Candy’s Father’s Day Gift Guide
Jun 17, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column | Tags: Father's Day, Gift Guides
"Could use a razor, definitely."
Father’s Day is a time to support those who too often go unappreciated: I am, of course, talking about “World’s Greatest Dad” coffee mug makers. These mugs are a vital part of fathers’ lives, providing the perfect place in which to store the unused tie clips and key chains received on other Father’s Days.
In fact, a survey of dads reveals that 53 percent of them don’t recall the Father’s Day gift they received just two years ago. I believe this is mainly due to the contents of their coffee mugs (one shot coffee, one pint whiskey). But it’s also because Father’s Day is treated like a second-class holiday, just one rung below Arbor Day, with second-class presents. Let’s face it — even a freshly planted Arbor Day Weeping Willow is better than a new grill spatula. While mom is still coming off the high of being treated to flowers and free-flowing mimosas at her Mother’s Day brunch, dad has to pretend he loves that soap-on-a-rope. A concept that is just ridiculous; everybody knows men rarely even use cleaning agents.
This disparity is made painfully obvious in my Father’s Day Gift Guide, which contains gift suggestions that no dad in his right mind would want — but provides me, the well-pampered mother, with quite a few chuckles. Happy Father’s Day to me!
Don’t Even Want to Know What My Doctor Tells Other Patients About ME
Jun 16, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column | Tags: Pre-Pap Test Gossip Fest
An excerpt from my conversation with my doctor at today’s annual gyno checkup that was, oh, about one year overdue:
DOCTOR: How did breastfeeding go with your baby?
ME: Still nursing, actually. Plan to nurse until she’s a year old.
DOCTOR: Wonderful! So many benefits for the baby and for you.
ME: Yeah. Gonna be hard to wean her, I’m afraid She loves the boobie juice!
CANDY’S INNER DIALOGUE: I cannot BELIEVE I just said “boobie juice.”
DOCTOR: That reminds me of one of my patients…
CANDY’S INNER DIALOGUE: She has a patient who loves boobie juice?!
ME: Oh?
DOCTOR: I’d helped deliver her baby back in 2007.
ME: Mmmm-hmmm.
DOCTOR: And she came in recently because she had missed a few periods. Thought she might be pregnant, so we tested her — negative. Ran a few other tests — also negative. Then she asked me, ‘Could it be because I’ve been nursing intensely lately?’
My doctor pauses for dramatic effect, waits for it to sink in…
ME: She’s breastfeeding a three-year-old?!
DOCTOR: Yes!
ME: Ha, haaaaa…
CANDY’S INNER DIALOGUE: Wait — why does that remind her of ME? Hmpf.
What I Learned on Our First Family Vacation
Jun 14, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column,Musings
The hubby, baby and I escaped the horrid sunny, 70-degree weather here in Los Angeles to head to San Diego on our first real family vacation this past weekend. Sure, the three of us have flown to the East Coast to visit family before, but shuttling back and forth between families is usually about as relaxing as taking a day with the Jolie-Pitts at Chuck E. Cheese’s. So we consider this our first vay-cay as a threesome. A few observations about the experience:
1. Somehow, a tiny 20-pound human being requires approximately twenty not-so-little bags of her own — yet she will not offer to carry a single one of them.
2. …Which is why the hotel bellhop will become your best friend.
3. The San Diego Marriott bellhop’s name is Joe. Joe likes to play golf and watch Big Bang Theory. I look forward to Joe’s Fourth of July picnic next month.
4. No need to pack bags of toys next time, when we can simply throw Skye one of my dirty shoes. HOURS of entertainment, apparently. And tasty cuisine.
5. When our child is not sleeping, she does not stop babbling. Ever. I’m pretty sure she recited War and Peace — twice — on our car ride to San Diego and back. Either that, or she was hungry and repeatedly asking us to throw her a shoe and some ketchup.
6. That hot hotel sex we used to have…? Yeah, it is now reduced to a minute of fumbling in the closet, out of the way of little prying eyes, lodged in between the ironing board and the safety box.
In other words, the most romance we’ve had in months.
7. Our vacation schedule no longer revolves around Happy Hour; it revolves around the baby’s naps.
8. People actually wake up and leave the hotel before 10 a.m.! And not just for hangover remedies! Who knew? Not I… until I became one of those people.
9. Jamming to nightclub music is a thing of the past. Now our vacation nights involve pumping up the volume… on my iPhone’s white noise app.
10. If you ever need to track us down while we’re on vacation, just follow the trail of straws and partially eaten Cheerios. (See also: Why we are VERY popular with restaurants and hotel bars.)
50 Years
Jun 10, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column | Tags: Candy's Dad, Candy's Mom, Love & Marriage
My parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary today. Talk about an inspiration. Married when they were wee teenagers, their romance has endured through three kids, four cats, two dogs, one parakeet, several hermit crabs, countless fish, and a time when the family had to share just ONE television set — and shower.
Now that’s love.
Teaching Our Children to Love Thyself
Jun 9, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column,Musings | Tags: Miss Skye
Check.
