M.J. Pullen's Blog, page 19

Parenting Conundrum Continued: Consequences (and a Little Fun)

You can read the first half of this post on our struggles to get our five year old dressed and out the door in the morning. (Or you can just accept that we struggle to get our five year old dressed and out the door in the morning.)

We try — when we’re not desperately resorting to whatever else comes to mind — to use natural and logical consequences in our parenting. I mean, that’s what life is, right? If you do X, Y will happen. If you’re kind to others, you will have more friends. If you constantly show up late to work, you’ll get fired. Throw the toy, lose the toy (also applies to bludgeoning your brother with said toy). These are the choices. And even though I think Skywalker is special and amazing and maybe should be given all the free time he wants to do what he wants, the world isn’t wired that way — at least not until you’ve had your first tech company IPO and made millions.

So the most natural, logical consequence Hubs and I could think of for refusing to get ready for camp is that you don’t get to go to camp. Skywalker LOVES camp, so he was very upset by this idea when we first began mentioning it the week before last. Of course, this consequence for him also has consequences for me, in that it’s much harder to work with a bored five year old wandering into your office every two minutes. Like many parents who make empty threats, we thought/hoped that the mere mention of it would be enough to persuade him to be more helpful in the morning, and it did — after the fact. So we spent several days conceding through frustration to let him go anyway, on the promise of better behavior the next day.

When that finally, explosively failed us this past Thursday morning (“I hate you! You’re so mean!”), I realized my bluff had been called and it was time to follow through. So Skywalker stayed in his room, crying, while I took Fozzie to little-kid camp and got a bit of work done (Hubs was home sick, btw, and there for any emergencies). The terms of his incarceration were: in your room, only out to use the bathroom. Yes to water and lunch, no to extra snacks. No screens. And when Mommy has a boring errand to run (like going to the nail salon for a long-overdue mani-pedi), guess who gets to come along? His shocked disbelief that I was actually following through on the consequence gave way to grumbling, which gave way to resignation and… apology?

“Sorry Mommy 4 Being Mean 2 U”

Yep. He came into my office and asked me how to spell “sorry” and then “mommy.” I was pleasantly surprised when he returned with his note to see that he’d added “for being mean to you” all on his own. I told him I would keep it forever, and he suggested I write the date on it so we would both “remember it always.” You bet I will, kiddo.

Other than the unsurprising fact that I didn’t get much work done, the rest of the day went better than I ever would have dreamed. We dropped off Fozzie’s lunch and Skywalker fessed up to one of the preschool administrators that he was out of camp for bad behavior (she already knew this from my neurotic ranting that morning that I was feeling like the WORST MOM EVER). He went with me to the nail salon — I can’t think of a better form of torture for a five year old boy — and sat quietly in a chair for an hour and a half without complaining.

During that time, I did relent on the no-screens policy because he was behaving so well and had been through his favorite book several times. I let him have my phone and didn’t notice that in addition to playing Angry Birds, he also made use of the camera. So while he didn’t complain of the boredom out loud, I discovered his photo essay on the subject this morning. His collection of salon selfies (yawning, smiling, pouting, sleeping) and especially the picture of the mole removal pamphlet were all very poignant.

As the afternoon went on, I began to realize that what I’d done was massively overhaul Skywalker’s expectations. We are not spoiling parents by any stretch of the imagination (I think many people see us as rather strict), but somehow I’ve still managed to give both boys the impression that every day revolves around them: their entertainment, their pleasure, their happiness with their lot in life.

But when we ended up at our favorite bagel place (right next door to an ice cream shop AND a cookie bakery), he was so thrilled to earn back a snack after I’d said “no snacks” that he walked right in with excitement, not even asking about the sweet shops. He went straight to the bathroom when I asked him to, and even ordered when the waiter came to our table: “two bagels with cream cheese, please!” He ordered for both of us! It was the cutest date I’ve ever inadvertently been on. The afternoon turned out to be some much-needed time alone together, and with no pressure for it to be amazingly fun, I think we both enjoyed it more than many of the “fun” activities I plan for the kids or our family.

To be honest, I’m not really sure what the lesson is here. I wish I could say that this magical, sweet, thoughtful state of mind went on forever, but we’re both still human and he’s still five. The next morning was slightly easier, but not without argument or incident. It wasn’t quite the transformation I was hoping would occur. Of course, it’s going to be a process for him and us to get to the point where morning tantrums (or tantrums in general) are a rare occurrence. Still, it was a little better, and it was nice to know that the thoughtful, cooperative kid is really in there. Perhaps we’ll find a way to coax him out more often.

