Mini Van Family Stickers

You know those stickers people put on the back of their cars of stick people, the ones that are supposed to represent their family. Yeah, I don't get it.  When we moved to Florida, every other car had one on their back window.   Then I noticed that they were mainly on mini-vans and huge SUV's. Then it hit me....OHHHhhhh, maybe they want us to know that they have to drive a mini-van or this pretentious gas guzzling beast to cart around the 5 stick figure people, stick dog and stick cat as indicated by the sticker.  Why not just get a bumper sticker (like everyone else that's ashamed of their car) that says "My other car is a Porsche."  Or take the route of my girlfriend, The Gypsy Hausfrau, who just exudes so much sexy that you don't even notice that she's driving a mini-van.

I saw one a few months ago of Momma stick figure and a baby. No other adult type stick figure. No dog (it was a Mini-Cooper). I couldn't help but wonder if she: A) Just thought it was cute, B) Didn't care what her family looked like, her car was going to have the same marks of motherhood as all the others in the PTA parking lot or C) She was advertising that she was available for dates. 

Sometimes they do give me the giggles. Like this one:

This makes you wonder if the dad in this family is only the dad of the baby? And perhaps under his sticker used to be a faded dad with maybe a hockey stick.  Or maybe golfer Dad found out that the twin boy and girl weren't his, so he threw out the Mom, the kids AND their stinkin' dog. But he had to kept the mini-van because the baby's car seat doesn't fit in "The Porsche."


Who knows. I'm probably wrong about the whole thing. I'm just a gal that spends too much time over thinking window stickers in an effort to tune out the fighting and screaming and whining that's going on inside my own car.

Independent Study Finds Mommas Depressed in June

I conducted a recent study and found that the majority of Stay At Home Mothers Of Pre-schoolers are depressed the first few weeks of summer. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the study included myself, and 5 of my girlfriends.)

(One Third of My Study Participants)

You would think that it would be liberating, not having a schedule. All spring you imagine a summer of floating on inner tubes with fruit infused water in the ever-so-cleverly-placed cup holder. You dream of spending the day in either your pajamas or your swimsuits. Why is it then, three days into summer we find ourselves curled up in our closets eating the secret stash of chocolates (read: semi-sweet baking squares you forgot about from Christmas) wearing foam tiaras over unkempt hair.

Is it the realization that we must plan thirteen activities a day to keep the shin-kickers from wrecking our homes (read: dryers full of this week's recycling)?  Is it that our babies are too young to do the really cool camps? Doing the math in our heads that it will still be TWO MORE YEARS before we can drop them off for 3 hours of arts and crafts? Or is it that there really is no difference between summer and the rest of the year?  Even if there are days spent in our swimsuits, there will be no lazy, partial nap, floating around with fruity drinks. There will be the breaking up of fights and sweating and packing half the house for a two hour outing. There will be whining and crying and unhappy campers. 

However; a silver lining was discovered in this study. Once those mommas remembered that there is strength in numbers, they set up play dates. They started sharing ideas for activities. ( "Hey meet us at the library to see Ronald McDonald." )  The weight of the job seemed to lessen. It lessened so much that they found themselves with anxiety over sending their children off to kindergarten in just five short weeks. (And by "anxiety" I mean "joyful anticipation") Will there be time to get the inflatable water slide back out? What about the group trip to the beach? When are we going to fit in the mermaid show?  Summer started slipping away so fast the study participants forgot they were in a funk at all.

So summer may not look like this:

But hey -

We're still...

The Rendering Truck

When my brother was small, he had a pet bird. That bird's name was Pete. That bird flew away (or so we were told).  Ben was so sad, that my parents got him a second bird. His name?  Re-Pete.

You can imagine how funny I thought it was when I saw a rendering truck with the name Re-Pete's Pets on the back of it.  I knew you wouldn't believe me - so I took a picture:

UPDATE!

I phoned My Mudda last night to see if she saw the picture of the truck. And she totally 'fessed up that Pete had actually "fallen off his swing" and was found feet and beak up one fateful morning.

I knew it.

Dry Towels

I have dreams about dry towels. A big fluffy folded stack of towels that don't smell like they sat in the washing maching for 6 days before they got switched over to a dryer that never completely gets things all the way dry.

You probably dream about this too.

That is, if have small people who dream they are fish.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday



Friday

Saturday

And twice on Sunday



We haven't had dry towels in our house since April.