finishing up the house for all our guests. So we sent a relative to pick it up. When they arrived back at the house I attempted to pay the relative for the cake…

“You don’t owe me anything.”

Of course I do, it’s for the cake.

“I didn’t pay for the cake.”

You what? You didn’t pay for it?

“I thought you had already paid, so I just picked it up and left.”

I looked at the beautiful, AND STOLEN, cake. The one that I picked out to celebrate the birth of my wonderful son. “Shit, I’ll go back and pay for it tomorrow”.

Months later my hubby and I joked about the cake…. and I couldn’t recall if I ever did pay for it. I still can’t recall.

This was the beginning of my Bad Birthday Cake Karma.

Fast forward to this past December. My middle child was turning 3 and I, once again, ordered a cake from the same store. By now we’ve gotten a bit older, and wiser, and lazier, and decided to have the party at an indoor play-place. I went to set up the venue and sent hubby to pick up the cake.

An hour later he walks into the party empty-handed.

As I looked at him with complete disdain….

Really dude? You had one job???

“There was an accident.”

Are you okay? The car?

“The cake.”

Oy Vey, Bad Cake Karma strikes again…

It seems the bakery only had VERY LARGE boxes. So large, in fact that the box couldn’t fit in the shopping cart and had to be rested on the top. As my hubby walked to the checkout another shopper accidentally rammed him with her cart. The cake fell to the floor in a mangled, sugary heap… leaving hubby and the other shopper to stand over it in wonder. As he scooped up the now, totally unrecognizable cake and brought it back to the bakery department to be fixed, he was told the cake decorator was on lunch break and they “might” have a new cake ready in an hour. Of course, the party was starting in 12 1/2 minutes. Isn’t that always how it goes? So hubby ran back to the party and once again we sent a family member to pick up the cake.

This time when I went to pay for the cake…

“No, the receipt said, no charge.”

What do you mean, “no charge”? This is getting ridiculous… We don’t take things without paying for them. We aren’t fucking thieves.

And there it was in black and white, “No charge”.

This time I was going to investigate…

When I went back to the market on Monday, receipt in hand and story in mouth, the cashier looked it up for me in the computer… it seems the stranger involved in the cake-tastrophe had PAID FOR OUR CAKE. A simple accident and she took responsibility that wasn’t hers to take. It was a lovely gesture. But I still get a bad taste in my mouth when I think of cake. Actually, just the words “Birthday Cake” make my hairs stand on end and I break out in hives.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Fingers crossed that my Bad Birthday Cake Karma comes to an end this year. Cause I can’t take this shit 3 times a year for the next 20 years.

Cake Karma Update…