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog about writing, publishing, motherhood, health, psychology and whatever else strikes me in the moment.

If you enjoyed this entry, please follow along or join my Inner Circle email list. At the end of each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and everyone who comments on the blogs. Good luck with that!

My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of funny, semi-realistic Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

 

The post Parenting Conundrum Continued: Consequences (and a Little Fun) appeared first on MJ Pullen.

Parenting Conundrum #6,891: Getting on the Bus

He didn’t have a fever. There was no vomit or strep throat or even a runny nose — none of the usual signals that my workday was about to go off the rails so I could be home with my kid. Why, then, would anyone in her right mind pay to send her child to a ridiculously expensive (and super fun) outdoor day camp, only to keep him home on a GORGEOUS Thursday with only a few days left of camp for the summer?

(a) She’s crazy, (b) it was a logical consequence of kid’s less than desirable behavior or (c) all of the above.

Survivor of Draconian Parenting Methods

I blogged a few weeks ago about the challenges of our summer camp schedule and questioning my decision to put so much go-go-go in our summer routine, so that I can inch closer to finishing another book… someday. Well, Skywalker has adjusted somewhat to the intense schedule, spending all day outdoors, and even swimming twice daily. He is still very tired sometimes, but he’s making slow and steady improvements in tolerating his tiredness without falling asleep at the dinner table or turning into a puddle of radioactive slime at bedtime.

What has been more of a challenge so far is Skywalker’s ability to handle transitions in the morning: specifically, the transition from doing either anything that he wants, or nothing at all, to doing the things required to get us all out the door in time to catch the bus to camp. Contrary to what I’ve heard from other parents about this tough schedule, it is not hard to get Skywalker out of bed; in fact, he normally gets himself up earlier than necessary. Sometimes I think it would be easier if we had to wake him up ourselves, because maybe being sleepy would make him, if not cooperative, at least malleable.

The reality, however, has been that no matter how cheerful his mood when he awakes; no matter how many carrots, sticks, behavior modifying charts we employ; no matter whether we try a gradual approach or an abrupt one: the moment either Hubs or I ask Skywalker to get dressed, go to the bathroom, brush his teeth, etc., the response is a whiny tantrum that quickly escalates to three year old proportions: screaming, kicking, etc. Every single day. Which would be understandable, except that Skywalker is five. And it might even be workable, except that Kindergarten is looming in the less-than-a-month-away distance, and we don’t have the luxury (or honestly, the desire) to let a free-spirited five year old dictate our morning routine.

When I was an arrogant, snot-nosed counselor who did not have children but thought she understood parenting, it used to drive me crazy when people would come to my office and say they had “tried everything, but nothing works.” I hereby formally apologize to all of those people, because we are right there. I know I will get lots of great suggestions (and welcome) in the comments, and I will try them all within reason; but really, there isn’t much that we haven’t done in some way or another to try to make morning transitions easier for Skywalker (and, obviously, us — these morning blowouts every day are becoming a strain on the whole household).

I want to stop here and say that Skywalker is the most amazing, loving kid I have ever known — his brain works in a way that is almost magical. He surprises and delights me daily with the depth of his understanding of the world and the feelings he carries so close beneath an analytical exterior. In no way do I blame him, as a person, for the issues that we’re having in the mornings. For one thing, his stubborn refusal to bend to the will of others — or the clock — is an absolute hallmark of my family, going back generations on my Dad’s side (including me and I don’t always get away with it either). I also see clearly the correlation between his deep curiosity and absorption in the tasks he sets himself — building intricate webs of chain links all over the house, for example — and his annoyance at the outside world for intruding on his intellectual pursuits by expecting him to go places and wear pants. I have contributed to the problem, too, by reinforcing the power struggle and failing utterly to control my temper some days.

Still, the reality remains: the bus comes when it comes, and if you want to go to camp, you have to get on the bus.

Right? Or crazy?

I’ll be back tomorrow with my decision to keep him home from camp, and the results. In the meantime, I would love to know if any of you struggled with this with your kid and how you solved (or tried to solve) the problem.

To be continued….

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog about writing, publishing, motherhood, health, psychology and whatever else strikes me in the moment.

If you enjoyed this entry, please follow along or join my Inner Circle email list. At the end of each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and everyone who comments on the blogs. Good luck with that!

