grumbles and grunts

snootchie bootchies

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Thu, 31 May 2012 17:55:00 +0000

Before I became a parent most of what I knew about children was based on the constant stream of complaints that seemed to fall out of the mouths of parents all around and in great abundance: Kids smell, they're messy, annoying, pooping, time consuming leeches that drive you to drink. According to most accounts we see of parenthood the entire endeavor sounds rather awful, the kind of thing no one would willingly agree to subject themselves to for the next 18-20 years, and yet they do–
yet I did.

To my distinct recollection there was absolutely no proper, logical reason I decided we should have a baby. It bothers me to this day because it's one of the few instances in my life where I simply closed my eyes and jumped, driven against my will to the edge of a cliff. We call that biology, and it's more powerful that you would suspect. I disliked babies but loved children, and I approached my impending motherhood with skepticism and closely tethered excitement, lest things get too out of hand and the future really be as awful as they all say.

It wasn't.

I noticed a long time ago that though a lot of children were just this side of really fucking annoying, there were good fun people here and there raising more good fun (small) people, the kind you can actually stand to be around. The kind you look forward to being around, even though they aren't your own. In that small glimmer of hope I hung all my dreams of motherhood. There was a chance, if we did it right and tried hard, that our kid would turn out to be an incredible human.

He is.

I never felt called to be a mother, I felt driven to procreate in what is probably the least romantic, sadly evolutionary way possible. I never fell in love with being a mom, with changing diapers and fixing sandwiches. I wouldn't even say now that I love being 'a mom.' I couldn't care less about being 'a mom.' I watch other women performing their daily devotions to the art of motherhood and I feel like a creature from the other side of the universe.

Being his mom is something else entirely.

I love being his mom in a way I can't even begin to grasp the top of before it burrows deeper into the center of me. I feel around the edges of it sometimes before I'm set back on my heels by the limitless number of things I just don't understand that make up this new world between he and I. I've given up interpreting it because I don't think I can.

It feels like something not normal to be this rocked by love. I'm sure it probably is normal, because mothers love their children, but then when I really sit down and think about it– Do all mothers really feel this? Maybe it's simply because it hit me so much later. I couldn't have loved a baby this madly, which is not to say that I didn't love him then, but looking at where we are compared to where we were it really doesn't compare one single solitary bit.

Maybe I'm lucky.

Last night as I was dressing him for bed we were rolling around on the ground together playing the body parts game. I name a body part, he points to it, and it gets smothered with attack kisses. It's one part educational to one part wrestling madness and there is lots of laughing in involved. He begged breathlessly, "More game, mom! More game!" I prepared for attack mode and shot back, "Where's yourrrrr..... arm! Where's your arm! Show me your arm!" Without pause he replied, "Don't be dumb! My arm's right there."

Everything is going to be okay.

wordless wednesday: obsession

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Wed, 30 May 2012 16:22:00 +0000

heaven is a place on earth

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Tue, 29 May 2012 14:24:00 +0000

super powers

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Fri, 25 May 2012 16:32:00 +0000

I have a super power. I can to tell you that because it's not a power than anyone would want. No need for a disguise or a secret identity here; no evil geniuses are going to be tracking me down to turn my blood into chemical warfare.

Look at it this way– I'm like Sandman. He didn't need a secret identity because who cares that some guy can turn into a mound of kitty litter? He passed as a regular dude most of the time but even if everyone had known about it it's not exactly hot news. What's he going to do, creep into your shoes and be vaguely annoying? Force you to rinse off before you get in the pool? Stink like cat pee? Anyways, I totally hate that guy.

Ugh, yes, THAT GUY.

(The good news for that guy is that he's not this guy:)

This is the face of worst fucking human currently on our planet.

My very sexy super power is being able to fall asleep in the tiny microscopic space between one breath and the next. Imagine one minute we're sitting there talking – look away at the fajitas, now look back – ASLEEP. It's like movie magic, but with a lot less magic and a lot more inconvenient snoring. I'm not even sneaky about it. I should at least put on some thick-framed glasses right before it happens. "Who's that chick? How'd she get here? Why's she asleep? And where did Jamie go?"

