The Ugly Volvo

Old Posts

  • Filing for Reimbursement of Time Spent Folding Laundry

    Hi, I’d like to submit my yearly hours of time spent folding laundry—mine, my sons’ and the communal laundry (sheets, towels, and occasionally the sofa cover)—for reimbursement.  I am not looking for monetary reimbursement, I would specifically like to be reimbursed in time spent.  As we’ve recently gone paperless, please notify me via e-mail when…

  • An Open Letter to the Female Hat-Wearing Dog From “Go Dog, Go”

    Dear female hat-wearing dog, I bought your book to help my son learn prepositions and adjectives and was, from the first read, inexorably drawn in by your heart-wrenching struggle for approval.  Momentarily distracted by the humdrum parade of big dogs, little dogs, black and white dogs, I watched as you walked in, brimming with joy…

  • Yelp Reviews of Newborn Babies

    We obsessively check online reviews to see if a movie is worth seeing or a restaurant is worth visiting.  If anyone was considering having a newborn baby and wanted to read the Yelp reviews first, here they are. *              *               * If…

  • All of my Issues With the “Goodnight Moon” Bedroom

    I’ve read Goodnight Moon almost every night for the past two years.  It’s a wonderful book which my son enjoys.  Here are some of my issues with the bedroom depicted in it. 1.  The Size of the Bedroom This bedroom is enormous.  There is no one, I think, who has not noticed this.  As someone…

  • Reasonably Good Advice Written on Bananas

    My mother used to write on my bananas.  It is one of those weird things I remember about my school lunches.  I remember that she would always pack me a Red Delicious apple (which I would promptly throw in the garbage because Red Delicious apples taste, if I am being generous, like damp cardboard) and I…

  • What All The Other Parents Are Doing During The Day

    The first few months staying home with my kid were hard because being alone all the time is rough.  And people would point out, “But you’re not alone!  You have that baby!” except that having a baby is not the same thing as having another adult person around with whom you can have an actual conversation.  You…

  • Why You Should Never, Ever, Ever Get A Tattoo (but Having a Baby is Fine)

    I’m not super pro-tattoo or anti-tattoo.  I’ve debated getting one in the past but never that seriously.  But my mother is vehemently anti-tattoo.  Listed below are the reasons my mother has always given me for why I shouldn’t get a tattoo. And I understand that she’s from a different generation.  And I love my mother very much.…

  • An Open Letter to My Dog After the Birth of my First Child

    Dear Tig, Here’s a list of things for which I want to apologize: 1.  I’m sorry for every time I loop your leash around the doorknob and hurriedly say, “Two minutes!  I’m going to take you outside in two minutes!”  Because I am not going to do that.  You know, as you watch me struggling…

  • Parenting Olympics

    For those of you angry that having a child prevented you from qualifying for the Rio 2016 Olympics, remember that while you may be losing at international sports competitions, you’re still in the running for a few other medals: Event 1: To level the playing field, this event is divided into multiple weightclasses: Newborn Infant…

  • What I Do All Day When I Am Home With The Baby

    I am, for now, a stay at home mother. People sometimes ask what exactly I do during the day and I never have any idea what to say. Below is a fairly accurate description of most of the things I do on any given day. To save time, repetitive actions like changing diapers and feeding…

  • A Breakdown of your Child’s Eating Patterns

    (Click graphs to enlarge.) *               *               * SEVEN STARS FARM ORGANIC PLAIN WHOLE MILK YOGURT *               *               * ORGANIC ROASTED BEETS *               *               * TRADER JOE’S BRAND CHEERIOS *               *               * PEAS FROM LOCAL FARMER’S MARKET (ALSO ORGANIC) *               *               * WHATEVER YOU WERE EATING *               *               * COOKIE/CUPCAKE/CHOCOLATE/ANYTHING CONTAINING REFINED SUGAR *          *          *…

  • A Ten-Month-Old’s Letter To Santa

    Dear Santa,  I am a ten-month-old baby and I write because my mother has been sending out my “Christmas List” to people, and her list does not in any way represent the things I really want.  I could give two s#*ts about receiving stacking cups. And I know you’re ready to make the joke about…

  • The Amazing Butternut Squash Soup Recipe That Everyone Should Make At Least Once

    Love butternut squash soup?  Looking for that amazing recipe that everyone on earth seems to have?  Look no further!  Follow the instructions below for soup so delicious it’ll change the way you look at fall! *               *               * Step 1.  Buy one or two mid-sized organic butternut squash from your local farmer’s market.  Look for…

  • The Nine Hundred Dollar iPhone Photo

    I’m not going to say that we flew down to Florida to get a picture, because we didn’t.  We flew down to Florida to see my grandfather, who is 94-years-old and my son’s only living great-grandparent.  All my own great-grandparents passed away long before I was born, as did my husband’s great-grandparents.  So I’m not…

  • 10 Quick, Easy Meals for Moms!