My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of funny, semi-realistic Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

 

 

The post Parenting Conundrum #6,891: Getting on the Bus appeared first on MJ Pullen.

Everyone’s Seen it. Posting Anyway.

It’s Weird Al! On Grammar! I think my work here is done.

Okay, not entirely done. If you want the full grammatical analysis of the video, you can check out this article on Slate. The article also mentions one of my favorite Vampire Weekend songs, “Oxford Comma.” That is the best title to a song, ever, so just go ahead and stop trying. And if Mr. Yankovic does a video aimed at the excessive use of hyperbole, I bet my blog will be featured…

Here’s Vampire Weekend [explicit] preceded by what is quite possibly the best shampoo commercial I’ve ever seen:

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog about writing, publishing, motherhood, health, psychology and whatever else strikes me in the moment.

If you enjoyed this entry, please follow along or join my Inner Circle email list. At the end of each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and everyone who comments on the blogs. Good luck with that!

My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of funny, semi-realistic Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

The post Everyone’s Seen it. Posting Anyway. appeared first on MJ Pullen.

Thanks, B*tches!

I had the best time hanging out with the Book B*tches book club around the corner in Marietta, Georgia last night. Such a fun group, and they have a terrific club name. Special thanks to Jess Eaton for making delicious brownies with salted caramel gelato, healthy tacos for everyone, and for using her Vitamix for its intended purpose = margaritas, naturally. We talked about Regrets Only and (as always) lots of other stuff. Thanks, girls!

I don’t want to ruin their rep, but the Book Bitches aren’t really all that bitchy. Shh….

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog about writing, publishing, motherhood, health, psychology and whatever else strikes me in the moment. I love book clubs!

If you enjoyed this entry, please follow along or join my Inner Circle email list. At the end of each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and everyone who comments on the blogs. Good luck with that!

My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of funny, semi-realistic Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

The post Thanks, B*tches! appeared first on MJ Pullen.

Monthly Winners Backlog

Oh, I’m a terrible blog mistress! I haven’t picked a random prize winner since MARCH. I sense a collective spanking headed my way in the future. Be gentle, will you?

So, here you go, and each of these folks (chosen at random) will win an Amazon.com gift card. It’s not sexy, I know, but you can use it to buy sexy books if you like. Maybe sexy books about spanking an errant blog mistress? Ooooh, this just took a weird turn, didn’t it?

Ahem.

APRIL winner: Lisa H. (from the email list)
MAY winner: Erin B. (from the email list)
JUNE winner: A completely different Lisa H. (from the blog comments)

Thank you for reading, commenting and hanging around to see what’s new. If you want a shot at winning something (whenever I get around to it), you can join the email list here. Or just comment on the blogs whenever you can – a blog without comments is like Captain without Tennille. And I do promise to be better in the future…

Happy reading!

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog about writing, publishing, motherhood, health, psychology and whatever else strikes me in the moment.

If you enjoyed this entry, please follow along or join my Inner Circle email list. At the end of each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and everyone who comments on the blogs. Good luck with that!

My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of funny, semi-realistic Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

The post Monthly Winners Backlog appeared first on MJ Pullen.

My Experiment: Tie-Dye – Graffiti Beach Towels

Tie-Dye/Graffiti Beach Towels  (a.k.a. my attempt to be a Pinterest Mom)

When I twisted the towel up from the center and dyed the outside, it gave me this cool pattern with lots of white space – less than thrilling for a little kid, probably. Peace sign to the rescue!

We are having a splash park birthday party for Skywalker and Fozzie in a couple of weeks, and for some reason “psychedelic beach” is the theme that’s evolved for it. In an attempt to avoid spending $20 per attending child on bags of crap (half of which invariably end up in my basement because I made up too many goodie bags and/or forgot where I hid the contents, only to find them the week after the party — pirate rings? princess beads? stale chocolate*? anyone??), I thought it would be fun to make tie-dyed towels as party favors instead.

I bought the cheapest white bath towels I could find (just under $2 each), two multicolor tie-dye kits from Wal-mart, and a couple of buckets for the “base” colors: lime green and purple. For those two colors I bought the large packets of powder. Since I had about 40 towels to dye in the middle of a sweltering Georgia afternoon, I didn’t really have a “process,” so much as a slightly contained explosion of sweat, profanity and color.