Possible solutions:

Perfect. No one will even notice.

The real trouble is that I have no control over it, as opposed to Sandman who I'm assuming can keep himself from dusting up while he's mid-way through pouring a hot cup of coffee because that would get really annoying. I'm not prone to falling asleep while performing standard daily activities but if I have a few calm minutes to not do anything and hey I'll just sit here for a minute and rest– oh hell. I black out and the next thing I know Jon is yelling, "WHAT?! ARE YOU SLEEPING AGAIN?!" As you can probably imagine, this is not his favorite thing about me, as it is #1- decidedly not sexy and #2- really lonely to watch the second half of all the movies by yourself, or so I've heard. A lot of times.

Things have turned around since I recently discovered that knitting keeps my brain occupied enough that it doesn't go into immediate shutdown mode. As long as I remember to pick up my knitting needles after dinner and start moving my hands around in random directions I can manage a pretty good length of being awake and "hanging out" or whatever it is the kids are calling it these days. Just keep knitting, just keep knitting, just keep knitting. We may have ten million hats and socks, but DAMNIT I saw the end of the Night Train to Venice, which is actually more punishment than reward. Do not DOGS recommend.

You know, this is probably not so much a "super power" and more of a "medical condition." Hey, I think they have a name for that or something*.

*True story, in college I once tried to get myself accepted to a sleep disorder study, because I also have hypnopompic sleep paralysis, but I didn't meet the criteria based on my unwillingness to return their phone calls or take handfuls of pills not yet approved by the FDA. But they would have paid me a whole Twenty! Dollars! for my trouble. I/they really missed out. Cover for superhero recruitment facilities? You decide.

serious work is serious

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:14:00 +0000

You know who I want to kiss on the mouth? Anderson Cooper. You know why?

No no no, besides that.

Anderson Cooper Kicks Cosmetic Surgery Obsessed Mom Off Show: ‘You’re Dreadful'
Cooper dismissed his guest after only a few minutes and she fled the stage. Why? Oh, because this lady is batshit crazy, and he called her on it. Score one for Anderson Cooper...

Read the whole story over at my Mamapop's ››

Every writer (and I'm using the word 'writer' loosely there, don't get all excited about it) has a method to the madness. In fact even when I vomit an endless rant about new toddler bed! I have a general framework in mind, a few points I want to hit, a lay of the land so to speak.

Here, I saved these behind-the-scenes extremely scientific notes:

This is how work gets done inside my brain.
Also, like this:

Hey. Look at that cat.

four hundred days later

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:12:00 +0000

Four hundred days later I thought things would start to feel different.
This was yesterday and probably tomorrow.
Everything is exactly the same.

oh great she's talking about her GARDEN again

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:53:00 +0000

Hey cute little yard garden, what's up? I want to be in you all night and all day, and well, I pretty much am thanks to my sudden and bizarre interest in growing seeds. World of seeds! World of seeds! World of seeds! (I'm trying to get a chant going here. Please participate, you're making me look weird again.) (Says the 70 year old woman carefully tending to her many plants.)

We tested/are testing this newspaper-as-a-weedblocker trick that I've seen recently on pinterest but is also an old gardening trick, making all experienced gardeners laugh their asses off about us posh new people trying out this "brand new!" idea. The gist is: Mow down weeds, cover with thick layers of wet newspaper, mulch over the top.

Where do you get enough newspaper to do something like this? Steal them. Glad I could clear that up for you.

Results so far: Hey man, totally works! BUT– fyi, dogs eat newspaper. So that's not so cool. DOGS. DOGS NAMED HARLAN.

Hey, speaking of things I want to punch in the face, this is the new FENCE around my strawberry plant courtesy of Harlan's hungry yapper. DOGS! DoooOOOOGS! And we still like them for some reason, except maybe he should stay away from me for a while. He claimed the first most beautiful strawberry with his teeth, the second went to Jude. My turn next, OR ELSE.

