Mama's Losin' It!

I’m Not In Charge

Mama Kat — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Me: We need to replace the carpets, they’re disgusting. And also the couches, I’m tired of them. And also the hardwoods…is that expensive? I wanna go shopping.

Pat: Wow. How are we not dirt poor? Oh that’s right…because I’m in charge of our finances.

Me: Oh come on, I would NOT make us poor…what have I ever done to make you think that?

Pat: You want to spend all our money on couches, carpets, and your wardrobe.

Me: I was joking! Mostly.

Pat: You throw cash in the recycling bin…

Me: Once!

Pat: You forget to collect money from the daycare kids parents…

Me: Once!

Pat: You wait to deposit checks for six months and then they expire.

Me: Once!

Pat: You schedule bills to be paid after their actual due date and we get charged late fees…

Me: OKAY I GET IT! So I made a couple mistakes…

The Bachelor Ben Flajnik

Mama Kat — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

I don’t know if you’re as fanatical about watching The Bachelor as I am, but you probably should be. This season the singleton making all the waves is a woman named Courtney who happens to be bat shit crazy. Every season there’s a crazy one, but they usually don’t make it to the top four. Unless you’re Vienna who actually took home the final rose in Jake’s season.

This season it’s Courtney (watch her in action):

And she has managed to woo Ben so much so that not only are his red flags not alerting him of her ‘crazy’, but he’s ignoring every other woman who has attempted to warn him.

On their date this week Courtney planned a faux wedding where her and Ben each had to write faux numptials and recite them in front of a faux ordained minister.

What’s more awkward is that Courtney seemingly stole her vows from an episode of Sex and the City.

It’s almost too good to be true.

But what’s even better are the spoofs that surface throughout the duration of the show. Thank you Ellen:

(video here)

And Jimmy Kimmel:

Writing Prompts

Mama Kat — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Every week you’re invited to join me in Writer’s Workshop by responding to one of the provided writing prompts posted each Tuesday. The directions are simple:

Choose a writing prompt from the list provided that inspires you most.
Write.
Come back this Thursday and paste the URL from your post into the list of links that will be displayed…this way anyone can click on your post thumbnail and head over to your place to see what you wrote.

To view more detailed instructions on how this weekly meme works, check out the Writer’s Workshop FAQs.

Writing Prompts:

1.) Capture what it’s like to spend a day or a moment talking with your kiddo. (inspired by Big Mama Cass)

2.) A time you were tricked.

3.) An ordinary day told by photos. (inspired by Baby Rabies)

4.) I wish I could…

5.) What is the one ‘vice’ you can’t give up? (inspired by Mommalogues)

Link up this Thursday and enter your email address below if you’d like the writing prompts emailed to you each week!!:

Saving All My Love

Mama Kat — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Normally I save the mullet hair and camouflage for Taylor Swift inspired love songs. I like to pick songs that capture a bit of yearning and desire from the singer and then I like to envision the kind of people who might really ‘relate’ to these songs. For example we might adore Chicago’s “Faithfully”, but if you picture the longing lover in a mullet and camouflage it’s suddenly kind of funny.

In this case, I felt compelled to perform a tribute to the late Whitney Houston and chose Saving All My Love as the perfect song. It happens to be one of my favorite Whitney songs, even if it is about a woman who wants her lover to leave his wife and family so that the two of them can make love all night long. I mean, so WHAT!

Enjoy:

(video here)

The TALK

Mama Kat — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 06:00:00 +0000

My husband is definitely not going to be the ‘talk’ giver. He’s far too long winded and it is destined to be a regretful conversation. I can give them the birds and bees chat, but I’ll surely make it as scary as possible so that they abstain from sex until their mid-forties. That seems normal to me. No really, can I just have them watch MTV for that chat? I mean after all that’s how *I* learned!

(Video here)

How about you? Who’s going to have “the talk” when the time comes?