Still, I think for the most part they came out kind of cute – and the cheap bath towel is a perfect kid-sized beach towel. This would also be fun for a college dorm or teenager’s sheet set. For 40+ towels, it took me a total of about three hours to do this project, not counting rinse and dry time.

Naturally, I was not organized enough to take pictures at each stage of the project, and since I did each towel a little differently, it probably wouldn’t have helped much anyway. If you decide to re-create my insane little project, here a few things I learned.

To get this look, I dipped half the towel in purple dye and used the bottle dyes in rainbow streaks on the other half.

The hardest part of tie-dying is the prep work – getting the dyes made up, making the work space, finding a place to hang 40 towels in your front yard.
If you fail to find a place to hang 40 dyed towels in your front yard, and opt instead to put them on top of one another while they are still wet, the dye will spread from one towel to the next like gonorrhea. Also, no matter what the weather forecast is, if you dye 40 towels outdoors, it absolutely will rain right in the middle. Just FYI. Lucky for me I was going for the splotchy/bleedy look anyway.
Also, you are supposed to wash the towels without detergent and dry them without fabric softener to remove any chemicals from the manufacturer before dying. I didn’t do this step, because I always wait until the last minute to read directions, and mine turned out fine. But you’ve been WARNED!
Make sure you have all dyes made up (in buckets and/or bottles) BEFORE inviting an energetic five and almost-three year old to help you. You do NOT want two active little boys standing around bored with bottles of dye. Trust me.
The little plastic gloves that come with the tie-dye are useless. You might want to go with those big yellow ones instead. And a full-body wetsuit.
I can’t prove this, but you should be aware that dye *might* attract bees.
Okay! So, the best way to tie-dye a towel is:


Fold the towel accordion-style (from either end, depending on the way you want the stripes to run) in sections of about 2-4 inches wide. My absolute favorite thing about tie-dye is that no precision is required whatsoever.
Once it’s folded, put a rubber band near either end and somewhere in the middle to hold the folds in place. You can do more rubber bands if you want more tiny white streaks.
To dip in dye: Fold or curl the accordion towel in a little spiral (so you can fit it into the bucket) and dip it lengthwise – one side of the accordion — about halfway into the dye. If you want white or light space between the stripes, dip it a little less than halfway, if you want the colors to overlap, dip a little more.
Let the towel drip into the dye bucket for a few seconds, then turn it upside down and dip the other half in the other color. The dye will run toward the middle once you remove it, so you may want to leave a slightly bigger gap between the colors than you want in the result.
Option: instead of dipping the towel in a bucket of dye, you can use the bottles of dye from a kit to get the same effect but with more colors.  It takes longer, but you have more control. After step #2, just apply the dye from the bottles width-wise across the ridges of the accordion on one side of the towel. You can do one color this way, or twenty, and you’ll end up with both vertical and horizontal stripes/patches of color on the finished towel. I also did a few where I dipped them and then added streaks with the bottles of color. (See pictures for some examples).

I dipped half in purple and streaked it with fuchsia, the other half in green and streaked with blue. I left a bigger gap of white space on this one – it’s one of my favorites!

Leave the towel in the accordion shape and set it aside on plastic tarp (or another white towel – the two I used to catch the dye from the others came out kind of cool, too!).
After some of the excess water has evaporated, you can remove the rubber bands and add a design with the bottle dyes (I did swirls and hearts and peace signs and smiley faces — I’m complex like that), or for simple tie-dye, hang the towel up to dry a bit and set. I’d love to give you an exact time: mine dried for anywhere from half an hour to two hours depending on where they were in the order of creation. Most were still damp or wet when I rinsed them.
Rinse towels on cold — with or without salt, according to package directions — grouping similar color combinations together, and tumble dry. Viola!

This method will give you a stripey pattern, which for me worked better than trying to do spirals or circles. However, I should note for the record that I am possibly the least crafty person on the planet — Hubs once had to swoop in an finish a batch of cake balls for me while I sat in a nearby chair and cried about my inadequacy as a woman.

So, if you’re better at this stuff than I am, you can probably get great circles and spirals if you start at two separate corners of the towel and go through the process a couple of times. If you start in the center, you get lots of white space in the middle because there’s so much fabric and the sides are different lengths. Then again, you can just add a spiffy peace sign and all is well.

