An Open Letter to All The After School Moms with Shitty Attitudes

"..You say High Maintenance like it's a bad thing..."




Dear After School Moms with the Shitty Attitudes:

Do I care about the way I look?
Yes.
Do I try and dress in things that flatter me?
Absolutely.
Do I love my shoe and purse collection?
Ab-so-freaking-loutely.
Do I give credit to other women when I see them "put together"?
Totally!

But you know what pisses me off? When I get looks from you After School Mothers that pick up your kids when I do. What "looks" you might ask?

Well...

Let me get up on my soapbox for a minute, because I really have to get this off my chest (and if I offend you, I'm sure you'll get over it)...

It never fails. I will always get the "look" from you After School Moms. You know the "look" that comes so easily to you~ the one-eye-brow-up...the full body scan from head to toe...the neck roll from side to side...the pursed lips...the non-smile...the avoidance of any eye contact.

You After School Moms fit a certain profile, too. You are the ones that are unkept, sloppy and wear your husband's sweatpants. You are the women who are 250+ lbs and wear your greasy hair in a ponytail. You are the women wearing the Wal-Mart flip-flops with dirty feet and pizza-stained Nascar t-shirts and waist purses. You are the women that volunteer for every freaking school function and then try and make the working moms feel bad when they can't make it to the class Play-doh party.

I cannot tell you how much effort I put into being social and nice just to break the ice with you women and I just can't make any headway. So then I choose to dissect your psyche...

Maybe you're unhappy with your life.
Maybe you feel that being healthy and clean is not a priority.
Maybe it's easier to be unfriendly.
Maybe you're upset because your baby daddy doesn't even acknowledge your presence
Maybe you feel threatened by a woman who can balance a family AND career and STILL take the time to look good.

But don't be mad at me because you've given up on yourself.

I think women, especially mothers, need to come together and be more supportive of one another. I don't think we take the time to acknowledge each other like we should or give compliments like we should.But we are so quick to be so judgmental and critical of one another.

And such is life...

I will continue to smile like I always do (even when you look away). I will continue to acknowledge your presence (even if I am invisible to you) and I will continue to wear my Christian Louboutin heels (even if you are flopping around in your Walmart flip flops with the Tweety Bird plastic character).

I will continue to be the woman my daughters look up to and respect and want to be like.

I am not claiming to be better than you, I'm just claiming to be me.

And I kinda feel bad for you, because you're really missing out on a pretty nice person....


Sincerely,
The Smiling Mom with the red-bottom shoes

Sriracha-cha-cha!

PARENTS, TAKE NOTE:

Your children are ALWAYS listening. Oh, they act like they aren't..but they really are. Behind that Dr. Suess book they act like they're reading- they're really listening. When playing their Nintendo DS- they're really listening. When watching The Wizards of Waverly Place- they're listening. They have supersonic hearing that starts at birth and grows in sensitivity as they enter "tween-hood"...

Let me use an example and let you decide if you change your mind about watching what you say around the kiddos..

We love taking the kids to Pita Jungle. Great, healthy, menu with lots of choices. The staff is friendly, the place clean and the food comes almost instantaneously. Part of enjoying our food is squeezing the Sriracha chili sauce on everything. The bottle is dark red with a green spout and rooster on the bottle. Because I can't seem to ever pronounce 'sriracha' correctly, I always privately joke about calling it "cock sauce" because of the rooster on the label.

Unbeknownst to me, Mia would continually hear me refer to the tasty sauce in this manner. She loves the hot sauce and is actually the one at the table that uses it the most. Well, on a recent outing to Pita Jungle she decided to order for herself:

"Could I please have the pita with chicken and a side of spinach? Oh, and could I please get some cock sauce?"


Umm, yeah...

Just so you know, the correct pronunciation for Sriracha is SEE-rah-chah...and the whole family now knows how to say it.

And remember, the kids are ALWAYS listening!

Booty Pop

Call me gullible.

I just had to order them.

I want a Kim Kardashian ass.

I don't want to pay $11,000 for an ass implant, but I will pay $20 for a pair of panties that give me that "lift" I need.

Yes, I gave in and ordered the BOOTY POP undies.

You're probably wondering WTF?

Let me give you a quick recap on how this went down....

My friend Jaclyn McGill, always complained about not having a butt. She is 5'9, 110lbs and beautiful, but always complained about not having enough junk in her trunk. Recently we had lunch together with some friends and she spoke about how she received BOOTY POP as a gift. At first, I didn't know what she was referring to...a candy? A music video? A porno?