This One Time…We Were My Little Ponies

Mama Kat — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

This one time I used to dream about being My Little Ponies with my Mom…

We were purple and pink. My favorite colors. And everything was happy and rainbows and flowers just like you see on TV.

And then my Mom would be captured by Skeletor and he would lock her in a room with moving walls because sometimes in dreams these things happen.

The walls would slowly move towards each other and my Mom, the pink pony, would scream to me for help, “KATHY!!! DO SOMETHING!! DO SOMETHING!!!!! KATTTHYYY!!!! HELP ME!!!!!”

But I couldn’t do anything. I was a freaking pony. (the purple one). So I would just stand there on my four legs with my voluminous pony hair and I would watch my Mom get smashed by the squishing walls, “MOM!!! MOM!!!!! NOOOOO!!!!!”

When I was 15 there was an Oprah show about Night Terrors.

“You used to have those!” My Mom said, “there was just no comforting you when you would slip into those. You would scream and scream and no matter what I did you just would not settle down. It got to the point where I stopped trying and would just yell from the living room ‘Kathy, It’s just a dream! Kathy! Kathy shut up!”

I glared at her.

She looked at me, “I mean really…you couldn’t hear a darn word I was saying…any idea now what you were dreaming about back then?”

I would neigh and giddy-up and panic and then at the very MOMENT when the walls were going to squeeze her to death I’d jolt awake. “Oh dear sweet Jesus it was just a dream! It was just a dream…my dear sweet lord Jesus it was just a dream…” I would calm my beating heart and feel overwhelmed with relief that indeed we were not ponies and my Mother was alive and well. Thank God.

Alive and well and apparently yelling at me to be quiet from the other room. Was I disrupting the latest episode of DALLAS Mother?

“YES MOM!” I said, “I HAVE A HUNCH!”

She has since repented and I forgive her.

Author’s Note: Don’t feel sorry for me…we really get a kick out of this story (except for the actual nightmare which still makes me cringe when I think about it) and I have no memory whatsoever of my Mother shouting at me to quiet down. The only time I remember at anyone shouting at me to quiet down when I was supposed to be sleeping was that one time I fell off my bunk bed and broke my collar bone and lay on the ground whimpering in pain throughout the night while my brother kicked me in the head for being so noisy.

JUST ALL FUN AND GAMES AT OUR HOUSE!!!

I’M FINE!

Tell me about one of your more memorable dreams…

First Breathe

Mama Kat — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Sometimes kids say things so innocently and sweetly that it just kind of catches your breath. Maile loves to learn, she loves reading books about nature and animals and spouts off random information about whatever she’s learning all the time. Recently she had a friend over and their idea of a good time was to flip through books and write out ‘fact’ cards.

“Ooh look at this! Tiger cubs leave their mother when they are around 2 years of age. Whoaaa…I’m writing that on my fact card are you??”

The other night I was putting her to bed and she was all, “Did you know when a baby whale is born it’s mommy and daddy pushes it up to the top of the water so it can get it’s first little breathe?”

And I was all, “Really? No, I didn’t know that…but I believe it. Mommies and Daddies will do whatever they need to make sure their babies catch their breath.”

And then I was all, “You know what? I’d really love it if you drew me a picture of a baby whale being pushed to the top…you think you can make me one in the morning?”

And so she did:

Freaking adorable.

And of course, she’s right.

Writer’s Workshop: Force The Love

Mama Kat — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

4.) A memorable day at work.

His name was James and he was the first child in my home daycare that I had serious reservations with. I could not warm up to him. I’m convinced that human to human, our personality’s were never meant to get along. The problem was I was a 30 year old daycare provider and he was two. A baby.

He was not pleasurable to be around. It was the terrible twos like nothing I’d ever seen before. He kicked and screamed and hurt other children. He slobbered and yelled. He was the child that made me wonder if I was in the right profession. How could I not like a two year old? Why couldn’t I calm him? How could a two year old ruin my entire day? Every. Day.