I don’t know if the kids at our party will love these as much as I loved making them, but they were a ton of fun. Definitely a project I will consider doing again — and the possibilities are endless. You could do theme pictures for a party, team colors, match a bedroom or bathroom…

My fingernails may never be white again…

I know what you’re thinking – this is totally something Martha Stewart would make…. if she lost all her artistic talent and took many, many hallucinogenic drugs.

 *Clearly a fictional example. Chocolate never hangs around my house long enough to get stale.

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog about writing, publishing, motherhood, health, psychology and whatever else strikes me in the moment. Someday I’ll be a Pinterest mom, or dye trying! Get it, dye?

If you enjoyed this entry, please follow along or join my Inner Circle monthly email list. At the end of each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and everyone who comments on the blogs. Good luck with that!

My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of funny, semi-realistic Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

The post My Experiment: Tie-Dye – Graffiti Beach Towels appeared first on MJ Pullen.

Caption Contest

This caption contest is brought to you by my latest attempt to do something I found on Pinterest…

Please submit your suggestions for a caption to the picture below. You can vote on captions you like by replying to the commenter with the words “vote.” I’ll pick a winner to receive an autographed copy of The Marriage Pact on Thursday, July 17th (or some other super-cool prize if you already have TMP in paperback).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Incidentally, does anyone know how to get fabric dye off your skin, besides just waiting for your epidermis to regenerate? Just curious.

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog about writing, publishing, motherhood, health, psychology and whatever else strikes me in the moment. I almost always fail at Pinterest.

If you enjoyed this entry, please follow along or join my Inner Circle monthly email list. At the end of each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and everyone who comments on the blogs. Good luck with that!

My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

 

The post Caption Contest appeared first on MJ Pullen.

Bathing Suit Weather and My Girl Crush on Melissa McCarthy

Taking time out from my Sports Illustrated cover shoot to spend time with my family

I just got back from a lovely, mostly relaxing long weekend at the beach with my husband’s family. Everything on the trip went as smoothly as we could have hoped: the five kids (our two and three cousins — all eight and under) behaved and got along great. The weather was perfect, the ocean clear. And I got to beta read an awesome book for my friend Emily Carpenter, which proved to be an excellent beach read. (I have a feeling you’ll be seeing it on bookshelves in the near future). So why only mostly relaxing?

Bathing suits. Ugh.

Like most women, especially those with a bit of meat on our bones, being in a bathing suit is not a part of summer I look forward to. Okay, that’s an understatement. I’d rather clean a frat house bathroom after homecoming weekend with a box of tissues than wear a bathing suit in public. Really. As many of you know, I am not a slim girl — never have been. If I’m honest, there are probably twenty-five well, maybe forty, alright, seventy extra pounds I’ve been carrying around since… well, a while now. Like that jar of spare buttons you have in the closet that you never use, but you’ve packed and moved it six times, and you’re afraid to throw away because as soon as you do you will need one of those buttons.

Some of the extra weight is from way back in college. At UGA, I misunderstood about the “freshman fifteen” and thought it was an annual requirement. (Hey, if I were smart enough to understand stuff like that I would’ve gone to Georgia Tech like my dad wanted). Sigh. Then there was the oh-sweet-I-found-a-husband-so-I-can-eat-what-I-want weight in my early 20′s. And shortly thereafter, the oh-crap-I’m-getting-a-divorce-this-is-so-depressing-help-me-Ben-and-Jerry weight. I didn’t fall for the marriage weight gain on the second time around, but then we had two kids, and… suddenly I am 38 with pudge in totally new and interesting places. You know what no one tells you about your late 30′s? It’s friggin’ hard to lose weight at this age! Okay, maybe they told me and I wasn’t listening. Anyway.

So here I am, battling a middle aged body and a lifetime of bad eating habits, trying to exercise regularly and make healthier choices (like not eating a whole can of chocolate frosting with a spoon just because “Psych” went off the air. Seriously, WHAT is Dule Hill going to do next? Does anyone know?) I’m experimenting with different ways of eating and making a little progress, day by day. I’ve lost fifteen pounds in the last year, with a few setbacks along the way. I’m accepting that this is going to be a process for me and I just have to love myself through it. More love for me, less love for the chili cheese fries.

In the meantime, summer comes. It just keeps showing up, whether I’m ready or not. Despite the fact that I tried to slow time starting in about April, trying to warp the space-time continuum in such a way that I could lose forty pounds in two months, summer came anyway. Meanwhile, I lost four pounds instead of forty, and a one-night-stand with some fried chicken tenders put two of those back on. Again, sigh.