Get the Lead Out, Parents
Jun 9, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column,Musings
Miss Skye has grown to love daycare, better known to her as the place with countless toys and part-time haven from my nonstop kisses. (Okay, sometimes I pause… to caress her baby hair. I’m such a freak.) Daycare has also given me a taste of what it is going to be like when Skye’s in school for, like, real five years from now — and by “it,” I mean the other parents. Everything I know about parental politics, I learned from Everybody Loves Raymond and Desperate Housewives, so I assumed I had a realistic grip on what to expect. WRONG! Allow me to back up and explain…
“Could you please decorate this to show Skylar’s heritage?” Teacher Rachel asked me a few weeks ago, handing me a paper with the outline of a doll. “We’re using them to decorate the room, so we’d appreciate getting it back as soon as possible.”
Her face implored — nay, begged — me to understand the urgency of this request.
“Of course!” I chirped.
“As soon as possible,” she repeated.
Okay! Geesh. I get it. Simmer down, daycare peeps.
I sat down at my desk that night to do my, er… Skye’s very important homework assignment. I looked down at the empty doll, currently resembling the chalk outline of a dead body, when it dawned on me. Crap. I picked up the phone and dialed.
“Mom! Where did we come from?”
“I thought we had this talk when you were ten.”
“Which COUNTRY are we from?”
A long pause, then:
“Well, you know your father’s side is Slavic…”
“Yes.”
“As for my side, we’re nothing. Just a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch.”
“That would be German.”
“There you go then!”
“Pennsylvania Dutch… that explains why you say everything backward.”
“Good night, Candy.”
“Don’t you mean ‘Candy, night good’?”
Click.
So our little girl, who has German on both sides of her family, will obviously grow up to be a beer drinker! Woo-hoo! No surprise there. Probably not the most daycare-appropriate trait to highlight, however, so I ended up with this instead:
Continue Reading »
Brainwashing
Jun 7, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column,Musings
Sometime between getting pregnant and having the baby, it’s wise if the mother and father sit down and come to an agreement on important life decisions for the child, such as the baby’s name, religion and, most importantly, sports team affiliations:
Mr. Candy, a longtime and misguided Sixers fan, lost this particular game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, which is how we make most all crucial decisions for our daughter. Unless it’s an even more serious issue, like whose family we’re going to spend the holiday with, at which point I shamelessly play this card:
Shameless, but effective. See you on the Fourth of July, Mom and Dad!
Switching Things Up
Jun 7, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column | Tags: Laughing Stork 2.0
I intended to chat with y’all on Friday about the design changes we’ve made ’round here. A chat followed by a celebratory toast with the TGIF drink of the week. Only my tummy had something else in mind, namely keeping me chained to the bathroom with an oh-so-pleasant bout of the stomach flu. The good news: I lost six pounds in two days. Yes! Almost as healthy as a Kardashian QuickTrim diet! The bad news: The bathroom imprisonment forced me to stay off of my computer, something that hasn’t happened since a little thing called labor — and even then I was back on my computer several hours after giving birth. (Well, how else was I going to google “black tar poop” and Tweet about the State of My Vagina?)
So, yeah, this note is a little belated: Hey, guys! Welcome! We’ve made some changes ’round here! (No sh*t, Kirby.)
After a lot of back and forth, and polling some helpful folks, I decided to return to a more typical and simplified blog layout. I had originally gone with the magazine-like layout because it gave the site a different look and distinguished it from some other blogs, BUT… turns out, a surprising number of people didn’t know that I had additional stories underneath the featured ones on top. Including my own mother, who visits this site quite frequently to see if I’ve written anything about her. HI, MOM! YES, I’M WRITING ABOUT YOU! She kept asking me why I hadn’t posted a story in days, confusing the hell out of me when I’d posted a ton of stories, until it finally dawned on me that she hadn’t freaking SCROLLED DOWN FAR ENOUGH.
“Oooohhhhh! Look at all those stories!” Mom exclaimed when I told her.
*Sigh* This made me feel great, as you can imagine, considering I’ve been writing on this site for a year.
That’s not the only reason. Some of my stories and ideas didn’t translate as well in an excerpted fashion, as it appeared on the homepage, so oftentimes I wouldn’t post them at all. Now I can post whatever the heck I want. (That’s trouble.) Also, previously, you couldn’t see how many comments were posted — now you can.
This is all just an experiment, so we’ll see how things go. I’m trying to evolve the site and play around with things to make ‘em as easy as possible for you.
You may also notice that I’ve tweaked the header to reflect that The Laughing Stork is a family humor site — and to ax the (cheesy) cartoon stork, much to Mr. Candy’s chagrin. R.I.P. Cartoon Stork.
Many thanks to Emily at Swank Web Style for her consistently great design work. Seriously. I’ve worked with a number of designers over the years and she is head and shoulders above the rest.
Okay, back to writing about important Laughing Stork matters, like my daughter’s poop and boys getting slapped in the balls.
~Candy
