Crafting With SRM....hahahaha

Yesterday after listening to Ashe whine about how little energy he had while we played at an indoor play place (because you know we’re on day 33 or something of 100 degree days and a slide will melt your ass by just looking at it) and being bored out of my mind being cooped indoors I decided to do something stupid. I decided to try a craft with the kids.



Why is it stupid? For two reasons: Number one it doesn’t matter how frikking cool the craft is or how excited the kids are, somewhere between the suggestion of crafts to a finished product, the kids lose interest, leaving me alone to finish the damn thing. It’s usually right after I hear CA-CHING of the cash register after I have handed over my debit card. It’s like they have this internal radar that lets them know Mommy spent $40 so let’s ditch her and commandeer the Wii remote yeah!!!!


Number two, I suck at crafts. No really. I have these great IDEAS for crafts and I get into crafty moods. I’m a creative person. But for the most part when it comes to ideas on kids crafts I fail epically.

 So with that out on the table, as I listened to Ashe whine more and more, I scrambled for a craft idea that would keep us all entertained and was something unoriginal because it was 10:30 in the morning and originality is NOT going to happen with only 1 cup of coffee in my system anyways. Somehow my very tired, overworked brain decided to hook onto a project I did in school when I was little. I couldn’t think of anything else. It was making a stuffed dinosaur. I figured, hey my boys like dinosaurs, I have a furry boy, it will take all day…. Let’s do it!



If I EVER mention to you I am thinking of crafts before 11:30 in the morning, bitch slap me and I’ll be grateful.


We head to the fabric store, pick out cheap soft fabric (purple for Ashe, blue for Soren), get cut in line while we wait for our fabric to be measured and cut (thanks bitch who cut me in line even seeing that I was with two young kids and you were all by your lonesome. I hope there is such a thing as karma) find a glue gun, and head home.



The boys are hungry. I get them lunch. They want to stuff the stuffed animals NOW! I explain I still have to find a pattern, outline it, cut it out and glue/sew it shut. Not good enough for them so they go and start opening the fluff I bought and throw it around the kitchen while I’m downstairs frantically searching for T Rex patterns (Ashe insisted on T Rex instead of the Brontosaurus I know how to do). I come upstairs with a print in hand to find my kitchen snowy white.



After cleaning up the mess I sit down to stencil out the pattern while Ashe continually asks when he can stuff his T Rex. Giving up with an eye roll he leaves the table to go play Wii while I start cutting out the pattern. Soren tries to help me with the glue gun so I accidentally glue a leg shut and the fabric to the table as I try desperately to keep the VERY hot instrument out of his reach.



Finally we’re ready to stuff T Rex One. Ashe and Soren come over and start shoving fluff up the dinosaur’s ass tail and then, like clockwork, they get bored and wander off. I’m left alone to anally probe the fabric blob in my hand. Once he’s stuff to the gills I glue him shut and look at him and realize….






OH MY FUCKING *** I JUST MADE A BARNEY WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING IT!!!!! WHAT!!! THE!!! FUCK WAS I THINKING?????????????


Shit shit shit shit shit!        Sigh. On to #2






THIS time I decided not to screw with a potentially ER inducing implement like a glue gun and go old skool with thread and needle. While I start from scratch, Ashe is cuddling with his new stuffed animal and wants to know why I made him blind, mute and with no nose? Can I add those on? I explain I will after I get Soren's stuffed since Ashe was being beaten by Soren trying to take his dinosaur away and roaring in his face. Sewing worked better despite the fact it took a little longer. I can’t even remember the last time I sewed (and I don’t have a sewing machine so it was all manual labor). By the time I was done sewing, stuffing, and sewing Soren’s dinosaur I was racing against the clock to get Zavi from school. Fortunately I finished in time to sew on an eye, nose, and smiley face to Barney in order to stop the whining about a malformed stuffed animal.


Never again, I said. Next time the kids want to do a frikkin craft I am going to give them markers, a wet washcloth and their tummies’s and tell them to draw faces on their chests or something. But no more glue guns, no more needles, no more Barneys. Nope, I’m through, I said to myself as I picked up Xavier. Until he saw the dinosaurs and with puppy eyes asked if I would be kind enough to make him a Pokémon stuffed animal this week since he missed out.










I said yes. *Grumble Grumble*

Fairy Bra Mother

Wanna hear a funny story? Me too! Too bad you’re on my page and reading my blog. Summer boredom is the pits, huh?


But maybe this topic will keep you slightly entertained. I know it has for several of my friends. Today we’re going to talk about breasts and bras. Mine, in particular, and how at the age of 32 I finally met my Fairy Bra Mother and learned more about bras in 1 hour than in the rest of my life.

Plus, I now have the breasts I’ve always dreamed of.

