Moving. But I Ain't Bovvered.

We're moving on Friday, but in the immortal, illustrious words of Lauren Cooper, I ain't bovvered:





Here's why.

Most of what stresses me out about moving is the packing, because inevitably I always find out that I have way more crap than I thought I did. Drawers, cabinets, closets, under the bed, aaaallll have stuff that needs to be put into boxes before I move. When I moved to New York in 1996 I came here with two suitcases; I now have a 2-bedroom apartment (and its closets) full of stuff. My stuff. My husband's stuff. My son's stuff. And some stuff that's followed us from place to place that we're not even sure is ours.

But this time around not only have we hired movers to lug everything from Old Place to New Place, but we've hired them to PACK for us. It's one of those first-world luxuries I'm not even going to pretend I'm too good for.

So we're moving four buildings down on the same block, but I ain't lifting a damn finger. Pregnant, you know.

Second, most of our furniture isn't coming with us. The people who own the condo we're moving into have high-tailed it across the Pond to Jolly Ole England, and were more than happy to sell us their furniture at deeply discounted prices. How could we say no? Our couch, our armchair, our bookcases, our dining table, hell, even our microwave will not be joining us in the New Apartment of Happiness and Joy Joy. Less stuff to move, less stuff to worry about.

Third, after the week I had last week moving is the least of my worries. Let's check off one by one the shitty things I dealt with last week:

Earthquake, check!
Hurricane, check!
UTI, check! Which my midwife won't treat until we get the results of the...
Possible parasite in my guts, check!
Two and a half hours at a clinic with my son, who threw himself on the floor in a giant tantrum and later pooped his pants, check!
A doctor and nurse who forgot to give me the paperwork for the lab so I had to go back the next day, check!
Still pregnant through all this, check!
No anti-depressants or booze to make the pain go away, check!
My therapist was on vacation, check!

Good times.

In light of all that it's no wonder moving is, like, whatever to me. Moving is the least stressful part of my life right now. Look at my face - does my face look bovvered? That's 'cause it ain't bovvered. In two days I'll be in an apartment with a built-in microwave and a dishwasher. Moving can kiss my ass.

Juban Princeling Photo of the Week: 8/27/11

It's true. I don't.

Shirt bought at Mommy Needs a Cocktail blog.

There's a Book For That

I have absolutely no idea how to raise my child.

It's not like they give you classes or make you pass an exam in order to have a child. One day I went to the hospital to have this 7-lb, 11-oz mass removed from my abdomen, and they handed me a baby, a total stranger, and said I had to take care of him for the next 18 or so years. WTF? How is that fair to either of us? What, I'm supposed to automatically know what to do with a PERSON I've never met before just because he came out of my body? Who designed this shenanigan?

And so, like any good clueless, but well-intentioned, mammal, every time some sort of crisis or mini-crisis or whatever has come up, I've thrown a book at the problem. Not an actual parenting book; those are for sissies, and besides, I've yet to hear of one that isn't 100% full of crap ideas that never work in real life, where they insist you try to reason with your child in some way that does not involve lollipops and/or massive time-outs. One night, when our son was having a particularly bad night terror (he gets those), I found my well-meaning LAWYER husband in our son's room trying to reason with him. With a two year old. At 2:30 in the morning. During a night terror.

Juban Princeling: "I AM SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER FOR NO REAL REASON EXCEPT THAT I HAVE NIGHT TERRORS!"

Husband: "Son, calm down. You are acting like a wild person. Try to use your words and tell me what the matter is so we can talk about it."

Me: *shoving a sippy cup full of milk into my son's wide-open mouth and walking away*

Lesson: You can't lawyer away a toddler's night terror.



No, I don't believe in parenting books.

But I do believe in letting adorable cartoon animals do the heavy-lifting parenting for me. Why should I do all the work, when writers who clearly are better at imparting sage life lessons can do it for me? I don't call it lazy parenting, I call it smart parenting.


When my son started hitting, we read this.

When it was time to give up the bottle, we read this.

For potty training we read him this, this, and this.

He learned his colors by reading this.

To encourage him to give up his paci (YES I KNOW, SHUT UP), we're reading him this.

And to prepare him for his younger sibling we have this.


And today, after his nap, we're off to the big B&N to buy "Everybody Poops." Because bribes with candy and his own messes in his undies aren't working to get him to do #2 in the potty, and I'm plum out of ideas. What, like I've ever had to potty train anyone before? There are experts for that. And if the book doesn't work, maybe my husband can draw up a contract for him or something.