The Instagram kid.

You know that kid, the impossibly perfectly dressed kid who is the same age as my Wally? The kid we all wish our sons would dress like? Or our husbands? 

Well I can't even get my kids to wear clothes half the time and when they do, they insist on dressing themselves which, although character and self esteem building, means that they are often dressed like Ace Ventura. 

Like a lot of the time.

So back to this Instagram kid. He's adorable. He has impeccable style and he's inspired others(' parents). 

And there in lies my problem with this. Either those kids are not able to be normal kids or they are ripping the crap out of their Stella McCartney pants as soon as the photographer (or mom) turns her back. 

What impossible egos are these kids growing into? It's like American Psycho, the prequel. 

I sound like a jealous monster. Maybe I am. I mean, I am in that I wish my boys were these polished, perfect Instagram kids but then I think of the reality of the situation; my kids could find dirt and mud in the most sterile of environments. They're like Rambo of dirt. 

And possibly these Instagram boys are more like my boys than their pictures would have you know. 

It's like Toddlers and Tiaras for boys. 

Oh my god, TLC! Get on that, I would so watch that show. 

Here if you want to read more about the Instagram kid. 

http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/06/five-year-old-boy-whos-become-a-style-icon.html

John Lennon ghost wants me to keep the internet and you don't argue with John Lennon ghost.

Pop Quiz!

What do you get when the most disorganized person in the world tries to take on PTA fundraising responsibilities, run an etsy shop, agrees to attempt to write a comic strip, agrees to attempt to write a book, and tries to write jokes in her kid's lunch box everyday because she saw it on Pinterest?

Me. You get me, the disorganized fool spending the rest of the day slagging off all of everything, watching the kids play outside for hours and sipping on wine.

And now as I type this, feet kicked up in defiance of THE MAN, very much Ferris Bueller to be honest, I'm listening to my kids kill each other in the other room and I'm going to have to go investigate this, aren't I? 

Oh, nevermind, here they come yelling at me.  Apparently there's been an attempted murder by "slapping and a cardboard brick to the eye and even the nose!"

This is why I feel like I'm opting out today. Because I feel like I'm on the verge of drowning and so, going gently into that goodnight, I just stop swimming. 

(I have dreams like this, by the way. Where I'm holding on the outside edge of a hot air balloon, certain death below me and I start questioning if it is just easier to let go.) 

I should disclaim here that I am not suicidal. That's also the second time I've felt the need to write that down in my life so that people know that- yo, murdered.  The other time was when I was 12 and I wrote in my sparkly journal, I wrote "if I ever die, I was murdered because I would never kill myself. I am not suicidal" and then I wrote something about how cute Johnny Depp is. So, similar if not exact to how I feel today. 

Also, when I was 5 I made a deal with the devil or whoever that I was never going to die so, suck it, haters. And murderer.

 

Anyway, back to my story of when I was outside ignoring everyone digital and just watching the boys play, I realized how very little I take time to do this anymore. I'm always answering emails and facebooks and tweets and looking at Pinterest and not just watching the boys play in the dirt which used to be mud but, drought. 

This makes me think that we need to break up, internet.

I feel the worst for my husband in all of this because, first off, the kids don't care. They really don't, Every Other Mommy Blog I've Read this Week. Here's the thing; they know that I love them, that I put the phone or computer down whenever they have question or speak in my direction, I have two sets of ears, the mom ears directed at only them 90% of the day, and the boys are pretty much ignoring me anyway and somehow, despite ALL my screw-ups, they are the most polite, loving, well-adjusted kids I could hope for. So whatever. Raise your kids how you do. 

But back to the husband, "Ward" as we call him. I think he has to hate me by now. Because when I put myself into his shoes, I'm the worst as wife. He does all the dishes, grocery shopping, money making (mostly unless you want to buy my stuff from my etsy shop??????) and in general, I probably look like Peggy Bundy. He would never say that to me but, this is how it looks from outside my skin. 

