Gangnam Style and the Harlem Shake are yesterday’s Macarena. The new dance that’s taking my suburban home by storm is actually an old one. And it’s not a dance but a walk. I present to you The Silly Walk. It was Friday night. My husband was watching the Blue Jays (a team that meets his […]
Hilarious Family Moments
How Not To Promote Someone's Book
I get asked several times a week to review and promote things on my blog, especially books and enlargements of certain body parts. I almost always say no (a.k.a. delete the email without replying), mostly because our house already has 6000 books in it and because my body parts are large enough. Still, every now […]
NYC and Reading Aloud, again
My husband and I spent three glorious nights in New York City last week. I will be posting a blog series about Ironic Travails (or something more witty than that working title). While we were gone, my mother-in-law looked after Vivian and William. Before my husband and I left Calgary, I recorded the next three […]
What Being Married 12.7 Years Is Like
Late one evening, I rolled awkwardly onto our bed. My lower back was in spasms. Rolling seemed easier than my usual approach: the Fosbury Flop. My husband looked at me, breaking his concentration from a rugby game, a minor match he’d recorded and didn’t really care about. “You OK?” he asked. I moaned. “How long […]
You Know You're an Optimist If You…
This Monday, I present to you: The Flippant Parent’s Guide to Optimism You know you’re an optimist if you… Get out of bed on Monday morning. Or any other morning. Let your child use glitter. Believe that your children will one day move out of your house. Think your laundry bin is half empty. See […]
The Oscars, Twitter, and a Boring Week
The Oscars are on—and even though I haven’t seen a movie in the theatres since Top Gun—I’m watching, I’m reminding myself how much I despise it when people break out in song, and I’m reminiscing about two years ago, when my sister and I were in Hollywood for the weekend and attended Oprah’s After-Oscar Show. […]
How To Entertain Your Children by Doing Nothing
There’s a line in my book that says this: Here is yesterday’s proof. My kids were bored. They complained; I ignored them. They found an elastic on the floor. This is what they created: Yup. They spent ninety minutes using the elastic as a sling shot and zinging various toys, boxes, and food items across […]
Why I Euthanize My Plants
My husband took our poinsettia to his table at the flea market yesterday. Someone adopted it. I kill plants. Except poinsettias. It scares me that they survive, even thrive, under my cycle of care (less-ness). This is how I care for my plants: Weeks One and Two: ignore Weeks Three and Four: water daily, out of […]
The 20 Worst Gifts for Valentine's Day
A couple of months ago, I asked the Ironic Mom Facebook community what the worst gifts were that they’d ever received. Given that Valentine’s Day is next week, I’m going to declare these the 20 worst gifts you could give your beloved on February 14th. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. […]
Do you love office supplies? Win $250 worth
I love office supplies. They’re the reason I became a teacher. I think my twins have inherited this love. Because when they were five or six (my memory is slipping), they robbed an office supply store. You’ll have to buy my book if you want the whole story (and so I can save for their […]