    So I signed up to have a kid and even that, really, did I have any idea what I was signing up for?  Of course not.  No one does.  But I am doing it.   I will put in a lot of time to help my kid learn how to be a good person.  BUT, I…

  • A Baby Book of Disasters

    So I have this baby book for my son that I use to record his milestones, and it is boring.  It is so, so boring.  Half the time I don’t even remember to write things down when they happen because I am so wholly uninterested in recording things for this stupid book.  “Today he rolled…

  • Oh, he looks “JUST LIKE YOU”

    When the baby was only a month or so old everyone kept saying, “Oh wow, he looks like your husband.  He looks so much like your husband!”  And now he is six months old and at a family gathering the other day I had at least 10 people say that he looked exactly like me.…

  • Having A Baby Solved All My Problems

    Having a baby solved all my problems. All of them. A year ago I was just like every other slightly anxious cardigan-wearing woman in her early thirties, wondering if my life was on the right track. I was nervous about money, about my relationship, about my job. I needed a quick, easy fix—something simple I…

  • How Having Children Will Affect Your Ability To Time Travel

    Having a child affected my ability to travel back in time, and not for the jokey “time traveling with a child is difficult” reasons like “hahaha if we go back too far dinosaurs will eat him!” or “who likes traveling to before disposable diapers???” or “I HATE CARRYING TWO SUITCASES AND A BREAST PUMP THROUGH…

  • The 33-Step Extremely Fun Board Game of Having a Second Child

    Are you ready to play the extremely fun 33-step game of having more than one child??  Awesome!  Unfold that game board, rub your hands together enthusiastically and let’s get started! Ready?  Set?  Go!!! 1.) START!  Second child comes out of body.  (Most often vaginally or C-section but would love to hear stories!  Intestinal birth?  Sprung…

  • Hi, This is Really Short and Not About Advent Calendars

    I love Advent calendars.  Love them.  I think it’s because I like things with little compartments and I like looking forward to things. I also hate Advent calendars.  Because often they are filled with things I don’t particularly need.  Often those things are little pieces of plastic crap and if I were cast in a superhero…

  • The Parenting Milestone I Was Asked to Cut From My Book of Parenting Milestones

    I wrote a book of off-beat baby milestones recently. (The first time your baby rolls off the bed, etc. You can buy it here if you want.)  And while my editor and I were in agreement on most stuff, there was one specific milestone I wound up having to cut from the book that I didn’t want…

  • Harold’s Mother and the Purple Crayon

        *               *               * One evening, after thinking it over for some time, Harold’s mother decided to have a baby.   She didn’t own any baby things.  And you need baby things if you are going to have a baby. …

  • I’m Not a Great Mother

    I am at the point in motherhood where, when people talk about being a great mother or even a good mother, I no longer feel like I qualify.  I’m bad at setting strict bedtimes or following schedules and I probably don’t Purell my hands enough. I sometimes let my older son wear a T shirt he…

  • Slightly More Realistic Moms Meetup Groups

    I am a parent and receive e-mails—more of them than I would like, really—for moms meetup groups. And moms meetup groups are important because an enormous part of having children is venting and commiserating with other people who also have children.  Interacting with other parents is one of the things that keeps us sane and makes…

  • Why I Wore a Gorilla Costume to What Was Supposed to be a Traditional Mother/Child Photoshoot

    A photographer contacted me last fall and asked if she could take “day in the life” photos of my son and me.  She would follow us around for a day, she said, and take photos of us doing the things we did in our normal lives. And my first thought, which I admit is sort…

  • This is the Last Time

    I had a son three and a half years ago and everything I went through with him I was experiencing for the first time. I learned how newborns smell (much better than I myself smell, usually). I learned the size of their smallest toenail (viewable only through an electron microscope) and how their heads look…

  • The ABCs of a Pregnancy

    Pregnancy is complicated.  Very often I am too exhausted from being pregnant to read much about pregnancy– I have a giant, thick copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting which, at this point, I use almost exclusively to kill fruit flies.  It is hard to keep track of all the symptoms and side effects…