So, I've made up my mind. I'm going to kill a few birds with the Amy vs America's Housekeeping stone that I have been not throwing for many months. It begins tomorrow. I don't care how busy I get, I'm back on the ball. I will schedule time to do it. And sewing. 

I just don't know how this applies to my interneting. I think I have to take a bre- OH MY GOD IMAGINE JUST CAME ON THE TV JOHN LENNON DOES NOT APPROVE OF OUR BREAKUP, INTERNET. 

Alright, it's settled. 

Amy vs America's Housekeeping Book: Kids

This is the first of what may prove to be many side posts regarding this book. 

The kid aspect.

It's so "now".

The book that I have in my hands was published in 1943- the same year "Beatle" George Harrison was born. I jump at all opportunity to bring The Beatles into anything, as you know, and I will still probably try to mold this in a Beatle way even though this book says "America's" in the title and they weren't. There may be SOME similarities on how British mothers and American mothers mothered in 1943, but I don't know. Not as I type this, anyway, but possibly by the end of this post I may know a bit more. BUUUTTTT since this experiment is based solely on this book and this book is for American housewives then "American Housewife" is the way I shall lean. 

I am an American mother. And let me tell you that I kind of hate a lot of American mothers. The ones online anyway. And okay, a lot of the ones I know offline too. I hang out with a lot of cool moms but let's face it, as a mom of today, you've always got your side-eye on and stories of your kid's latest accomplishments on the ready just in case. 

That's not just a problem of today, I suppose though because The Ricardo's had a similar situation if I recall correctly and I do. 

Remember that brat, little Stevie Appleby?? Me too. Mother wars haven't evolved much since then, only moms have Facebook now and well, I'm sure you know. 

Listen, I don't want to hate moms but I think that's what quells our insecurities; hating each other and telling each other how much better it would be for them if they knew how to parent just like us even though we secretly question everything we do ourselves.  

None of us know what we're doing and that opens the door for all the parenting "experts" like Dr. Spock and Dr. Sears and Miyam Bilak and Jenny McCarthy. It's a sickness we have. 

I'm getting off topic a bit. 

So the new trend is attached parenting. It's all hippie and crap but it's actually how I tend to parent (don't tell anyone) and this book is basically in line with ME rather than my romanticized ideas of the past trying to conform with the past. It feels that way, anyway. 

When I became a new mom I was handed all sorts of books and one I remember in particular was a book on raising a genius baby written in the 80s or 90s. It had all these ideas of black and white color schemes that made the "I love everything black and white!!!" part of me want to paint Wally's nursery black and white like the Clockwork Orange milk bar minus all the naked lady mannequins.

The one part the stood out to me was the suggestion of moving the crib around the room often so the baby would have different points of view throughout the day. 

I started questioning my need to carry my kid everywhere I went and this genius baby book is telling me to leave my kid in a crib all day to familiarize himself with his new views. That never seemed okay for me. Or for Wally. 

These many times that I've been trying to accomplish being a "perfect homemaker", I've failed. I've failed because I have kids and I could never figure out how moms back then did it. And it turns out, they didn't either. It's not a fault of me as a mother, it's how it goes if you don't have a nanny or a maid. It's about accepting that reality. Facebook probably doesn't help. 

This edition that I have was published in 1943. That puts the kids of the women reading this a decade before when my mom was born (1954). I know that my grandma didn't breast feed, nor did my mom.  I'm sure that because of all the rations and everything, in 1943, breast feeding was still the norm, which is back to where most of us are at now. 

I love that the book encourages you to allow your children to help out around the house, even when that slows your work down (it SOOOOO does). 

I'm very interested to learn more about what it was like to parent in the 40s, the 50s and how that differed in the 70s and 80s when we grew up. Mostly, I'm interested in how these groups of babies grew up differently.

Do you see how I can't stop sneaking in information about what I'm doing wrong? I want to learn more and go further with this, but I also want to go to bed. 

We'll pick this up later. I welcome any insight.