That's it Plant-Killer McHarls, LOOK GUILTY.

Audrey II has taken this whole growing thing to the red:

BAM! POW! Now THAT'S how you grow some shit.
And oh hey, these are new:

The Lord said, "Let there be peas!" and then there were peas like, right there.

Tomato babies. Growing. A million different kinds. Whatever. I'll let you know when something exciting happens, like they start looking like pot again or we get to start making gallons of salsa. It's going to be a while.

Conclusions-
Grown woman gardening: Not cute.
Tiny gardening assistant: Totally cute.

killer kicks

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:35:00 +0000

The best, or, THE BEST? The Best.

BANG BANG BANG

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:38:00 +0000

Aaaaand that about sums that up.

one hundred and two

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:16:00 +0000

I have not washed my hair in 102 days.
This is 102 day hair.

I broke my streak last night. I KNOW. That happened.

It was not because it was getting gross. In fact it was visibly AWESOME re: that sexytime hair above. BUT. But. But– Hey man, I can't see the top of my own head. What if it was all weird or something? I am getting a haircut tomorrow and I didn't want to subject my beloved hair girl to the land of unwashed mysteries. Better safe than sorry, so I gave it a good old fashioned scalp-scrubbing in her honor.

Post-wash things are -sigh- much with the frizz, though not as dramatically different as I anticipated. It's light and fluffy. I know I'm supposed to find that delightful but I have so much hair that I desperately miss the taming that natural oils provide. Enter one fluffballhead with her hair in a bun.

It didn't smell. It wasn't greasy. It wasn't itchy. Yes, I'm a weirdo. I call it my hairicorn (very rare and elusive hair unicorn). That about sum up your questions?

For a full post with details on why/how see I don't wash my hair. Yes, really. If you compare the pictures above to the previous pictures in the old post (30 days post wash), you can see that my hair is adjusting better and is visibly less oily-looking. I liken it to an ecosystem finding homeostasis– it has taken a while to for it to self regulate.

Here we go again.

mama? pop-a?

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:54:00 +0000

Bang haz lulz.

Not everything is magic. But this? This is magic I make for you. I can't believe people let me post this shit in public. I love the universe and I love you. Muah! Muah!

Joey Lawrence Signs On With Chippendales – Cue WHOA Now
Sure, it’s been a few years since he was anyone’s teen heartthrob. He may be older than we remember (36) and look… a little different, but he’s counting on YOU to make his limited engagement stint with Chippendales worthwhile...

Read the rest over at the mamapop ››

These are things that make me happy.

I just want to play outside all day

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:56:00 +0000

madewell

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:18:00 +0000

Writers love words and take any opportunity to heap up for admiration in great shifting creaking piles. On the other hand, readers love a clear message without having to wade through stacks of irrelevant bullshit to get to the center of the tootsie pop.

Somewhere between the two is the sweet spot. There's no need to throw every word in the library at the wall if you can come up with four or five that hit the mark just right– it's fluffy, sloppy, and inefficient, and there's nothing that makes me ball up my fists of fury more frequently than inefficiency because I am a testified INTJ, and as much as I hate those four-letter personality test I'll be damned if that one doesn't slide up my thighs like a perfectly tailored pair of pants.

I'm constantly challenging myself to get my point across using fewer words, or rather, more precise and deliberately chosen words. Even if I don't always tighten things up quite as virginally as I would prefer it's a good pie-in-the-sky-to-shoot-with-a-gun kind of target to put in the crosshairs.

I admire others who can speak so damn clearly. That's them, over there, and this is me, over here. On bad days it makes me want to tear my hair out, but the kind of clarity I admire in others is just not the way my brain fires. I want to be them, but being them would mean not being me, and that's stupid.

Not everyone is willing to hold hands and hike out into the woods instead of snapping shots from the car window. It takes time to walk through the trees before you get to your destination and more effort than the general populace is willing to invest. What comes out of my brain is often directionless and labyrinthine, but at the end we step out at a new place, together.

