lost in suburbia

i had the pleasure of meeting the lovely tracy beckerman at a blogging conference about a year ago. i immediately liked her, not just for her friendly and bouyant personality but much more so for her hilarious sense of humor and sarcasm. she had me laughing...i appreciate that in people more than anything else.

when i heard that tracy had written a book, i had to read it. she kindly sent me her book to read back in may...yes...that many months ago. i had every intention of sitting down and reading it all at one sitting on a quiet sunday afternoon. then i woke up and realized i am the mother of five. my reading times are almost exclusively limited to those brief moments i lock myself in the bathroom and the twenty seconds between my head hitting the pillow at night and an instant exhaustion coma. 

here is where the acolades for tracy's book really begin. every time...and i mean that every time i picked up her book, lost in suburbia, i laughed...outloud. laughed. it was like my own little sarcastic, brutally honest happy pill in the form of a mommy memoir. that is about the greatest compliment i have ever given a book.

tracy sandwiches her entire journey into motherhood between stories about getting pulled over by the police...not once, but twice...and once in a duck print bathrobe. what is there not to love? she calls her nursing breasts udders, calls her butt "buttzilla", fakes the sound of a breast pump, and goes through all the crazies of first time parenting vividly sharing it all as an open book (pun completely intended). 

so, if you have a lazy sunday afternoon...or five minutes locked in the bathroom, pick up tracy's book. you won't be sorry. you will get a great laugh and you will find a girlfriend who isn't afraid to share all the gory details of motherhood while still ultimately painting a picture that includes tremendous love for her husband and children. it is filled with honesty and laughter...and someone you will want as a friend.

here is where your day just improved. we are giving away a copy of Lost In Suburbia to one thethirdboob.com reader. if you would like to win a copy of tracy's book, leave us a message on our facebook page at www.facebook.com/thethirdboob.  good luck and happy reading!

giveaway ends september 24th, 2013 at 11:59 PM EST. open to residents of the US only.  prizes cannot be shipped to PO boxes.  winner will be selected by random.org and be notified by email. winner have 48 hours to respond before a new winner is selected. the book provided for the review was free of charge from the company. the book offered for the giveaway is free of charge, no purchase necessary. my opinions are my own and were not influenced by any form of compensation.  facebook, twitter and google+ are in no way associated with this giveaway. i do not share or sell information and will use any information only for the purpose of contacting the winner.

someday...

there are many moments during the day when i have to take a deep breath and regain my sanity. it is in those moments that i speak a mantra over myself: "someday, things will be different." it's in those moments that i remember that these days are fleeting. this too shall pass. while all the moments aren't wonderful, someday i'll miss them. in the meantime, it's good to remember that someday, things will change.


so, we are starting a new tradition here at the third boob. we are going to start collecting a list of all our "somedays." we'd love to share some of yours as well. if you have a "someday" you'd like to share, please email it to us as thethirdboob@gmail.com. it's good to know we are not alone in this process. perhaps more important than that, it's good to laugh at it all and remember that someday, life as we now know it will be a memory. 

on that happy note, here is our first list of 10 somedays. (these are all true stories, by the way. between chach and i, the material for this new series is endless...)


someday...

1) someday i will be able to use the bathroom without little people sticking their fingers under the door, or pounding on the door, or asking me if i need help wiping.

2) someday i will be able to wear a skirt in public without one of my sons lifting it and giving all the passers by a free peep show.

3) someday i'll be able to take a shower without one of the boys asking "why do you have fur down there?" seriously...fur.

4) someday i will be able to eat an entire meal without getting up from the table.

5) someday i'll eat a hot meal.

6) someday i'll be able to make it through a meal without someone announcing, "i tooted," followed by a fit of tablewide giggles.

7) someday i won't have to dodge and deflect questions about tampons. 

8) someday tampons won't be used as missiles or torpedoes to shoot across the bathroom.

9) someday i won't have to remind my boys to "aim for the water." 

10) someday, my boys won't inform me that they have peed on the wall on accident... but that it's okay because i can clean it up.

someday...

mom 2.0 summit whiplash

this last weekend, chach and i had the privilege of attending an amazing conference, mom 2.0 summit, held at the ritz carlton in laguna niguel, ca. not only was the weekend a chance for us to visit and spend some quality time together, but it was also the perfect opportunity for us to connect with other talented bloggers and some of our favorite brands. top that all off with a location that is nothing short of spectacular and the weekend was close to perfection. 

the view from the hotel. seriously.

we had the best time. we slept uninterrupted. we ate delicious food. the ritz carlton delivered us white chocolate and a plate of cookies at night. we had turn down service each night and fresh towels every morning. we laughed often, conversations flowed freely and we had perpetual smiles on our faces. 

so gorgeous. 

proof that blogging has its perks...

all too soon, the weekend was over and we were heading home. after a weekend away, it feels like we should be able to ease back into our normal lives...slowly...to keep from pampered whiplash. a slow re-acclimation to reality wasn't on our agenda. our first stop was chach's house. we had shortly gone to sleep on our first night back to reality when chach's poor three year old woke up sobbing. after looking at his sweet feet that night, we found that, while at a birthday party that day, he had run on a deck barefoot and had nothing less than 40 splinters covering his little piggies. it was a long hour of tweezing those bits of wood out of his tiny feet. 

nellie's midnight tweezing session...poor baby!

