Name Nazis

Just to clear the air before I even get going on this one: I am not pregnant.  I am not trying to become pregnant.  I have never been pregnant.  Whew.  Ok.

A few weeks ago, Mom and I were discussing little tidbits of our lives.  Just general chitchat.  I mentioned that I heard an acquaintance of a friend is naming their son Emmett and that I thought it was a cute name. 

Ever have one of those moments you wish you had your camera ready? 

Oh the horrors. 

Mom: "EMMETT?  AS IN...EMMETT THE CLOWN?" 
Me: I guess...who's Emmett the Clown?
Mom: Oh you know him.  EVERYONE knows Emmett the Clown!
Me: Nope, sorry.
Sister: Yeah, no.
Mom: Oh don't act like I'm just an old fart.  Maybe it's a generational thing, I don't know.
Me: Ok, let's ask Dad.  Dad, what do you think of when you hear the name Emmett?
Dad: I don't know...Emmit Smith, the football player?
Me: Not Emmett the Clown?
Dad: No.  Who's that?
Sisters: (hysterical laughter)

In a very informal survey of every person I encountered of that "generation" during the following week, no one had heard of Emmett the Clown.  Before you all go ape shit and wonder why I didn't just google him, relax.  I did.  Apparently ETC was a popular hobo clown back in the day.  Like...back in the 5-decades-ago day.  Whatever.

I didn't really think much about it when I heard the name originally.  Maybe a passing "oh that's cute," but that's about all the brain cells I devoted towards the situation.  I guess I figured the name came from either a baby book, Twilight or the NFL player.  Who cares, really?  My mom. :)

Other names were discussed but, in an effort to keep you all interested, I'll just skip to the lesson I learned from all of this.

I'm not trying to pick on my mom here.  She was doing what she thought was right by informing me of a possible poor mental image/pre-judgement people may have if we named our imaginary future child Emmett.  What it made me realize, however, is why all those people (who I previously thought were crazy) keep their kid(s) names a secret until they're born.  To avoid this exact situation.

Because I am ignorant in all things baby, I assumed that maybe you would keep it a secret from most people, but tell your siblings, parents, in-laws, etc.  Wrong.  You see, if you tell a stranger your baby's potential name, they don't know you well enough to critique, so they say "oh that's cute."  End of conversation.  But your family, noooooo no.  They feel like they have an obligation to make sure their future extended family member has a proper name, not something that turns their initials into PMS or ASS, not something that makes them sound like a stripper or doesn't grow into a good adult name. 

The problem is they don't have that obligation.  That is the job of the parents-to-be.  And, I would guess that all the parents-to-be want is approval.  They don't know what they're doing.  They don't know what they're in for.  They want the one thing that will differentiate their child from every other child in the world (their name) to be loved and accepted by everyone.  Expectant parents don't need one more thing on their plate to worry about. 

I hope this has proved as valuable a lesson to all of you as it did to me.  Personally, when this day does come, I don't think I'll be able to keep my mouth shut...but I sure hope everyone else does! :) 

A big thank you to my mom and all the other ladies (you know who you are) who debated this subject with me, provided insight, guidance, horror stories and, last but not least, said it's ok to tell your Vietnamese nail lady because she doesn't speak English anyway. :)

Best Quote Ever...thanks Mom!

There's a running joke in my family about how the Baby Jesus figurine has been missing from the nativity scene for several years now.  No one knows why, where he went (to get a tuxedo t-shirt?  He likes to party!) or how Baby Jesus could disappear, but he did.  And this is what Mom had to say about it:

"I have to move some shit out of the way to make room for Baby Jesus.  That's symbolic of how my Christmas has been.  It hasn't been about baby Jesus, it's been about crap!"

And when I told her the quote made my blog she said:
"I tell ya, it's either my boobs or Baby Jesus."

Best Little Kid Story EVER

Yesterday was my mom's 50th birthday party. We had a lot of fun, but the best part actually came from a person who wasn't even there.

One of our family friends has a 6 yr old granddaughter who she watches pretty regularly. The little girl is very girly, loves all things sparkle, princess, dressy, you get the idea. Even her name (Lily) is girly.

She was having a discussion with her grandma about her upcoming birthday and how she only wanted dresses, and only wanted to wear dresses from now on. Grandma asked her why (thinking she would say something about how she just likes to dress up) and Lily's response rocked my world.

"Because it's easier to scratch my butt."



How can you argue with that logic?

Conversations With My Mother, Part 2

You know it's going to be an interesting day when your mother calls to tell you she has a story so embarrassing that she'd prefer you not tell other people...but it's so good that she doesn't really mind. You're welcome, Mom.

My mother sells Mary Kay. Needless to say, there is a shitload of makeup in her bathroom, and as such she has a vanity and a chair between the bathroom's double sinks. Apparently, she took a shower, put her hair in a towel, got her underwear on, got distracted by something, and went to put on her makeup. Let me just stop at this point and say, in order to hold the inordinate amount of makeup my mother owns, they have a super deep, super wide drawer under her vanity mirror, so the makeup is hidden unless she is using it. Now, my mom is premenopausal, so she has a fan on her vanity as well. She reached up to turn on the fan and shut her boob in the drawer. Now I will let her comments tell the rest of the story.

"My first thought was, SHIT THAT HURTS! Then I wondered if I would have a purple nipple or something."

"Finally, I realized it's a bad day when things have gone so south that you are shutting your boobs in drawers."

Personally, I'm not sure which is more funny...the fact that she shut her boob in the makeup drawer (which, by the way, definitely holds enough to cover a possible purple nipple, should that be necessary) or the fact that she was reaching UP and shut it in the drawer.

Wow.

Messages from my mother...

This is the first in what is sure to be a long and eventful series of blogs containing voicemails, text messages and emails from my mother. I love my mom...but she often leaves messages from her dog, to my dog and, best of all, from Jane-land (a place where only Jane can understand what they mean).

Yesterday's voicemail:

This is your mother. I know this might not mean anything to you, since you just moved into a new house, but I just want you to know that I just cleaned my pantry, oven and under the refrigerator. Okay, bye!

She's right. It means nothing. Why do I care about your cleaning, and why do you need to leave me a message letting me know that's how you spent your Sunday afternoon?

She also likes to leave messages about her dreams although, in all fairness, a lot of people do that. I still don't understand why, though. Unless your dream is seriously hilarious or straight up wrong...NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR DREAM!!!!! Geez.

Mom always said I should do something with my writing, but I don't think this is quite what she meant... :)

Doggy Fashion Don't

At the request of my mother and aunt, I give you: The Eyebrow Fiasco.

My parents watched our golden retriever, Bella, for a few hours over Easter weekend. We had Easter dinner with Adam's family and were set to stay at my parents' house later that night. Everything went as planned, and we arrived at my parents' around 11 pm. Everything was fine. We woke up, went to church, came back to Mom and Dad's and ate lunch. After we got back home that night, I started noticing that something was wrong with Bella. She didn't look right, but I couldn't quite place it. Finally, I realized...her eyebrows had been trimmed...cut, actually, not trimmed. They looked like little white stubs. Now, I will say that they'd been getting a bit long and starting to curl over towards her eyes...but she's a DOG. Who cares about her eyebrows? I knew what her eyebrows looked like before we dropped her off at my parents' house...so that left 2 scissor-wielding culprits.

I placed a phone call to Mom, knowing full well that she probably wasn't the Eyebrow Bandit. When I explained the situation, she had no idea what I was talking about, let alone that someone would even think to cut a dog's eyebrows. We started trying to figure out a timeline as to when the eyebrow escapade even occurred, since the dog wasn't there without me, Adam or Mom around for more than a few hours. We determined that Dad must've been the only one up early Easter morning, seen what he thought was a doggy fashion don't, and "remedied" the situation. As we were about to hang up, Dad came home, and she asked him what he knew about the situation. With the evidence stacked against him he admitted it. He's like, "yeah, I did it. So what? She looked like a crazy professor with those old eyebrows. They needed a trim." Maybe I should send in an application for that dog groomer show on TLC...apparently Dad is the expert. Poor Bella. Thank God he only went after her eyebrows!