Yeah, I know. I have no clue what that means either.

precious and rare

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:04:00 +0000

Sometimes I wish there were more pictures of Jude and I together, you know, being whatever. Then again, I hate having my picture taken and the above is pretty much all we do. Yes, we're as fun (and loud) as we look. /Motherhood experience summarized.

no, you may not borrow the car tonight

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:31:00 +0000

Apparently my freaking kid is 15 now, if you hadn't noticed.

urban attachment freak

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:34:00 +0000

I know everyone is all over this TIME magazine cover drama, and I'm not one to add to the din of controversy. Plenty has been said already, some of it I agree with some I do not. Instead I want to tell you something about me.

When Jude was born I decided to give breastfeeding a whirl. I didn't have any real-life experiences to draw from and every preconception I had at the time about feeding babies was derived from popular culture, ie I thought women "pulling their tits out" was gross and kids shouldn't nurse after they can talk. Yeah yeah yeah, it's good for them and whatever, but keep that shit to yourself. The only thing I went into breastfeeding knowing was that people all around me thought breastfeeding was gross and worthy of mockery.

I spent the next 18 months of my life terrified and shaking every time our son was hungry in public.

I did it anyway. It got better. I managed to get to a place of relative comfort, but combined with the social anxiety that I already was struggling with the cumulative effect was panic attack inducing. I dreaded leaving our house and even after I mastered the art of covert-nursing I still cringed each time strangers looked over and shook their heads. I knew exactly what they were thinking. After all, I thought those things once too.

(I overcompensated for all this by subjecting my poor friends to way too many posts here about yay breastfeeding. I'm sorry guys. It was a weird time.)

Even though I know that all this TIME magazine nonsense has nothing to do with me each reaction of how a picture of an older child nursing is "foul" and disturbing" and "incest" takes me straight back to each of those moments of visceral terror I had trying to decide if it was worth it to lift up my shirt and give my child the food he needed. It was always worth it, but it was hard. It was hard because I had been trained by years of offhand comments, snide remarks, and condescending jokes to protest at the sight of a baby at the breast.

That is FUCKED UP. The end.

big, bigger, biggest

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:55:00 +0000

We switched Jude to a toddler bed (essentially his crib sans-bars on one side) last August without much fuss, and I had to look that up in my blog archives just now to verify the date because it feels like it happened ten million years ago. Thanks blog, I knew I was doing all this crap for a reason!

The switch over to a real bed was not much to speak of, in part because for a few weeks following he still didn't understand that he could just climb out whenever he wanted. He would lay in bed and yell, "MoooOOOOOmmmm! DaaaAAAAdddd!" until someone came in to fetch him, which is a quirk he comes by honestly as much to my parents consternation I did the exact same thing far into my childhood until I finally accepted that the probability of monsters eating my feet as I took that first critical step out of bed was minimal. One time recently I dared a glance under the bed as I was rushing through our room carrying laundry and almost pooped my pants when Bang's face was peering back at me from the darkness. UNCOOL, B, UNCOOL.

Anyway, to summarize, Jude's been in a "big kid" bed for a while now without incident. He did eventually figure out he could get up and wander around. Hey, what he does once his door is closed is not my concern, as long as he's being quiet. Yay or whatever.

I never did a "room tour" of Jude's room. I had always intended to and then... well really I have no excuse, it just didn't seem interesting even though his room is a happy place. This is probably as close as I'll ever get to doing one because come on man, he's almost three. The moment has passed. Boat sailed, bird flew, plane sank.

(I like how that arrow says, "LOOK AT THIS HOODIE I LEFT ON THE FLOOR."
This is why I am not qualified to do a room tour.
Hey it's green, it'll like, totally blend in.)

The loft peeking out above was from Jon's parents and Jude's current bed sits beneath it. I can't resist the draw of bunk beds, which is one of the few complaints I had growing up about being an only child– no need for a bunk bed means well, no bunk bed. Bunk beds have cost me many envious tears and I take every available opportunity to sneak into Jude's room and sleep in it. Also, I'm five. Being a parent is great!

