Could. Not. Resist.

My next birthday will see me turning forty.  And I will have a one year old and an eight year old.  If you had told me this fact three years ago, I would have laughed and encouraged to you keep on enjoying whatever you were smoking.

I kid, I kid.  But, there are definitely some good things about being an older mom:

- Perspective.  I haz it.

- I’ve already done all the “crazy” stuff I wanted to do in my twenties.  As my friend, who had her son at 38, said, “Sometimes twice.”

- A fairly well established network of friends and family totake advantage of ask for help.

- A bit more patience, although I’m guessing that might be a purely personal thing.

- A good sense of myself, one that I can honestly say I didn’t have until I hit about thirty, and it’s only gotten better since then.

- Lots of years of pop culture behind me, the better to quote to my son, who has no idea what I’m talking about. But I do, so it’s still fun.

- More financial stability and just a better general knowledge of money and how it works, or in some cases, doesn’t.

- I have the self-confidence to not care what the younger moms think of my gray hair.

- The boobs were already headed in a southerly direction, so not much trauma there.

And, there are some drawbacks as well…

Raincoaster’s got a naked Anthony Bourdain…

How to keep your teens from drinking…

People find blogs in the weirdest ways…

Chichimama doesn’t really mourn making that last school lunch…

Marketing to kids is scary stuff…

It takes a Canadian to say it so eloquently…

Candy is tired…

One word: Target.

It’s many a mom’s dirty little secret when you’ve got a kid who is moping around the house, claiming they have played with all of their toys and read all of their books. And even if they haven’t really, they feel as if they have, and so their perception becomes your rather unpleasant reality.  Most days you can threaten them with chores or whatnot, but even that gets old after a while.  Being a mean mom is only fun for the first month or so, and then it just gets to be a drag.

In all my years of parenting, I have yet to see a child reject a cheery, “Let’s go to Target!”

I don’t know if it’s me and a reflection of how awesomely boring my life is, but a trip to Target is always a welcome reprieve.  I can’t always buy what I want, but most of the time I am content to look at the pretty serving trays I don’t really need and the cute plates I definitely don’t need. But, there is always something that needs to be bought, even if it is boring.

And as everyone knows, there is cheap, yummy food at Target.  A friend of mine gets her son a soda and popcorn.  Mine?  Make it a pretzel, salty, and an Icee, extra cold.

If you are a kid, the day becomes automatically better when an Icee is in your grip.  And you never know if this will be a brain-freeze kind of day until you try.

Also, there seems to be something magical about accompanying Mom to Target because usually she will cave over buying some sort of little toy or book, because kids are smart enough to know the approximate price range/toy category wherein your weakness lies.  For instance, my son knows better than to ask me for a video game, but is correct in asssuming I will usually buy him art and creativity-related items.

So my advice to you if you have a Target within driving distance, use it to your advantage, and use it wisely.  Else you just might wind up with a much lighter bank account.

- I was on a “mom support” site, and a woman was asking for tips on how to wean a baby off breastmilk and onto formula. Well, up come the breastfeeding shamers, who try to make her feel bad about wanting to go to formula. To which I say, if you can’t answer the damn question, shut up! The woman didn’t ask for advice on how to keep breastfeeding! She wants to go to formula, not hear your guilt trips!

-My toenail polish is starting to chip. But I’m too lazy to fix it. Maybe I’ll start a new trend.

- My daughter has a little kick piano that has a mode which plays random songs. I cannot identify one of the songs, and I swear it sounds most like “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” I’m pretty sure that’s not what Fisher Price had in mind.

- My son got caught up in an academic frenzy and tried to outdo a second grader in reading comprehension tests they take on the computer. It seems he was randomly choosing books he’d never read based on their high point values, hoping that statistically, he would pass some of the tests. The librarian and the teacher didn’t notice at first, but what was the dead giveaway? The fact that he had taken a test on Gone With the Wind. You know, the first book of choice for every seven year old boy.

- I have come to the conclusion that I dislike most of the girl’s clothing that is out there. Boo.

- Is it wrong for me to say that I am so happy that summer is here?  Now I don’t have to frantically juggle putting my daughter to sleep for the night with getting dinner on the table at a certain time.  Which was truly stressing me out.

It seems as if I have a readership after my own heart, as fifty six percent of you ixnayed the idea that camping was fun.  I knew I liked you for a reason! As for the thirty seven percent that love camping, I still love you, even though I’m thinking we’ll never go vacationing together.

Today’s poll comes to you courtesy of my shower this morning.  As it is going to be some godforsaken high temperature today, I shaved my legs completely, after only sort of half-assing it for a while now.  Here’s my question:

You know, a feverish baby and a sick mom will cause the brunch links to become dinner links… Sigh.

The Consumerist tells of a UK woman selling her breastmilk at $22 for 4 oz. I’m apparently in the wrong business.

I wish my 8th grade dance had been this awesome. Wait, I went to Catholic school.  I never got a dance.

Would you like to Dilly Dally in Pussy Park? I thought so.

Is it ever OK to let your kid quit?

The latest Toddlers n’ Tiaras recap.

Christa doesn’t like this onesie one little bit.

Willow Smith’s outfit? Raincoaster is not a fan.

Due to Memorial Day last week, the results for the Lost poll are a bit late.  A full fifty percent of you stated that you never even watched Lost to begin with, much less having a reaction to the series ending.  Or perhaps the reaction was simply one of relief that nobody will be talking about it any more.  Seventeen percent of you liked the ending, and only nine percent joined me in being bitter about it.   Six percent were sad their weekly ogling sessions were coming to an end, and another six claimed to be a bit befuddled as to what it all meant.

This weekend the men in my family went camping, and us girls stayed behind and enjoyed the air conditioning, as it was unusually hot for this early in the summer.  For the record, Glinda does not do camping.  I have never camped, and have absolutely no intention to ever do so, despite the pleas of my husband.  And by being home, we also managed to avoid heat exhaustion, not having access to a shower, the rumor of a bear in the vicinity, what were thought to be possibly leeches in a stream they were mucking around in, and mosquito bites.  Please explain to me how this is considered “fun.” Because anyone who thinks that kind of stuff is fun has a very different definition than mine.