Let’s backspace a bit for history’s sake to give you an understanding of how it came to be that as a woman, I have been completely clueless about anything bra related until my poor, laughing friends took pity on me.



First off, I somehow missed out on all those girly moments with my mom when it came to learning those important life lessons as I turned from girl to woman. You know those after school specials they used to show, where parents would lovingly sit down with their daughter and explain about periods, puberty, bras, tampons, and all that shit? I got nothin. I learned about periods in 6th grade at school, and what to really expect (and how to use maxi pads and tampons) in the girls bathroom in between classes in middle school. Bras are laughable. My mom never had an issue in the breast department so compared to her, she decided I didn’t have anything to worry about. I was always smaller than my friends and all of us were fairly clueless, so since no one took me under their wing I did what any girl in that scenario would do: I tried a few on by myself, thought whatever kind of fit worked, and left. With this said, I have always thought BC I was a 38A. Growing up I only had a small handful of female friends, all of whom had breasts by the time they were 8. None of my guy friends knew anything about bras, unless it was how to unclasp them with one hand. Yes, people, I learned how to unclasp a bra one handed, but not how to properly size one. That should explain a lot to you.



FF to pregnancy. My breasts grew. And they were hawt! Yes, I am one of those women who (since I never had them and pined for them silently) thinks that penis = male, breasts = female. Yes, I felt less feminine with small breasts. I felt more feminine with my pregnant and nursing breasts. Im sorry, pregnancy sucks. So please excuse me if I thought the coolest thing about pregnancy (aside from that whole fact that I had a mini me developing) was that I had a REASON to wear a bra. I. Loved. It.



But after 3 kids born, all weaned, they deflated again. And by this point I had given up trying to find a good bra that fit my nonexistent boobs. I tried, folks. Seriously, for years, I wandered blindly through the bra department, trying on my very own. Nothing felt right. Nothing fit well. It was depressing. And frankly, I gave up. I wore camisoles or sports bras, or doubled up my tanks. Because I wasn’t going to pay good money for bras that pissed me off when I saw how little I had to fill them with, let alone never fit right.



/cue the tiny violin



Yet over the past few months I had some friends take pity on me. It started off as a joke, as they giggled that I didn’t wear a bra. They joked about it, throwing comments into conversations once in awhile. Little comments here and there that we would laugh about. And finally someone took the bull by the horn and said “You need a bra.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t have anything to fill them with.”

“Sweetheart, you’re an idiot. Tell you what. I’m going to take you bra shopping.”

And that’s how I found my Fairy Bra Mother.



Suddenly everyone started taking bets on what size I was. Anywhere from a 34A to a 38C. The betting got heated as the day  of bra shopping got closer, and everyone was excited to see what the result could be. It reminded me of horse race betting, minus the actual flow of cash. How big are B’s boobs and who will win???? Tune in Monday afternoon to find out!



My friend S is the sweetest woman. She will give you the shirt off her back if you asked, will bake you homemade scones when you come over for a play date, and can now add to her list of coolness factor, that she will take you bra shopping, and make sure you got the right fit, even if you’re a grown up. And she does so with a huge dose of humor.



I wont go into the details of measuring, pushing, lifting, hefting, and all of that, but lets just say my Fairy Bra Mother left no inch of potential chest to be forgotten as we tried bra after bra after bra. Adding to the hilarity factor, we had 3 kids 5 and under with us and they had a ball playing in the fitting room hallway as she tossed me bras to try on.



In the end I have to get on my knees and thank S. I snickered when she guessed I was a 34C but she was close. Officially I am a 36C, the size I kept telling J that after kids, I wanted a boob job to get to that size. And yet here I had them all along, unnoticed, disregarded, unknown.






It sounds weird to know that I went through my life having no clue about something you would think every woman on the planet knows. But simply put, if you don’t teach your kids these things, who will? I still barely know how to do laundry (no I do NOT sort. See what I mean???) I suck at cooking since meals consisted of McDonalds on an almost nightly basis when I grew up. It sucks knowing that I missed out on these lessons, and because of it, I went through many years of having a self esteem issue with my body. To think of those years spent wanting something I already had but didn’t know. It kind of sucks. BUT… it’s also incredibly cool that I have a nice wrack that are happily perched up where they should be and I can’t see my toes when I stand up straight, and I’m not pregnant either!!!!! I donthave to go through life wanting anymore. I just needed friends to say something and help a girl out. And I appreciate that type of friendship.



So thank you Fairy Bra Mother, and thanks to my friends who ribbed me enough to get my head out of my ass and show me that while breastss do not truly equate to femininity, it can make a huge difference to treat the ladies well when you are filled with the correct knowledge (and your chest fills the right cup size).



So Moms, take your daughters bra shopping when the time comes. And get them professionally fitted so they have that knowledge. And since I do not have daughters I promise you that I’ll be teaching the boys how to unclasp them one handed ;)