Jude never noticed the loft or acknowledged it in any way, which if you follow where this is inevitably going, ended abruptly. Jon tucked him in one night, in his regular bed, turned out the light and closed the door. The next morning when we went into his room we found him curled up happy as a slice of pie at the top of the loft. He crept out of bed, climbed up the railing unassisted in the black of night, and fell blissfully asleep, all without tripping the baby monitor. I've never even seen him climb the ladder before so OH HEY, SHOCKING SURPRISE.

I'm not really sure there's a way to stop him, so uh, that's happening now?
From big bed to big BIG bed. Way to go, kid.

(Cue collective "D'awwwww!" at my boy sneaking up to sleep in the same bed his dad did as a boy, even my cold heart can't deny that one. Is it dusty in here? Allergies again? No? Let's hug it out.)

sans-culottes

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:43:00 +0000

After spending all of Sunday outside working in the yard I came down with a severe case of allergy-drippy nose, the miserable kind where you blink and when your eyes pop back open suddenly there's a traffic jam happening inside your face and all the cars are honking at once. At the front of the line they're slowly filing their way out the only exit and if that one dude would just move over into the breakdown lane wouldn't this really go much faster?

I was so overcome that against my better judgment I went directly to the kitchen and prayed for mercy in the form of blessedly pink Benadryl. I took one dose right after dinner and promptly sneezed dripping gooey monstrosities all over the couch pillows while shouting garbled nonsense because I'm the very picture of feminine grace and beauty. Mmmm, so tasty hot. Get on this.

I waited and waited to feel better and never really did. I couldn't even taste the cookies I was eating, which is the real shame in this situation because wasting cookies is sacrilege in the religion I'm creating where I worship at the feet of All The Desserts. (Amen.) After another hour and a half of slack-jawed mouth breathing Jon brought me a glass of water and two more Benadryl and insisted that I take them. I did not argue, even as I was thinking that it was a terrible, horrible, no good idea.

I've always been notoriously sensitive to Benadryl, to the tune of near-immediate blackout. It's a great trick at parties but since it's sort of inconvenient to stop remembering how to walk I'm hesitant to take it unless I'm: #1- truly completely miserable and #2- in a safe place with ample time for sleeping, ie no driving, because it was pretty embarrassing that time my coworker had to drive me home in the middle of the day because they found me face-down on my keyboard at my desk. "Oh no mam, I'm not doing drugs, I was just sneezing and thenasdkfjabnkl;fjkHBV ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz." which unfortunately still ranks higher than the time I went to work with salmonella poisoning. (Apparently I'm very committed to showing up at work. Please note my extreme dedication, future employers.)

After I had already washed down the second dose I turned to Jon and said, "Probably shouldn't have done that. I only took the first one an hour and a half ago."

"WHAT!? I thought that was four hours ago! Why didn't you say something?!"

"...Yeah. I'm going to die."

It was around that time that I realized that the first dose had started to kick in after all and I hostilely muttered accusations in Jon's direction with my eyes closed. "You! You aren't paying attention! ...MORE Benadryl. ...YOU. And why... always posting ugly pictures of me... on instagram... ....stupid..."

–And then I fell asleep and never woke up. Benadryl is totally the new roofies.

[Okay, okay, I did wake up after all, obviously, as this is not a posthumouspost. Now I just have to keep pouring more more more hot coffee into my mouth as an emergency re-stimulator. I'm hoping that if I can reach the red fill line on my tummy it will drown the fuzzy ball of kittens that has sprung up in the space between my brain and my eyeballs. Ideally this would cut right through my post-Benadryl haze but instead I have a case of the shakes and a fierce craving for cheeseburgers. Also, I can't walk. I think I might be dead. The more you knooooooww!]

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Sun, 06 May 2012 14:01:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Sat, 05 May 2012 13:55:00 +0000

oingo boingo

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:54:00 +0000

Hi. It's Friday. Let's talk.

