I was squirting face wash into a travel size container and my daughter asked, “What are you doing?”
“Putting my face wash into a travel size container.”
“Why?”
“Because they don’t let you bring the whole bottle on the airplane.”
“Why not?”
“Um…that’s a good question. I’m not totally sure.”
*Blank stare
“I guess…so you don’t squirt it in the pilot’s face when they’re trying to fly the plane?”
*Hysterical laughter
(I was going to say, “To make sure it’s not a bomb” but the answer I gave makes way more sense.)

America: the country where it’s much, much easier to vote for a new M&M flavor than it is to vote for the president. Don’t get me wrong, I realize they are both extremely important and believe in using the full democratic process when it comes to deciding the availability of snacks, I just think voting for the president of the United States should come with the same convenience as voting for M&M flavors.

That thing where you’re sitting on the playground bench watching your kids play and eating a granola bar and another mom comes to sit down and you scoot over to make room for her except you didn’t realize you were already at the very end of the bench so you end up falling on the ground and the other mom says, “Oh my god, are you ok?” But you can’t answer because the fall caused you to choke on your granola bar and all you can do is cough and desperately gasp for air and your first thought is, “I should write a book called Awkward Encounters With Food because I sure have a lot of those.” Yeah, that.

After playing nonstop since 6 am, I was sitting at our local brunch spot with my tired, hungry family, and couldn’t help but overhear the very serious conversation going on amongst the family at the table next to us. A young couple and the girl’s parents were discussing their baby at home, and the new mom’s struggle to regain some of her independence while taking care of him. It was heartwarming. The parents were very kind in offering their assistance.
“Sweetheart, I just want you to know that if you ever need some time to yourself, I will hover and worry over him just as much as you do.”
“Thank you so much, mom. That’s always the most traumatizing part for him, being around people he doesn’t see every day. But I really do need it, so I think we could make it work.”
“You deserve it, sweetie.”
“I feel that way too. I just make myself crazy. Even now he’s probably at home wondering when I’ll get back to walk him, and come to think of it I don’t know how much food was left in his bowl. I feel like such a bad mom!”
And that’s when it hit me. HOLY CRAP THIS GIRL IS TALKING ABOUT A DOG RIGHT NOW. MAYDAY MAYDAY SHE’S TALKING ABOUT A DOG.

You know those hard as nails moms who teach their kids “tough love” lessons to prepare them for the mean, cruel world they’re growing up in? I’m basically the opposite of that. Last night I took my daughter to see Peppa Pig Live at the Beacon Theater, and it was a perfect day. That is until on the train ride home, when I noticed she wasn’t carrying her little owl purse she brings with her everywhere. I said, “Honey, where is your purse?” She looked around in a quiet, surprised way and said, “I don’t know. Where could it be? I had all my important cards in there.” By “important cards” she meant a long expired Metrocard, some of her dad’s business cards with the misprint, and several old grocery store receipts. I knew it would have been a good time to say something like, “Well, maybe next time you’ll be more responsible.” But instead my first thought was, “She just walked around the city with me for five hours, walking up subway stairs at an adult pace before sitting in a theater for the next two hours, and didn’t complain once. The closest she came to whining was when we were standing on the train platform and she said, “Mommy, I’m cold.” Then she gazed off into the distance at the setting sun and said, “Look at those beautiful colors in the sky. I’m not usually out this late, but tonight I get to see all the clouds turn purple, and dark blue and pink. See all the different blues, mommy?” Like some sort of freaking angel Buddha child sent from heaven. What life lessons could she possibly need?” So instead when my husband was tucking her in that night and I heard her crying, I was in the next room crying even harder, while leaving desperate messages to The Beacon Theater’s lost and found department and googling every possible combination of the words “owl, pink, purse, child’s, hearts, stripes, yellow and pink, cute owl, bag” until an identical match to the one she lost finally came up. I suppose she should learn SOMETHING from this experience, so this morning I told her she could buy a new owl purse with her own money out of her piggy bank. I have no idea how much is in there. If there’s $0.50, then I will tell her the purse costs $0.50. It’s the best I can do under the circumstances.

I’m always walking around thinking, “Maybe that ‘Humans of New York’ guy will interview me for his blog and I’ll say something heartbreaking yet funny, and it will be so perfect that thousands of people on the internet will leave really kind, supportive comments about me. But then I realize I’m just going to the store to buy soy milk, and if he stopped and interviewed me right now I would probably just say, “I’m going to buy soy milk. I put it in my coffee every morning. I LOVE coffee. Do you like coffee? I used to drink almond milk, but then I switched back to soy milk. I don’t really know why.” And that would be the whole interview. Then we would stare at each other for a second, and I would say, “Sorry for wasting your time,” and quickly walk away.

Do you know what I do not like at all? I mean besides street sweepers that drive by and blow dirt all over you, and “small plate” restaurants (like not giving paying customers a proper amount of food is anything to brag about)? I dislike how stores now call everything a “bar.” Are you making me a cappuccino while I look for a new nail polish color? No! Are you mixing a cocktail for the dude picking up a new shirt at the gap after work? No! We can all see that this is the nail polish section, and that is the shirt section. Please stop throwing in words that do not mean what you are trying to make them mean. Life is confusing enough.

When I’m at a restaurant with my kids and there’s a table of people without kids who are cursing really loudly, I always give them dirty looks. Not because I care that my kids will hear, but because if they’re currently eating at a restaurant and do not have kids with them then there is no reason they could possibly have to be cursing.

Parenthood is always shedding new light on things you used to take for granted. For example, “Papa Don’t Preach” came on the radio as I was browsing the body wash at Duane Reade while my son slept in the stroller (taking full advantage of my hour of ‘me time’) and even though I’ve heard that song throughout most of my life, this time I immediately wondered what my parents must have thought when I would sing all the lyrics at the top of my lungs when I was 8 years old. I just pictured my dad saying, “Shirley, she’s singing that weird song about the pregnant teenager deciding if they should get an abortion again, what do we do?” That had to be a little awkward.