So I put on my bathing suit and go out to the beach and the pools anyway. For one thing, I tried swimming in a suit of armor and it didn’t work out well. For another, I made a big life decision a few years ago: I promised myself I would never not do something just because of how I feel about my body. Life is just too short to sit on the sidelines muttering about cellulite. Fuck cellulite. I’m going down the waterslide with my kids because I love them more than I hate my thighs.

Still, when you’re a bigger person, a woman especially, it’s hard not to notice the occasional sarcastic leer or suppressed giggle when you walk past a bunch of skinny people at a bathing suit venue. You try to hold your head high and walk on. You tell yourself that they aren’t laughing at you, that there must be some really hilarious dolphin doing a Groucho Marx bit right behind you. You tell yourself that even if they are laughing at you, it doesn’t matter because sticks and stones and all that garbage. I’m beautiful and skinny on the inside…. blah, blah, blah.

And it still hurts.

When we got home from the beach, I went online to check the reviews for Tammy, Melissa McCarthy’s latest movie, directed by her husband Ben Falcone. I’ve got a bit of a girl crush on Melissa McCarthy right now because I think she is one of the funniest people on the planet. She made me cringe and laugh along with the rest of the world in Bridesmaids, and I finally got around to watching her in The Heat with Sandra Bullock, which made me laugh so hard in a couple of places I almost peed. Also, there’s this hilarious video (thanks, Chris Negron for sharing it with me). I mean, the woman drives a golf cart through basketball practice. How could that not be funny?

After watching and reading a few interviews with McCarthy, and knowing my affectionate bias for creative couples who work together, I was looking forward to finding out how her latest movie was faring. The answer is not well, I’m afraid. The review I found the most informative was this one, which basically says that intensely, embarrassingly funny is funnier when it’s put into context with other strong, less funny roles. Sounds like McCarthy and Falcone missed on this one (not that this will keep me from watching Tammy, but I’ll probably wait to watch it in a way that doesn’t require hiring a babysitter and eating $10 extra-buttered popcorn with Reese’s pieces, um, gourmet carrot sticks).

The thing that disappointed me more than the low ratings for the movie, however, were some of the nasty and hateful comments below the review, many of which focused on McCarthy’s weight rather than her acting ability or the movie itself. People referred to her as a “behemoth” an “elephant,” and one person attributed the lack of success in this film to the “problem with overweight comics,” namely that the only joke they have is that of their weight. At least in McCarthy’s case, I just don’t think that’s true.

It would be ridiculous for Melissa McCarthy to ignore her weight when trying to portray an embarrassingly funny character – in the same way it would be stupid for Chris Rock to act like a white person, Will Ferrell to ignore his immense height or for Chris Katan to pretend he’s not built like a spider monkey (yeah, that’s right, I mentioned Chris Katan — how ya doin’ 1998?). The best actors of all genres use everything at their disposal to make a role perfect, and for comedic actors this means setting aside normal human self-consciousness about themselves — their race, gender, language, religious background, accent, and even their bodies — to get the laugh, often at their own expense. I think that’s incredibly brave no matter who you are.

It’s sad that the anonymity of the internet allows people to write hurtful, attacking things they would never have the courage to say to someone’s face and be rewarded with attention and fake relevance. It’s sad that while nearly 100% of us have access to the media required to “review” and “critique” the work and behavior of others, the percentage of people who can separate objective criticism from personal attacks is far, far smaller than that.

It’s sad that women, who carry, bear and feed children and are more often than not responsible for a family’s food purchases and meal preparations, are fair game for attacks and insults when it comes to weight. It’s sad that women who are less than supermodel perfect are denounced for their appearance the minute they have the nerve to show their faces in certain industries, as though being overweight makes you less funny, less talented or less capable than a skinny woman or… well, let’s be honest, any man. (Somehow I doubt that Marlon Brando or Alfred Hitchcock got panned by audiences for being rotund — they were able to use their weight to their advantage, as part of their persona.)

The saddest thing of all is that whether we want to or not, we read the comments. We hear the sniggering. We see the disapproving glances. And despite our best efforts, those things become a part of our internal conversation with ourselves. Tiny things that stay with us, like grains sand in the carpet of the minivan weeks after the trip is over. They become a part of who we are, and make us a little less sure of ourselves each time they come up.

We’d like to think we are impervious, that we should be impervious, but we’re not. We’re human. That’s kind of the whole point.