I have been feeling out of sorts, and I'm not sure if it's genuine out-of-sortsliness or if it is my invisible period making my lady-brain go haywire. Either way, I've spent several afternoons fitfully staring into the middle-distance and contemplating the futility of online life, and how sometimes no one is around on twitter to talk to me and I feel lonely. One of the down sides of people's natural tendency to flock to drama is that if you don't have any drama you're just standing around in the shadows kicking rocks. This is probably the least earth-shattering sentiment ever uttered as I think most of us who spend significant amount of time on the interwebs have felt this way at one point or another, and it's probably nothing that more talking about butts couldn't cure. Hey, butts. !!

Yesterday I posted a handful of my favorite macro shots from my phone, because I got a macro lens for my phone. It is probably the least practical thing I've ever purchased and yet it's bizarrely addictive. I'm keep finding myself trapped in this loop where I say, "My telephone did that. My telephone." and then I bump into the wall over and over because I remember how crazy it was when my Dad got a car phone and now, all the things are tiny from my telephone. So wee! So cute! –And more often than not, so gross. More things are disgusting close up than one would anticipate and I've thrown scads of shots into the garbage purely from the ewww WTF factor. Plants though, plants are pretty safe.

It's from photojojo. I'm still working out the kinks, but it's pretty amazing.

It's incongruent how one can be both really busy and not have much going on, ie life is taking up a lot of my time with things like work and grocery shopping and playing with Jude but when someone asks what I've been up to lately my response is... nothing? Normal stuff? I am admittedly wistful that so many of my friends are currently having babies whilst I am cleaning my kitchen. The level of wistful varies by day, from not caring at all to man, really having a hard time choking that down. I accept that this is normal uterusian behavior, and is to be expected and ignored as necessary, and that's all I have to say about THAT, though I think on it often.

In case you missed it because hey, I forgot to tell you about it: The new Batman trailer? Yeah, I wrote about it. Even if you care not one whit for Batman you should still scroll directly to the bottom and hit play on the video. You'll either hate me for that or love me forever. Like you didn't already. May the 4th be with you. {And also with you.}

Also, THIS and THAT:

tiny universe

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:45:00 +0000

microfiche

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:48:00 +0000

When he didn't or wouldn't or couldn't nap I went up to his room and we curled up in his bed, big spoon and little spoon over a saucer. The weight of his frame leaned against my chest and sandwiched me against the outside wall. "This is the mama fox, and this is the baby fox. The mama fox loves the baby fox," he explained seriously, wrapping his fingers around their tails and pressing their long noses together.

I closed my eyes and once he thought I'd fallen asleep he deliberately traced his fingers over the shape of my knuckles, one by one, something I always used to do to Jon too, when our hands were first introduced to the other's company. Our hands are getting to know each other in the nicest ways these days. I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped he wouldn't forget.

If I lean over and look too closely at what lies beneath the surface of the pond I worry I'll crash through the frost gathering on the surface of the water and never come out. I can add that to the list of things I want to say but never do.

just write

hey guys, the Jude wants to read you a book!

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:48:00 +0000

It's called Everybody Poops and then Counts the Poops.

everybody poops from the grumbles on Vimeo.

{This is my acknowledgment that I know this is probably something only myself and my mother will enjoy, and this is me telling you that I know so you know that I know and now we all know. Normally as soon as I start recording video he screams and runs in the opposite direction. Jude on video doing anything OTHER than screaming is a rare sight. Somehow he KNOWS when the camera goes on like spider-sense and his head spins around and lazers shoot out of his eyes. I have hundreds of 3 second clips of him looking over and screaming, so you will take this and YOU WILL LIKE IT. Besides, you can't deny he's kind of the best. Psshhhh.}

HEY, HELICOPTERS ARE PRETTY AWESOME

noreply@blogger.com (the grumbles) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:11:00 +0000

"Helicopter parent!" is the favorite fad parenting insult right now, and even though we all know the internet is full of crazy people we should ignore, I'm tired of fucking hearing about it. Can we just move on from this trend already? Here, this is some delightful commentary from an article about how toddlers can easily break their leg on slides if they ride on a parent's lap (ps, apparently don't do that):

(I am annoyed by both the people they are describing AND the commenters. Good job people, you made me hate everything about you. That takes skill.)

