Blog Posts by Manic Motherhood

Happy New Year!I never make resolutions. Frankly, they depress me. I never follow through on them and I end up looking at them at the end of the year and wondering why I even bothered. Instead, I make a list of the things I am grateful for throughout the past year. Sure, it's a small list. And the stuff on it isn't important - I haven't solved world peace, nor have I discovered how to make energy from wind or rain. But it's my list...and after you read it, tell me what is on your gratitude list.

Oh, and please note, these aren't in any particular order.

• Our dog, No-no Lulu, has stopped eating throw pillows. I think this time it's for good, although I thought that in June as well and let's not even get into what happened to the vintage pillow I got from Etsy.
  
  
• Our son, Junior, is a sophomore and still speaks to me as if he likes me - or at least as though I have half a brain. I am treasuring that, because as I understand it a teenager without a smart mouth doesn't last forever.
  
  
• On

My listDear Teenager:

On this, your fifteenth Christmas with your Dad and me, we'd like to switch it up. (Don't worry, we got your list. And just to set your expectations, as much as we love you, there is no way on God's green earth that we are spending $200 for headphones for you. The ear buds that came with your iPod don't seem to be giving you earaches, so just be happy with them.)

Anyway, while we will be getting some of the stuff on your list, we wanted to give you a few other things we believe you will need as you transition from teenager to adult:

• 1. An education. You've exceeded anything we could have wished for you in high school. And in truth, you've done it with challenges I never faced and yet I never gave nearly the effort you give to school (clearly, you take after Dad in this respect). I am so proud of you. Each time I get a report card, I want to cry like an idiot. Sometimes I do, but then I lie to you and tell you my contact lenses are bugging me. Dad covers for me,

My sister's turkey from last yearDear Food Network,

I just want you to know how difficult you have made Thanksgiving. Thanks to all your shows about making a fancy turkey dinner, my family and guests now expect a woman who cannot cook to turn out a dinner that is worthy of all your talk. I can't take the pressure. It's killing me.

No longer can I slap a couple of turkey TV dinners on the table and pronounce it a feast fit for kings. No longer can I serve a burnt turkey to the masses, yell "BAM" and announce that blackened turkey is a Cajun delicacy. No longer can I tell friends that the gravy is from an old family recipe that calls for lumps of flour to be floating in it.

You've ruined all my excuses. Oh sure, a couple years ago when I forgot to defrost the turkey, I could pass it off as starting a new tradition of turkey bowling. Or the time I forgot to buy stuffing, so I just shoved some Wonder Bread up the turkey's rear and hoped for the best. I can't do that because my guests expect more due to the

This is not a sign you'll see on my car :)

Shhhhh. I'm going to tell you a secret. And you have to promise you won't tell anyone else. You know, it's just between me, you and anyone else reading this.

I'm a car pig.

Oh, I know it's shocking. I mean, anyone who has seen my house knows my house is clean. I mean, I'm not a freak about it, but I really, really like my house to be neat. I don't like dishes sitting in the sink. I don't like my shampoo and conditioner bottles to sit on the shower floor. They must be in the shampoo holder and they are neatly aligned, left to right in order of use. And I don't like it when my husband gets them out of order.

OK, fine. I might be a freak.

My bed is made the same way every day and I don't like it if the comforter is not perfectly balanced so both sides are symmetrical. My dogs' bowls are scoured every day. My bathroom sink is wiped down every morning and there are never, ever any clothes on my floor. My laundry room is completely free of folded laundry, because as soon as I

Copyright canberkol

This is the worst time of the year for me. Oh, it's not the ghosts and goblins that seem to pop up in front of every house in my neighborhood. And it's not the witches and vampires and princesses that will be coming to my door soon.

No, I'm scared of the bag of teeny, tiny chocolate bars in my pantry.

I just can't resist it. Look, if there is chocolate in my house, I have to eat it. I must. It's like a biological urge to survive via caramel and chocolate. There cannot be a chocolate bar within 100 feet of my home that I cannot find using my super-chocolate senses.

Now, I have tried everything to resist the lure of gooey goodness in my pantry every October. I have tried buying candy I don't like. Turns out, there is not really any candy that I don't like, whether it contains chocolate or not. I mean, I will admit I'm not fond of Bottle Caps, but I still eat them.

I have tried buying my candy on Halloween at 4 PM. Do you know what's left at the grocery store on

Illustration by renjith krishnanIn today's news of the stupid, ridiculous and weird, we have the case of Kimberly Garrity. Kimberly was sued by her children, Steven Miner, II (23) and Kathryn Miner (20) for bad mothering.

Yeah, I said "bad mothering." And yeah, these are actual adults suing their mother.

Seriously, I cannot make this stuff up. If I could make stuff like this up, I'd be living in Hollywood, writing sitcoms and waiting for my personal chef to whip up a low-carb breakfast. Instead, I live in a small town, write this blog and honestly? I just ate leftovers that I didn't bother to microwave because I was too hungry to wait the 35 seconds to heat them.

Anyway, back to Kimberly.

Apparently, Kimberly's darling offspring believe she sucks as a mother. I'm kind of stumped here. I mean, really? I'm thinking that we could fan out all over the planet and interview kids from every high school and college in existence and we'd probably find that every single one of them - at one point in time -

Photo by Laurie Sontag

This is my father. This is not a typical picture of my father. First, he's not a big hat guy. Second, I didn't know he knew who Goofy was. Turns out, he does know Goofy. And it turns out, he likes to pretend he is Goofy.

Kind of cool, right?

This photo was taken over the summer. My extended family isn't huge, but we have always lived far away from each other. This year a bunch of us - parents, aunts, uncles, cousins - got together for 4 days at Disneyland - the Happiest Place on Earth. We celebrated kids getting bigger. We celebrated birthdays with Mickey. We sat by the pool and watched the big kids help the little kids on the water slide.

For the most part, there were no surprises. Until my dad decided he wanted to ride the rides. Here's the thing. Growing up, we spent summers in Southern California. We've been to Disneyland a billion times. I've never seen my dad ride any ride other than Pirates of the Caribbean.

But this trip, Dad wanted to ride. He needed a

Photo by graur razvan ionutI was just getting used to summer when I realized that it's nearly over. Suddenly my mailbox is flooded with notices from the school. Pick up this! Pay for that! Practice now! And I face the undeniable reality.

I don't want school to start.

This has been a wonderful summer (knock on wood). Junior has been with friends, yet around me a lot. It's been perfect. Okay, I have been teaching him to drive, but seriously that's about the only icky thing that's happened.

I don't want to go back to the real world. I don't want to take him for his uniform fittings and practices and buy yearbooks and get his physical taken and his teeth cleaned.

But mostly I don't want him to be a sophomore in high school.

He's my only baby. I mean, other than the dogs...and possibly the husband. But Junior is the only one who still needs me. He needs me to teach him how to make a right turn when there is a police officer behind you and you are scared to death you will make a California