After our lunch I went back to the office and googled Booty Pop and I was pleasantly surprised to see a cute pair of panties with shapely butt padding! So..I didn't stop there. I am a researcher at heart and continued to delve deeper into reviews on this product. Everything came back positive. Then I saw a video clip of the women on The View talk about it and Kelly Ripa try it out. (Ok, Kelly Ripa is what sold me on it). I logged onto bootypop.com and watched the infomercial. The girls looked amazing in jeans wearing booty pop. I wanted to look like that! No amount of working out and doing lunges is gonna give me an ass like that!

So I'm cheating. I'm buying a pair. And the best part, I get one free!

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate my ass. I come from an Asian/Latino background. Unfortunately, I was blessed with the Asian ass, which means it's pretty much non-existent. No offense to my mother, but I would've much rather had the Latina ass in exchange for the thighs and hips. I do have a "bump"...just not a nice, plump one; a biteable one..a la Kim K. I want a video chick ass like the ones you see in rap videos. I want the ass that "...swallows up a g-string..." (ok, ok..maybe not THAT big).

I'll let you know how they work out.

If worse comes to worse, I can always use them as padding when I take up snowboarding....

Mia & Sofia's Conversation of the Day...

Sofia: Ewww, I have a uni-brow! It looks like a caterpillar!

Mia: Don't worry, when you get older, you can get it waxed like mommy does her pee-pee.

Wiener on Parade!

So it's the typical elementary school program. All the parents show up with their cameras, video recorders, Blackberries, iPhones, etc. to tape their little munchkin sing the well-versed medley of America's favorites: a remix of It's a Grand Ol' Flag with a touch of America the Beautiful peppered with The Star Spangled Banner. The music teacher is a flustered mess as she races from one part of the stage to the other. The usual cast of characters take their place on stage: the crying kid, the kid that won't keep his hands to himself, the clean kid that looked like she just stepped out of a Nordstrom catalog, the booger eater and the mannequin kid (you know that kid, the one with the eyes wide open and lips sealed shut that don't move).

Of course my 6 year-old, with the stage presence of Oprah Winfrey and the charismatic voice of Celine Dion, is in the front row singing her heart out void of shyness. This is the same kid, when at home, asked what she was singing for the program responds with a disinterested, "I don't know" or "I don't remember" and runs off to tackle the dog.

The show continues and the 2nd graders now enter and partake in the familiar sounds of patriotic hymns. And, like the 1st graders, the cast of characters aren't too different: crying kid and mannequin kid are on stage along with booger eater...but now throw in wiener boy*.

Yes, it is EXACTLY what you are thinking. Let me paint the scenario...

The 2nd graders are on stage doing their rendition of It's a Grand Ol' Flag and I see a boy on stage fumbling around with his pants and messing around with his zipper.

At first I thought, "Ok, the kid is just nervous, he doesn't know what to do with his hands..."

Then he started fidgeting and pulled his zipper down.

"Ok, maybe he's fixing his underwear..."

Then, in a Matrix-like, slo-mo fashion, he whips it out.

Yes... he pulls out his wiener.

And continues to sing loudly in his most patriotic voice while his little baloney pony stands at attention.

Parents who were sitting in the front row flew up in a rage to grab a teacher nearby to yank wiener boy off the stage. The teacher was oblivious to Admiral Winky & the Twins coming out for the show. So, wiener boy was pulled off the stage instantaneously and whisked away like a criminal...

Enter wiener boy's dad.

Wiener boy's dad races towards the teacher demanding to know why his son was pulled from the program. While I didn't hear the conversation...his facial expressions said it all. He made a beeline to the back of the auditorium where wiener boy was sequestered for the rest of the show.

The parents who had front row seats to the shenanigans were so up in arms and talking about how awful it was. But.. you know what? I thought it was fricking hilarious.

Inappropriate? Yeah, ok...

But I'm chalking this up to this kid "being a boy". Yeah, he's 7 years old and old enough to know better and ok, hold him accountable by punishing him appropriately....but then...let it go.

I don't think this kid premeditated anything. He wasn't at home before the show strategically planning on how he could display his frank & beans and piss people off.

Sometimes in life, we just gotta learn to laugh and not take life too seriously.

This kid could very well be our next president.

If not, his parents will always have a funny story to tell...

*name has been changed to protect the very embarrassed parents of wiener boy

Hi-Ho-Hi-Ho..It's Off to the Gyno I Go!

Ugh.

The yearly exam.

The poking.

The prodding.

The Pap.

I have to be honest. I skipped out on my last year's appointment and that is very unlike me. I know, I know...shame on me. But ever since my husband got 'snipped', my reasons for going to the gynecologist have been put on the back burner. Ok, so I need to get back in for the yearly cell scraping of my uterine wall and boob massage. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Preparing for this yearly venture is a task of it's own. I feel like I'm getting ready for a porn shoot the night before my appointment-- Haha, 'Saturday Night Beaver'. But seriously, I make sure my nether regions are primped and manicured and fresh before my appointment. And as I prepare for my ' yearly prom date', I start to think about how my appointment will go from beginning to end:

3:15- Walk into doctor's office, sign in, update my insurance information hand over my $20 co-pay

3:20- Sit down and survey the waiting room. The usual cast of characters will be there: the screaming kid rolling on the floor while mom ignores him, the teenager wanting to get on the pill, the chick with the cellphone that insists on talking loud enough so that everyone knows her 'baby daddy' is a cheating asshole, the overweight lady with the 7-11 Thirst Buster cup wearing a red "Sexy Bitch" tank top that is 5 sizes too small and dirty flip-flops (who is also pregnant and can't tell), and the 89 year old lady that doesn't hear her name when they call her for the umpteenth time.

3:30- My appointment is supposed to be at 3:30, but they won't call me until 3:50

3:50- The medical assistant will call my name and of course mispronounce it

3:51- The dreaded scale will await me. I will take off everything I can,even my earrings and I'll look the other way as she scales the weight 'thingy' back and forth on the professional, piece of crap scale. I will cringe and not want to know the result

3:55- Blood pressure will be taken and then I'll be asked to pee in a cup

3:56- I will have saved all my pee from drinking the gallon of ice tea I had on my way to the appointment

3:57- Stage fright. I'll think of warm beer

3:58- I'll pee and miss the cup

3:59- I'll try again and I'll manufacture enough pee to serve a Brownie troop refreshments for a month

4:00- I'll walk my warm pee to my examing room and set it on the the counter

4:05- The medical assistant will walk in and tell me to disrobe, tell me to place the paper top on
backward and pull the paper sheet over my legs

4:10- I'll place all my clothes carefully on the chair and hide my thong (I'll normally do this when I'm not wearing cute ones), pull on the gynecological couture and sit on the crinkly paper and wait

4:13- I'll text my friends and makes jokes about where I'm at

4;15- I'll think to myself that most of my time is spent waiting--the exam itself really only takes 15 minutes

4:16- I'll look at the stirrups (the metal things connected to the chair that you place your feet in) I'll think how considerate they were to cover them with a soft 'oven-mitt' type of material so that my feet won't be cold

4:17- I'll look at the posters on the wall about the different parts of the vagina and think about how many vaginas my doctor sees. Does it phase her? Does she look at vaginas and think about how ugly they are? I start to imagine the different smells she must put up with. Does she go home and talk shop over dinner? As she's eating her roast beef dinner, does she say, "Oh honey..this reminds me of a woman I had in today..her labias were gargantuan!"

4:20- I'll start to fidget and wonder if I should put my stilletos back on to elongate my legs while they're in the stirrups. I'll look at my thighs as they peek out from under the paper blanket and think about how thick they look then become instantly depressed

4:30- I'll start to notice how cold it is and how my nipples could cut glass. I don't want her to think this exam is turning me on, so i try to massage them back in

4:35- I'll find a dumb magazine like "Quilt Making Made Easy" and try to pass time

4:45- The doctor will come in with her nurse practioner and ask me the first day of my last period. I never know, so I usually lie.

4:50- The doctor will look at my chart, make small talk, ask me about what I did during the summer, how work is going and start to examine my breasts as we continue to talk about traffic and the housing market in Phoenix. Her hands will be cold and I'll pray she doesn't find anything unusual

4:55- She'll tell me to scoot down a bit, so that my butt is right at the edge of the examining chair. My vag will be close enough for her to see my tonsils. She'll tell me to relax as I place my feet in the stirrups and let my knees fall to the wayside. The nurse will stand there and observe as if she is watching the doctor carve a turkey for a family of 12

4:56- I'll be relieved that I didn't take a dump before my exam. I wouldn't want to show up with poo residue

4:57- The doctor will douse the speculum (it looks like a metal duck) with enough lubricant (for Phoenix and the surrounding cities to play slip & slide) and place that bad boy in my birth cannon and crank that sucker wide open to scrape out some lovely cells for examination

5:00- She'll take the 'car jack' out of my vagina and then tell me that she'll be doing a quick anal exam as well. One in the pink wasn't good enough for her- now we go to one in the stink. Not fun..but again, glad I didn't drop a deuce before the exam

5:05- She'll tell me everything looks good, pat me on my shoulder and send me on my way..and there I will lay..a lubricated mess, with nothing but my paper ensemble

5:10- I'll get dressed, walk out & into the waiting room past all the characters waiting to be seen. Each one of them will know that I was just penetrated by metal and fingers

5:15- I'll get into my car, thankful that it's over and immediately start dreading next year

Why is this such a chore? Why do I make this so much worse than it really is?

I need to stop being a whiner and be grateful.

Yes, be grateful for the top-notch medical care that's available to us in this country; let alone, the services that are available to us as women.

In other countries, women aren't so lucky.

In America, we don't realize how good we have it.

So~ I'll stop being a little, whiny bitch...

until next August.

:)

An Open Letter to My Boobs...

Dear Boobs,

I remember when you first popped into my life. I was 11 years old. It was a brisk fall day and my mother made me stand under a cherry blossom tree to take a picture wearing a tight, cream turtleneck sweater. When she developed the pictures, there you were..poking out in broad daylight, like aspirins on an ironing board. I refused to accept that you were going to be a part of my life.

When my Wonder Woman Underoos weren't doing the job anymore, I started to wear tight tank tops under my shirts to conceal you. I wanted to hide you from the world because I wasn't quite ready to advance into 'womanhood'. My grandmother would refer to you as 'mosquito bites'. All the other girls I knew were already wearing bras and the boys would joke about "Over the Shoulder Boulder Holders". I didn't want any of that attention, but you didn't listen. Noooo... you just insisted on growing and forced me into the teen bra section at Sears- damn you.

But over time, my resentment of you started to fade away. It was hard being in junior high and seeing 'Tina' with the biggest blouse bunnies one could ever imagine...in the 8th grade. (Everyone has a 'Tina' in school--that one overdeveloped girl in their class that the boys flock to.)

As I started to take an interest in boys, your interest in growing seemed to be put on the back burner. You just couldn't make up your mind. You started to frustrate me and I took it personal. It was like you were paying me back for being such a bitch to you when you made your first appearance under that cherry blossom tree.

High school is when you and I started to become allies. You decided that it was my time to shine and you transitioned from mosquito bites to boobies. You weren't as big as I wanted...yet. But I was happy to occupy my bra with your presence. I started to feel more like a woman instead of a prepubescent schoolboy.

By the time college came around, you were in full bloom...your prime... you weren't boobies anymore..you were tits. Sexy tits. Victoria's Secret sexy tits. I referred to you as 'The Girls' and boy did you get a lot of attention. You were fondled, you were pinched, you were grabbed, you were sucked, you brought ecstasy to my life. I never realized how sensitive you were. You were perky and cute yet erotic and strong. You gave my self esteem the boost I needed. I was no longer embarrassed to be associated with you or my sexual self. You had become one with me.

Life went on and then came marriage and babies.

I never knew how much you would change when my babies entered the picture. Our relationship had become a roller coaster of emotions. When I was pregnant, You decided to transform into sloppy, ugly National Geographic fun bags. You were no longer 'tits'..you became 'breasts'. I couldn't even look at you in the mirror. You disappointed me...but I never gave up on you.
You redeemed yourself right after I gave birth. You became delicious flesh melons. I changed your name to 'stripper boobs' because you were perfectly round and voluptuous---- you were back to tits. I missed you. I wanted you to stay like this forever...

But life goes on, seasons change and so do boobs.

I would never consider replacing you with fake ones. You've been good to me. I'm blessed to have you. I'm sure that there are a lot of women out there with cancer-stricken boobs that would kill for a pair like you. So, just know, that I appreciate you and have never taken you for granted and never will.

We've had a love/hate relationship up until now and you will always be a part of me...

(even if I secretly wish to have the stripper boobs back )

Love Always,
Me