The call of 'Helicopter!' is essentially, "you're doing it wrong" and I hate to break the news but that's nothing revolutionary. There have always been overprotective moron parents running around turning their precious flowers into spoiled sissy failures, doing their science fair projects for them and wiping their asses, and there have always been older generations sitting on the sidelines fuming about it.

"Can't kids just WALK to school these days, I walked ten miles in the snow and look I'm FINE. Bike helmets? Car seats? TOUGHEN UP. Video games rot your brain and ruin America. Bottle warmers? In my day we drank the milk straight our of a goat's tit." Repeat infinitely back into history from their parents before them, and before them, and before them. If our ancestors had internet access they would flame us from beyond for not throwing our babies out into the street with some Cholera rags and taking bets on which ones would make it to Christmas. My money is on little Suzie. She looks scrappy.

What confuses me about the outcry against 'helicopter parents' is that there isn't a concrete definition to point to. Sure, I can pull up this one from wikipedia, but in the general lexicon people slap it around so broadly who knows WHAT the hell it means. You watch your kids at the playground? HELICOPTER PARENT. You hold your kid's hand in parking lots? HELICOPTER PARENT. You bubble wrap your coffee table? HELICOPTER PARENT. You chew your kid's food for them? HELICOPTER PARENT. Sometimes I see examples and the definition seems to genuinely apply. Other times, well, I... do... that stuff and wait, that's really for safety, and wait, that's better for cognitive development and– oh crap, does that make ME a helicopter parent?

(Don't worry, according to this quiz I am *not* a helicopter parent. I'm so glad we were finally able to figure that out in ten easy questions, though I lost points for checking that when my child colors I choose to color with them instead of watching from a distance of five or more feet. So beware, if you like to color you're treading on dangerous ground. NO COLORING FOR YOU. I suggest you take this to your local park and start forcing the other parents to fill it out so you can categorize them appropriately. Color-coded shirts are a great first step.)

The vitriol spewed forth about it is so violent that sometimes my only reaction is to cringe and run for cover and I don't even know if they're talking about me. They're so convincing in their general indignation about ALL parents "these days" that one wrong step can catapult you into single-handledly creating everything that's wrong with America. Forget the the culture of fear we've created, the problem is YOU. If only you were more French, you fat American bastards.

No one owns up to being a 'helicopter parent' deliberately because it's solely an insult, unlike some other parenting philosophies. It's supposed to indicate parents who "hover" for no reason, just like all those helicopters that hang around checking out nothing, following citizens down the street at random while they cruise around the playground– wait, I've never seen a goddamn helicopter do that. I do see helicopters when there's an emergency or a news story, and in both cases they've been dispatched to check out a very specific situation that is occurring rather than surveying the area at random just in case. (Also, you know, trying to find criminals on the run, and for really rich people in a hurry. Helicopters- useful! Floaty!)

If helicopter parents behaved like actual helicopters they would be on to something– swoop over when a situation happens and check things out. Which in actuality, sounds a lot like the approach I like to take. Swing out from home base and see what all the fuss is about, provide assistance if needed, retreat. In conclusion: HELICOPTERS ARE PRETTY AWESOME. Also, loud. Be more like them!

I'm not a fan of over-protective parenting. I definitely think it's gotten out of hand like never before in recent years and a lot of people out there could use a good dose of chill the fuck out and let kids be kids. That's always been a problem, and we have plenty of other words we can use to describe it that don't malign the reputation of helicopters and are infinitely more precise. I take issue with running around screaming HELICOPTER PARENT at the drop of a hat and pointing fingers because instead of taking aim in the direction of those who deserve it, they're pulling down their pants and shitting indiscriminately all over the faces of parents who really care and are trying to do the best job they can.

In conclusion: PLEASE STOP SHITTING ON MY FACE.