Orange County Moms Blog

Are children colorblind?

My mom loves to reminisce about my childhood – what mom doesn’t? In one of her favorite stories we are sitting around the dinner table and I ask her and my dad with the curious bluntness of a 3 year old “Mommy. Daddy. Are we Chinese?”

For those of you who don’t know what I look like, the picture to the left is me around the time of the “Chinese” question. I couldn’t be more vanilla!!

While my family looks at this childhood quip as hysterical, it also raises the questions – Are children born colorblind? Do they have innate racial biases?

Being a 4th Generation Orange County Gal from the suburbs, my upbringing wasn’t very “colorful.” I was part of the majority, so I can see why I had no clue what being Chinese meant. I’m sure the circumstances would be different for an actual Chinese child in the OC. (But I’m not really sure… thoughts?)

So when does the “I’m different looking than you” thing start? When do the negative stereotypes cement themselves in our kiddos?

The house is clean but my conscience isn't

I’m sitting in a clean house. Not just tidy. Not wiped down. Full on scrubbed-floor-to-ceiling - CLEAN! Am I exhausted and worn out from 6 hours of nitty gritty work? NOPE! I was enjoying a picnic at the park with the kiddos. When I came home my house was sparkly with a lemon fresh scent. Lacking the magic to wiggle my nose and start washcloths and Comet scrubbing, I had pulled out my checkbook and called a housekeeper. 

I broached the “housekeeper” topic with my husband after a long day of cleaning. I had done a complete scrub-down of all the bathrooms and the kitchen, only to have the kiddos tear apart their room, the living room and dining room. Talk about counterproductive! Not to mention dinner was In-N-Out again (yummy!) and the kiddos were given raisins and M&Ms for lunch. I was about 30 weeks pregnant at the time, meaning, bending over and standing up were quickly becoming daunting tasks of their own! Wisely, he OK-ed a housekeeper once a month and subsequently never looked more attractive to me! Now, at 36 weeks along (and counting) I’m hoping we can continue the housekeeper for a few months after the baby.

So why do I feel guilty?? Having a housekeeper once a month is only 12 days out of 365 I have help, my belly hinders every movement (including breathing), I have a preschooler and toddler who require my attention, I run my own business, it’s not that pricey and having the house cleaned really saves me hours of time. Plus cleaning totally sucks!

Welcome to the strip club

When my mom heard her small Orange County hometown of Placentia mentioned on National News her ears perked up. What she wasn't expecting was the topic - Controversial dance performed by 8-year-olds to the tune of Beyonce's "Single Ladies." She called me right away and I got a YouTube link in an email later that day from one of my closest childhood friends who danced for the now infamous Precision Dance Studio.

Much of my childhood was spent in dance studios learning routines and nursing blistered toes, so my first impression of the provocative routine was "Wow, those little girls can dance!" Then the mom part of me highlighted the word little. Though the dance is an amazing display of their talent and hard work, if you put boobs into their lingerie-like tops (yes, lingerie) the routine would fit right in at an Vegas strip club (not that I've ever been to a Vegas strip club).

Motherhood = Throw-up

I vividly remember the first time Eli threw up on me… I’m not talking sour milk spit up; I’m talking full on acidic banana/hot dog clumped throw up. I was comforting that chubby toddler in my arms while he looked at me with his big strikingly blue eyes and whimpered “tummy hurts.” I could sense something was coming. And it did!

I have a week stomach. Like embarrassingly weak! I dry heave if I see Neosporin clumped up because it looks like a pile of boogers. I knew as a mother the throw-up moments would be inevitable. I just wasn’t sure if I would also be cleaning up my own lunch along with the little sickos’.

Sure enough, Eli threw up all over me. Shoulders to shoes. It was gross. But I didn’t heave-ho myself. I stripped us down, cleaned us up, all the while comforting my little man with the sweet words about the not-so-sweet event."Eli you did such a good job" (with the involuntary spasms your tummy used to get rid of the contents of your stomach) & "You'll feel so much better now" (that your projectile vomit has soaked through my bra). I even promised him an afternoon of applesauce eating, Spite drinking and play dough snakes. Afterward I thought proudly “I am now a Mother!”

How real is Facebook?

As I read through my friends’ statuses of the day, I comment here and there, I think to myself how the cute pictures are and about how fun it is to stay updated, via the web, with folks I don't see in person as often as I used to. But how REAL is Facebook?

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the site. I love that I can shoot out a playdate invite to a group of Mommies and everyone can chime in with ideas places and times. I hate that I can’t go to the park with the kiddos without the fluffy status of “Another awesome day in the So Cal sunshine playing with the kiddos.” I mean, can’t I enjoy a piece of pie without a picture and with the word “yum!” under it!?!

Yesterday my Facebook status read “Eating malt-o-meal with applesauce, an orange, and a Cadbury Creme egg (or two) with a glass of milk for lunch. Don’t judge.” I thought, “Gee, I’m being so funny and cute!”  I knew no one would actually judge me. And if they did, I would get comments like “LOL, those pregnancy cravings” or similar not-so-sinful admissions like “At least you had malt-o-meal. I had a Big Mac!”

What if I really put things on there that could be judged? You know, the things I don’t want people to know because… well… they are embarrassing or show my flaws.

And then I was screaming at the bully in Chick-fil-a...

I think of myself as a nice person. I buy from local kids selling candy, I’ll answer phone surveys, and let the person with one item cut in front of me at the grocery store. Nice. How was I supposed to know that a toddler bully at Chick-fil-a would bring out the worst in me?!?

As moms, we can all agree, sticking up for our kids is just part of the deal. You know, when your little one boldly walks up to another kid at the playground and asks if “they can be friends,” and the other kid yells “no,” pushes them, then runs away. You discreetly throw sand at the other kid… not really… really (now you’ll never know). This whole mother hen thing became very real for me when my kiddos came in contact with their first bully.

One of my mommy friends and I met up at Chick-fil-a for a playdate. (Separate sound proof play area, complementary wi-fi, and a strawberry shake, need I say more?) She had to go to her car to nurse her new daughter so I was in charge of the 4 remaining kiddos playing in the play area. I moseyed into kid haven and I knew right away that something was amiss. My 2-year-old Cora and her buddy Jonas were cowering under the ladder and their big siblings, Eli and Iris, looked a little confused at the top of the slide. Before I could ask what was going on The Bully came sliding down screaming “BABY MONSTERS” at the little ones.

Say what??

A Sarcastic Mom's Guide to NOT Parenting

Do you ever have a day when you don't feel like parenting? You know the kind; it’s not that you are overly frazzled or stressed, you just want to play with the kiddos and aren’t in the mood to "follow through." Whatever that means.

It’s not so bad if it’s a stay-home-in-PJs-day. But let’s say you’re at the park or a playdate at a friend’s house. As in, other moms are judging you, so you can’t be “that mom.” This happened to me last week while I was hanging with some friends over at Marcy’s house for a little mommy pow-wow. My preschooler and toddler were throwing rocks into Marcy’s beautiful fountain and my getting-fatter-by-the-second pregnant self couldn’t use the tried and true, “we’re leaving if you do that again” threat because the reality was, we weren’t going to leave… it wasn't nap time yet. This little situation got me playfully thinking of ways to look like you’re parenting when you really aren’t.

Follow my Sarcastic Mom's Guide to Not Parenting!