A TWO YEAR OLD!

So one particularly tantrum filled day I decided maybe I had been handling him all wrong. These kids who throw tantrum after tantrum are exactly the ones who need to be loved on a little more. I had been letting him deter me and that was just feeding his anger. I needed to love him. I needed to force the love.

He woke up screaming from his nap as usual and I quickly knelt by his side, whispered sweet nothings and swept his hair away from his sweaty brow. “It’s okay buddy, I’m right here!” I decided he needed hugs, “come here you! come sit on the couch with me and we’ll snuggle…”

I picked him up and wrapped my arms around him, “ssshhh it’s okay little guy…”

And then he threw up all over me.

ALL. OVER. ME.

I’m not sure what kind of message he was trying to send me through his puke, but I’m pretty positive it wasn’t a nice one.

He went home early that day.

Now it’s your turn!

Choose a prompt, post it on your blog, and come back to add your name to the link list below. Be sure to sign up with the actual post URL and not just your basic blog URL (click on the title of your post for that URL). For good comment karma try to comment on the three blogs above your name!!

The Prompts:

1.) Share a Whitney Houston song that meant something to you.
(inspired by Mama Mary)

2.) Just when you didn’t think things could get worse…how did they get worse?
(inspired by Confessions of a Semi Domesticated Mama)

3.) Create a reverse bucket list that names the top ten things you never want to do.
(Inspired by The Hairpin)

4.) A memorable day at work.

5.) Share a story about a sibling.

The One Constant

Mama Kat — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:00:00 +0000

Valentine’s Day means a whole lot when you think you’re missing out on something. You think everyone is getting roses and chocolates and giggling over heart shaped pizza and that you are the only one listening to Whitney Houston love songs on repeat…all by yourself.

As a teenage girl you tend to measure your worth on Valentine’s Day based on what it is you were able to collect at school. My God how I longed for a heart shaped box filled with chocolates. I didn’t have boyfriends. The only man I consistently received heart shaped boxes of chocolates from was my step-dad Bob. No matter who was in or out of my life, or how moody and stubborn I was, the one constant I could count on was a box of chocolates from him.

I fell in love with Valentine’s Day again when I had kids. I love any excuse to celebrate them and make them feel special. I love how excited they get and I know the time for them to be as enamored with their parents as they are right now will be short lived.

One day I might find them listening to Whiteny Houston love songs on repeat all by themselves (she’s timeless)…I can see myself peeking in on them, whispering “but *I* love you!!!” before quickly ducking away from a flying shoe.

No matter how moody and stubborn they are, I’ll always slip them something special for Valentine’s Day, just like Bob did for me.

Just maybe they’ll grow up appreciating the fact that no matter what boyfriends or girlfriends were in or out of their lives at any given time, the one constant they could count on was a box of chocolates from their mother.

I guess I inherited something from him after all.

Take a look at one of my most memorable Valentine’s Days:

(video here)

Writing Prompts

Mama Kat — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Every week you’re invited to join me in Writer’s Workshop by responding to one of the provided writing prompts posted each Tuesday. The directions are simple:

Choose a writing prompt from the list provided that inspires you most.
Write.
Come back this Thursday and paste the URL from your post into the list of links that will be displayed…this way anyone can click on your post thumbnail and head over to your place to see what you wrote.

To view more detailed instructions on how this weekly meme works, check out the Writer’s Workshop FAQs.

Writing Prompts:

1.) Share a Whitney Houston song that meant something to you.
(inspired by Mama Mary)

2.) Just when you didn’t think things could get worse…how did they get worse?
(inspired by Confessions of a Semi Domesticated Mama)

3.) Create a reverse bucket list that names the top ten things you never want to do.
(Inspired by The Hairpin)

4.) A memorable day at work.

5.) Share a story about a sibling.

Link up this Thursday and enter your email address below if you’d like the writing prompts emailed to you each week!!: