How A Toddler Is Like Your Insurance Company

Posted on May 22, 2013 by ashersmom

I don’t know how many of you have had to deal with your health insurance company very often, but if you’re like us, it’s a lot. There’s almost nothing I dread more than that call to the “representative” to straighten something out — and that something is almost always related to a “we’re not gonna pay for this” moment. Because even though I pay my part EVERY SINGLE MONTH, they never seem to want to pony up for theirs.

Since I now have a toddler running around the house who seems to employ a lot of the same policies as my insurance company, I thought I’d share with you how they’re alike.

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8 Reasons It’s Better To Be a Guy Than a Girl.

Posted on May 7, 2013 by ashersmom

It’s time for another “What He Said, by Mike.” In true Mike fashion, he’s giving us all the many, varied reasons he thinks it’s better to be a dude than a chick. I can think of a few more, like, say, the higher salaries, the easy orgasms, the higher alcohol tolerance and the general lower fat content of their bodies, but hey! Mike’s reasons are totally valid too. And much funnier.

1. Let’s write our name in the snow – Yes, ladies, the ability to pee anytime and anywhere you want is as great as you think it is. Now add the ability to pee standing up and this life function becomes even sweeter. Taking a #1 is minimal time for us. It is like a NASCAR pit stop in the Men’s Room. In fact, we would’ve created a special lounge complete with video game system in our restroom to enjoy our wait for you to finish in your rest room, if there weren’t so many dudes blowing out #2’s in our “pit area.”

2. As Good As It Gets – I can take 10 minutes to get ready or I can take an hour, but at the end – I look exactly the same. It’s tough being a chick with that tedious, time-consuming routine to follow every time you wanna go somewhere. As long as there’s a baseball cap nearby, a man will always look half-way presentable. You’ll never hear dudes gossiping to each other, “What was he thinking not shaving or wearing those shorts?” If it’s a choice between spending more time on outfit coordination or watching Stripes for the 165^th time, Stripes wins every single time. “My philosophy: a hundred-dollar shine on a three-dollar pair of shoes.”

3. Debbie Does Dallas – Porn is completely geared towards men’s fantasies. I’m betting porn isn’t a huge topic during girls’ night out events other than for you to spill to your friends how you busted us watching some. A woman’s body is beautiful. A man’s bits and pieces are ugly. Our interest in porn is directly related to the number of dudes in the video. More men = less interest. Plus, save the story lines for the Notebook. Our interest is only gonna last about 5 minutes anyway…maybe less.

4. This Bud’s for you – This one might be controversial but I think beer is a man’s drink and has always been marketed towards men. When men get together they don’t order a round of Cosmos – it’s pitchers of the cheapest, crappiest beer they can find. With that being said, one of the things I dearly love about my wife is that she likes beer and will always drink cervezas with me, which I find really cool. Plus, I give her the bonus of spouting “I love you” in my burp voice which she finds terribly attractive.

5. Is it hot in here? – Regardless of how our body looks, it’s almost always acceptable for a dude to have his shirt off, if it’s hot. We take our shirts off while mowing the yard, taking a dip in the pool, going for a run, playing ball… And we don’t get a second glance other than you telling your girlfriend it looks like Sasquatch is mowing the lawn. Comfort trumps looks to a man. Plus, if you were to get hot and remove your shirts to cool off, life as we know it would stop, dead in it’s tracks.

6. Does this mean someone is thinking about my privates? Scratching your goods – OK for dudes, not OK for chicks. We spend 80% of our day scratching, adjusting, or just plain holding onto our twigs and berries. Doesn’t matter if we’re watching TV, talking to our buddies, in the grocery store, in church, whatever. That appendage and his two buddies is our security blanket and we are genetically wired to “check on it” and often. Just watch your little male toddler running around the house and tell me I’m wrong. Other than our wives and moms, no one tells us to stop. Now if a gal was to scratch her nether regions 80% of the time, we’d recommend a shot of penicillin.

7. That’ll do pig, that’ll do – Yes, we’re pigs, in every sense of the word and we know it. We act like them, we smell like them, and we usually eat like them. The ability to pound down 100 wings or 50 hot dogs is looked upon as a great feat in a man’s world. You’ll never see a girl sitting in front of 5 pounds of cheddar fries with her girlfriends chanting Go! Go! Go! Go!”

8. You want the regular or deluxe manicure? – Getting nails done is a huge event for a girl and somehow takes hours. Most men can do their nails in 5 minutes and not get one sideways glance when we show the nastiness of them in public. Here’s my process, stick finger in mouth, grip nail with teeth, bite, pull, spit nail on floor, repeat. It is not pretty, it doesn’t look good, but it gets the job done. I know it’s a bad habit but I’m 100% sure that my last official act on this earth will be me biting my nails as my heart beats for the last time.

Yeah, it’s great to be a dude and thank God I was born this way because I’d be the nastiest chick on this planet. And those are the 8 reasons it’s better to be a dude than a chick. If you give me 8 minutes, I can think of (at least) 88 more!

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8 Funny Ways to Entertain Yourself At The Doctor’s Office.

Posted on May 1, 2013 by ashersmom

Disclaimer: This is a JOKE. Of course, I respect all medical personnel and would never put my saliva all over their tongue depressors or intentionally set off alarms on a blood pressure machine. Ask anyone.

My family had it a little rough in the medical arena last year. If you’re new here, you might want to click here. And here. And maybe here just to catch up.

Things have turned out amazingly well for us in the long run. The baby is a year old (corrected age) and 100% fine and dandy even after all that extended preemie drama.

But let’s just say that between my bed rest, his 2 1/2 month NICU stay and the subsequent doctor and therapy visits that sometimes numbered 7 per week (yes, that’s right…more than one doctor and/or therapy visit on at least 2 of those weekdays), it was quite the challenge.

As you must be able to predict, I did a lot of waiting around. A LOT of waiting around.

Still do, of course. Just not 7 times per week.

When I wasn’t holding my arm up as high as it would go tube-feeding the baby, or lifting him and his heart monitor onto a changing table in a cramped bathroom to relieve him of a dirty diaper, or twiddling my thumbs or moving from the main waiting room to the sub-waiting room to the exam room and then waiting some more, I developed some interesting ways to entertain myself.

Even though you may not be at the doctor 7 times per week, if you have kids, you’re there often enough. And you know what I’m saying when I talk about waiting.

About a month ago, I went to one of the baby’s doctors (and this is a specialist that’s very hard to get into so you just have to take what you get) and after driving 40 minutes to the office in time for my 9:30am appointment, sat in the waiting room with a squirmy baby until 12:45pm without even making it into an exam room. And then sat in the exam room until 1:30pm waiting on the doctor. And then barely got an apology. I’d had a 1-year-old climbing on me like a human jungle gym for 4 HOURS. He’d had no nap. He’d had very little food (since silly me thought we’d be home by lunch time from a 9:30am appt). So, yeah. I wasn’t amused. And the doctor could tell when he finally graced us with his presence.

So, because I think you should benefit from my extensive year-long research into the matter, I am here to teach you 8 creative ways to pass the time while you wait at doctor’s office. And wait. And wait. And. wait.

1. Learn how you could’ve made 1 Million Dollars. Back in 1987.

2. Guess how many tongue depressors are in the jar. Take them out and count them. If your guess was within 10 in either direction, you win. Lick them all then put them back in the jar.

3. Find reading materials that will inspire you to diet by making sure you never want to eat things like nuts or sausage ever ever ever again.

4. Run in place until you can’t breathe, then hook yourself up to the blood pressure machine and press go. See how long it takes for someone to finally enter the room.

5. Rate your spelling capabilities against those of the medical personnel in the office you’re visiting. If you find errors, circle them and write in the correct spelling with a pen from your purse. Then write, “Guess medical school doesn’t teach you everything, does it, dummy!”

6. Mess with the computer even though the sign says don’t mess with the computer. Cancel the doctor’s 4pm massage.

7. Make every hand gesture you can think of with vinyl exam gloves. Tape them up around the exam room. Pretend you don’t see anything unusual when the doctor enters the room.

8. Pretend you’re 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Announce “There She Blows!” to the doctor when she finally walks into the room.

I’ve shared with you my 8 tried and true (funny) ways to entertain myself while waiting on doctors. Try them. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll laugh while you cry. And you’ll probably come up with some more. PLEASE share them with me. I can only read so many magazines from 1987 before I get the yen to start wearing jellies again. And that would be, like, totally gnarly, dude.

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A Husband, a Spaghetti Squash and a Scorecard.

Posted on April 22, 2013 by ashersmom

My husband is many things. One of those things is a good sport. Which is why he’s okay with me putting things like 8 Signs Your Husband is Annoying Your Around The House and The Top 10 Ways to Get Your Husband to Leave Work on Time all over the interweb. (And despite what some commenters said about my passive-aggressiveness and the state of my marriage in relation to that, my marriage is rock solid and I think one of the main reasons is we both have a sense of humor).

Gabe’s philosophy is — if it’s true, you can write about it. Although I do recognize some limits. Yes, even me.

One of Gabe’s more dominant traits is that he’s ~~exceptionally~~ a little bit obsessive-compulsive. This trait often expresses itself in him obsessively and even unconsciously moving things around our house in an effort to control his uncontrollable environment.

When we met, he was a drummer in a touring rock band. He DID NOT obsess about picking things up. Not even a little. He was, like laid-back, dude.

But then we got married, he started law school (an existence much more encouraging to obsessive-compulsiveness) and those habits began to creep out.

But honestly, I wouldn’t have even called it obsessive-compulsiveness then. I’d have just said he was turning out to be “neater” than I’d thought he was before we got married.

Once we’d been married a couple of years, we reached a bit of a turning point. Something came into our lives that really exacerbated his tendencies. That “thing” is named Asher. Something about the complete chaos of babies and small children really brought out his need to control his environment. It was probably the complete chaos. So yeah. Chaos. Wait. What was I saying?

No matter what Gabe did, shit was always out of place. He’d pick up toys, blankets, clean and dirty laundry, dishes, random papers and bills and all kinds of other stuff lying about and put it away (even if putting it away just meant shoving it in a drawer). And no matter how often he did this, it would all magically reappear. All over the floor, the counters, tables, the bed…

Now 5 years later, we have 2 children and quadruple the mess. The poor guy comes home from work and almost immediately starts picking up clutter and trying to put it away. I say “trying” because there’s so much random shit everywhere — much of it with no place that it actually belongs — that he often just picks up something (like a random piece of the kid’s graded homework that’s sitting out) and just carries it from room to room with a glazed look in his eyes.

He literally does this all the time without any sort of consciousness that he’s doing it. He’ll be in the middle of a conversation with me and he’ll just pick up a piece of crap sitting on the coffee table and walk around the house in a zombie state with it outstretched in front of him. Must. Put. This. In. Rightful. Place. Where. Is. Rightful. Place?

So, to show my deep, wifely sympathy for his issues, I decided to rate his pathology.

A couple nights ago, I saw him in the kitchen doing his nightly picking up and wiping down routine. I’d sat a spaghetti squash out on the counter because it needed to be used and this is the only way I can remember that (mom brain). I saw him pick it up and put it back in the fruit bowl. Then he grabbed the garbage and took it outside.

I jumped up, ran into the kitchen, put one slash mark on the spaghetti squash and put it back out on the counter.

Gabe came back through the front door, put a new trash bag in the garbage can, picked up the spaghetti squash and put it back into the fruit bowl without even realizing he’d just put in there 60 seconds before.

A few minutes later, he took our kindergartner upstairs to bed. I put another slash mark on the squash and put it back out on the counter.

For 24 hours, I continued to mark the squash and move it back out of the bowl. Gabe continued to not notice that a big yellow vegetable had somehow acquired both sharpee marks and its own legs and kept putting it back.

Finally, he came stomping into the bedroom with the squash in one hand and a middle finger in the other one. ”Are you putting this out on the counter on purpose and marking it every time I put it back?”

I laughed. Hard. Guffawed even.

He laughed too (even though he’s not laughing in this photo). See, I told you he was a good sport.

So he scored a “6″ on my special homemade obsessive-compulsive scale. However, his score is extremely unreliable since there was cheating involved. Had our kindergartner not noticed the slash marks first and asked him why that “yellow thing” had a 6 on it, Gabe’s score would’ve been off the charts. Trust.

I guarantee Gabe would’ve put it back at least 6 more times before he noticed.

This seems like a good time for some bitches to tell me how lucky I am to have a husband who comes home and cleans while I slink around putting sharpee marks on spaghetti squash and, oh I don’t know, shoving bonbons up my ass.

Guess what? You’re right. I’ll let you guess about which parts.

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