after my (nellie's) flight was cancelled and i was redirected to get home to my babies, chach returned to her two boys only to be woken in the wee hours of the morning by projectile vomiting. both boys threw up for the day and chach got to play zone defense...this is the result.

i wish i could compare this with one of our weekend shots...one of these things is not like the other. she managed to take care of her sweet boys and is in charge of teacher appreciation week for their preschool. have i mentioned she's a rock star? don't let the picture fool you. 

meanwhile, on the other coast, i was happily hugging my babies and trying to recover from my rerouted red-eye flight. after a day recovering, life came jumping back into full swing.

first on the agenda: ducklings...two of them...for a kindergarten class project. nothing says, "welcome home" like cleaning up baby animal poopies. still, they were pretty adorable and my kids loved them so it wasn't so bad. i told chach they were actually pretty fun. her response? "one person's 'fun' is another persons 'nightmare'. love her.

sweet things...

my amazing husband was worn out after a weekend with the kids. he is also a super hero and decided to surprise me by steam cleaning all of our carpets. so, on the night we were going to sit and watch a movie together, this is what happened...

our version of "alone time"

cap it all off with chaperoning a field trip today with several classes of first graders and we are back to parenting...with bells on. 

at least we can look back at our pictures of last weekend and bask in the glow of the weekend that was...and laugh at the pictures of what our reality sometimes is. one without the other wouldn't nearly be so sweet. until next year, mom 2.0. thanks for the memories.

our best of 2012

happy new year! it is hard to believe that 2012 is over and 2013 is upon us. we thought we would do a quick recap of some of our favorite posts from 2012. if you didn't read them the first time, here's your chance. we are forever blessed by you, our readers. may you have the best of years.

mmmmm...

crockpot taco soup

chicken pesto pizza

white chocolate raspberry muffins

grandma's famous zucchini bread

diy

photo canvas alarm panel cover

creative diy school valentines

hairbands with flowers

choo choo train themed party

diy stepping stones



laughable moments

mother of the year

the best things about giving birth

men and their tools

teacher introductions

embrace the hilarious

just breath

the profound

the art of being remembered



independence day

70 years of memories

beautifully overwhelmed

fun finds

amazing artwork

margarita madness

fabulous kids music albums

here's to 2013...and a year full of wonder, laughter, writing and sharing. cheers!

embrace the hilarious

let's all be honest...motherhood can get a little crazy. in fact, if someone tells you that parenthood is only marvelous and glorious, you can pretty much question everything else that ever comes out of their mouth as being disingenuous. parenting is hard. we'll find ourselves getting caught up in mommy wars. we have days when we sarcastically feel like the "mother of the year." we'll have days that are wonderful and days where we find that our kids have learned how to finger paint with their own poop. it is wonderful as a whole and filled with some of the most difficult moments we will ever face. 

so, i've decided it's time to bring the funny back. it is already clear that i have a pretty simple and juvenile sense of humor. i find a lot of things funny. it's time we share some of those funny moments. we love to post pictures of our kids when they are amazing...winning a race, accomplishing something wonderful, looking especially lovely. what if we were really honest and took pictures of the things that made us laugh...even if they were less than glowing examples of our children or our parenting? wouldn't it take a little pressure off of all of us...to have the perfect children, to only post the perfect days, to have perfect days at all? here are my favorite stories and photos, used by permission from some fabulous moms...who have learned how to laugh in the middle of this adventure called mommyhood.

so, we've all seen pictures of kids who have cut their own hair. here's one of my favorites. i don't love it because of the original child's version of the cut.

i love it because of what his parents did to him as a result of the hair cut. i'm pretty sure he won't cut his own hair again.

then there are the stories of kids and their mispronunciations of words. i have to say that chach holds the award for the best story in this category. both of her boys have had some difficulty pronouncing the word, "truck." this can be extremely detrimental to a parent's pride because little boys love trucks. they love to play with trucks. they love to shout out "truck" whenever they see one. they generally yell their version of "truck" so everyone can hear. you can imagine my lack of bladder control when i would call chach and in the background i would hear her first born yelling "cock! cock! cock!" this phase seemed to last forever and it brought me to tears laughing each and every time i heard it.

then came her second born....and his pronunciation just about slays me. i have listened to this so many times and it makes me laugh over and over again. listen to the way he pronounces "truck" in this audio clip. 

second born "truck" pronunciation

seriously, is there anything more funny than that? it gets me every time.

then there is my friend who posted a picture of her son with the candle he had just made her as a gift. i don't know what i would do if my son brought this home. how can you keep a straight face? the most impressive thing about this photo is that she posted it on facebook...for the enjoyment of all of the rest of us.

last but certainly not least are the pictures my good friend sent this last year...as a part of her christmas card. now that is a mom with an amazing sense of humor. i am just glad that i'm fortunate enough to call her my friend. it was, by far, my favorite christmas card of the season. along with her news of the family, she sent two pictures drawn by her daughter. 

the first picture is a drawing of a "happy bat", drawn for her older brother who loves baseball. that is some bat.

the second picture was one that she drew for their family dog, "titus." let's see how long it takes you to laugh at this one. 

see...so much funny all around us. sometimes we just need to learn to laugh at ourselves...and at our kids. it sure makes things a ton more enjoyable. let's bring the funny back.

what about you? what hilarity have you been waiting to share?