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Sayonara Summer!
by Mackenzie of Mommy Needs A Swear Jar
I'm terrified to take my children anywhere without a smear of sunscreen for fear that Jennifer Garner and her Neutrogena Ninjas will find me and make me feel worthless and ugly.
by Mackenzie of Mommy Needs A Swear Jar
Today is the first day of fall and it's my favorite time of year. The trees are beginning to turn. Also, my birthday is a week away, which means a
totally legit 24-hour pizza and donut binge is just around the corner.
Here's
some mom Math for you:
gloppy sunscreen + squirmy children = a small slice of hell
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| Picture courtesy of Neutrogena and the comic genius drawing style of www.simplemanssurvivalguide.com |
So, I order this stuff in bulk and stash it everywhere: in the cupboard by the back door, in the closet by the front door, the console of my car, in the stroller in the car, the jogging stroller in the garage, and in the swimming bag.
Always be prepared.
But applying sunscreen to small children sucks! They just want to go and do whatever it is we're about to do and I have to repeatedly order them to stand still and wait their turn for me to spray their limbs with the aerosol, and then jab at their faces with the stick, and since an entire bottle of the aerosol lasts for approximately 1.5 kids, I slop the last kid with the lotion. They squint, and squirm, and it gets in their hair, and their clothes stick to their arms, and twenty minutes later when I'm trying to nab one on the run, their sweaty, slimy little bodies slip right out of my grasp like a greased pig. Let's not even talk about the concept of reapply hourly.
Sunglasses might even be worse. I used to think it was pretentious to give sunglasses to children, until my pediatrician started including eye-protection in a long list of questions meant to make me doubt ever decision I've ever made as a parent.
Sunglasses might even be worse. I used to think it was pretentious to give sunglasses to children, until my pediatrician started including eye-protection in a long list of questions meant to make me doubt ever decision I've ever made as a parent.
"Do your kids get enough milk and do you limit their soda and juice intake?" Yeah.
"Are you monitoring what they see on the TV and the Internet?" Sure.
"Are they getting enough fruits and veggies?" Whatever dude.
"Are you putting sunglasses on them?" Whaaaaaaaaat?
I
know damn well that sunglasses in the hands of my kids will last - and
I'm being optimistic here - about four hours. They'll be lost, stepped
on, broken, abandoned, chewed, bartered for a walnut, or simply vanish
into thin air along with my sanity. So, after that doctor's visit, I
ran out and bought a dozen pairs of kid sunglasses. For four children. And I stashed them all over so that they would be available whenever the daystar was threatening to cook my kids' eyeballs. I even bought these Baby Banz for
Charlie, my toddler. I felt like a yuppie bitch ($0.25) but on the
off-chance that I ran into my pediatrician at the pool, I wanted him to
know who deserved the gold medal for motherhood.
But
here's the thing: making them available is the easy part! Keeping them
on the kids' faces is the challenge.
I decided to pay extra for themed sunglasses, thinking the kids would want to wear them. But, of course, I waited too far into summer to buy them so by the time I got to Target, they had exactly one Disney Princess pair left, and a bunch of Hello Kitty sunglasses. But my girls don't like Hello Kitty so they fight constantly over the Disney Princess pair, which is now bent and missing one lens, while a small pile of Hello Kitty sunglasses sits unused in a drawer.
I decided to pay extra for themed sunglasses, thinking the kids would want to wear them. But, of course, I waited too far into summer to buy them so by the time I got to Target, they had exactly one Disney Princess pair left, and a bunch of Hello Kitty sunglasses. But my girls don't like Hello Kitty so they fight constantly over the Disney Princess pair, which is now bent and missing one lens, while a small pile of Hello Kitty sunglasses sits unused in a drawer.
The
alternative is to secure them to their faces with duct tape, which
would not only raise eyebrows at the park, but just might motivate a
call to the anonymous tip line at Child Protective Services. So I
trundle along behind these kids, dutifully smearing sunscreen on them
and picking up discarded sunglasses all summer long.
Thank
God it's fall, and we can trade in sunscreen and sunglasses
for jackets, coats, mittens, hats, scarves, socks and boots. Wait a
minute. Shit ($0.25).
Total owed to the swear jar for this post: $0.75.
Mackenzie is a foul-mouthed, chubby, mom of five, who worked
super hard in her 20s to get an MBA, only to retire to become her kids'
bitch ($0.25). She now spends her days dashing after kids and taking power
naps. You can find her tossing quarters into her swear jar on her blog, and posting ridiculousness on Facebook and Twitter.
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