I Woke Up Like This

Post by Rashida Braxton Simmons.

Month of Me! - Day 19

I'd like to share what just happened in my day. It's totally worth it.

WildChild goes to the drawer full of stuffed animals. She tries to open it all the way but for some reason it sticks. It opens, just not all the way. She whines. She pulls harder, nothing. She squeals. She puts her whole body into pulling, nada. She screeches. She throws so much BabyHulk leverage into it she slides, screeching, to the floor, where she lays wailing in dismay.

LilMellow, The Joker and I all watch this unfold silently and without interfering. Then LilMellow calmly walks over to the partially open drawer, reaches over the wailing WildChild and into the drawer, pulling out an owl puppet.

"OH! HOOOO!" She exclaims in delight and walks away.

WildChild immediately quiets, stands up, reaches into the drawer, pulls out the desired cow.

"OH! MOOOOO!" She exclaims in delight and walks away.

The moral: stop making shit harder for yourself than it has to be.

hood translations

this was shared with me and it's too funny (and accurate) not to pass on! a guide for the Ebonically challenged.

side note: y'all remember when they tried to make Ebonics a real language!?! I guess the equivalent today would be Textish. u kno wut im sayin? we str8? ttyl.

Unruly!

For all those who don't know, I gave birth to that wild child that you rolled your eyes at because he was running away from his parents in the supermarket then falling out on the floor screaming NOOOOOOO right after grabbing some random breakable item off the shelf. Yea, that adorable li'l tyrant in all those photos. And yet he's still alive and just barely spanking free.

That doesn't mean I haven't sat and contemplated how I could make him wear one of those doggy shock collars without going to jail.

Don't judge me.

Thanks to Aja Dorsey Jackson of Black and Married With Kids for sharing your unruly child story!

Unruly! How To Tame a Wild Child by Aja Dorsey Jackson of Black and Married With Kids

aaah thanksgiving

aaah thanksgiving! the holiday that reminds us that it's perfectly ok to flee the persecutions and suffering of your homeland to the safety of america, pillage the native lands and people, then proceed to subject them and every other person who flees the persecutions and suffering of their homeland to the safety of america to countless persecutions and sufferings in the name of america, if you're really, really pale.

gobble, gobble.

but i do love 'a charlie brown thanksgiving' so click on the pic and enjoy!!

exittheapple presents "story" episode 4: grandma's house

exittheapple presents "story" - a pared-down film experience exploring the essence of story and storytelling. episode 4: grandma's house, is a story by your's truly! this was a tremendous experience and i'm so honored to have had the chance to tell my story.

watch and enjoy!



story
-noun 1. a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the hearer or reader; tale.

I'm a Bad Motha-! - my kid's a jerk!

my kid's a jerk! yea, that's right, i said it; MY KID'S A JERK!

even more annoying is the fact that he's a very intentional jerk. i don't think he intentionally means to be a jerk, but he very intentionally does things that are extremely jerk-like.

po-tay-to, po-tah-to, whatever. he's a jerk.

i will say that his general jerkiness is making me into one of those crafty moms, so it has it's good side. for example, all babies love the drop-and-pickup game. it's a riot to them for whatever reason to take whatever object is in their hand and repeatedly drop/throw it then squeal heartbrokenly if you don't retrieve it for them.

of course when you do they just drop/throw it again. big fun.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="153" caption="our little lion at his true angry best"][/caption]my kid takes drop-and-pickup to another level. he'll squeal, screech, and flail about until he has a good sized collection of toys and trinkets within arms reach, then he'll hurl them one by one to the nether regions of the room, then squeal, screech, flail about or contort/struggle/writhe and attempt personal injury until he gets them back...individually. don't try to pick them all up at once and hand them to him in a bunch. not unless you want him to smack them onto the floor, or even more fun, throw them at YOU individually. and for a 1 yr. old his aim in uncanny.

after having to leave the room a few times and count to ten while taking deep cleansing breaths, i had to realize that he's only doing it because his way means he gets my attention for longer. even if i ignore the game for a little while, he'll bang his head on things, throw himself backwards, try to twist out of whatever he's strapped into almost to the point of giving himself rope burn; he'll force me to pay attention to him for as long as he deems necessary.

he's a jerk, but he's very intelligent. he's wiley. so am i.

i've now found ways to strap everything to him or to whatever contraption he's strapped into. it's particularly awesome when he's in his stroller and done playing with whatever bottle, cup, or toy that was occupying him and has to hurl it with all his might to show his completion; kind-hearted people damn near dive like their going for home base to catch the poor baby's object before it touches the nasty ground only to feel foolish when the object boings and lands back in his lap thanks to whatever cord or device i used.

somehow, he also senses when i'm trying to keep him on a schedule to that i can get some kind of work done. again, he knows that a scheduled day means less face-time for baby and this is not an option.

these are the days when the baby adrenaline kicks in.

he won't sleep. sleep is the enemy and the enemy must be defeated.

he will pull out every stop in his efforts to stave off the enemy. i've seen my child pull at his own hair, punch himself with toys (not the plush, squishy toys, the hard plastic ones), even bite his own toes so hard he left teeth marks just to stay awake.

and of course the more of this he does the more attention he requires because, you know, it hurts him. a lot.

so basically he won't sleep and he won't let me put him down for 5 mins. because he'll injure himself. or his new trick is to jam anything, including his own fist, so far down his throat that he pukes. then he does a happy dance in said puke and holds the offending, puke covered object out to me with a big, 6 toothed grin.

WHAT A JERK!!!

i mean if the person you lived with acted like this just for their own amusement you'd put their crap out on the street and change the locks! i'm probably not going to put my child out yet, but i don't care what you say, he really is a jerk.