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog about writing, publishing, motherhood, health, psychology and whatever else strikes me in the moment. I’m working on a beach-friendly suit of armor as we speak.

If you enjoyed this entry, please follow along or join my Inner Circle monthly email list. At the end of each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and everyone who comments on the blogs. Good luck with that!

My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

The post Bathing Suit Weather and My Girl Crush on Melissa McCarthy appeared first on MJ Pullen.

Of Love and Carseats

My fantasies have changed a bit over the years…

People often say that after you settle down and are married or committed to someone for a long time, and especially after you have kids, life becomes less exciting and romantic. And, well, yes. It does. Sometimes it’s hard to feel sexy when you’re sleep deprived, exhausted and all the bathrooms in your house smell a little like pee no matter how often you clean them (moms of boys, can I get a “heck yeah”?).  Or trying to get the damn car seats out of the car in 98 degree weather outside the dealership service center, as I did when I had to leave Hubs’ car for service overnight last week.

A bikini-clad girl glistening with sweat, whispering dirty talk might be very sexy… But an overtired mom, neck craned against the roof, soaking through her Target brand t-shirt screaming profanity at a child’s car seat is NOT sexy. (The child wasn’t present for this episode, you’ll be happy to know). Also, cliche of cliches, the sweet girl at the dealership who tried to help me actually did break a nail in the process, and I really felt bad for her. It was an expensive-looking manicure.

I usually think of myself as a pretty strong woman, and a feminist, and I think there’s very little women can’t do (and very little men shouldn’t be able to do if they want). Until it’s time to take the car seats out of the car. I will play my girl card in that situation every single time. They make those damn buttons so hard to press, and after a full grown man has beared down born down pushed on that seat with his knees carrying all his weight, while simultaneously pulling up with all his strength to get it as tight as possible – for safety – there is no amount of screaming, pushing, sweating or magic spell conjuring I can do to get those Cheerio-laden germ farms out of there. In Vaneschewitz, I’ve had to force adult friends to climb over the car seats back to the third row because I simply couldn’t get them out.

In moments like that one, I don’t need a strip tease [insert audible sigh of relief from Hubs] or a romantic dinner out. I just need someone I can count on, to do all the little things that make life run – if not smoothly, then at least less disastrously. When it comes to relationships, I’m a fan of Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages. I used to think my love languages were Words of Affirmation and Quality Time (and maybe they were in the pre-carseat era). Now that we’re coming up on eight years of marriage and trying to survive two little boys, I’ve become much more Acts of Service focused.  Hubs, of course, has been there all along – he’s always ahead of me. What else is new?

Acts of Service are those little things we do for each other that make life easier and show affection. Taking the trash out without being asked, volunteering to haul the kids to a birthday party unassisted, running the dishwasher. Coming out to help with the groceries, renewing the car tags. None of it is exactly Penthouse Forum material, but as life becomes more hectic and stressful, those little things we do for each other become increasingly meaningful. And meaningful, it turns out, is pretty damn sexy all by itself…

Do you hate the car seats as much as I do? What are your favorite Acts of Service your spouse, partner, sweetie, etc. does for you? Is anyone even reading this or are we all still staring at the fireman picture?

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog about writing, publishing, motherhood, health, psychology and whatever else strikes me in the moment. I’d like to officially apologize to everyone in the vicinity of Subaru of Kennesaw, Georgia for last week’s tirade outside the service center.

If you enjoyed this entry, please follow along or join my Inner Circle monthly email list. At the end of each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and everyone who comments on the blogs. Good luck with that!

My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

The post Of Love and Carseats appeared first on MJ Pullen.

Now all we need is…

As close as we’ll ever get!

Skywalker: I don’t want to go to camp next week.

Dad: No? Really?

Skywalker: No. I want to have camp at home with Mommy.

Mom: You’re going to have lots of days at home with Mommy later in the summer. What’s wrong? You’re not enjoying camp?

Skywalker: I like the swimming, but we can do that at our pool in the neighborhood.

Mom: That’s true, but…

Skywalker: And I like archery, but you guys bought me that little boy and arrow I can shoot in the backyard.

Dad: Isn’t there anything else at camp you would miss?

Mom: Like your friends?

Skywalker: We can have my friends over for camp.

Both parents: Ummm…

Skywalker: It’s perfect! Now all we need is a pony!

***************

Skywalker showing off his mad archery skills for Princess Merida at Disney

Little Skywalker is doing his first few weeks of big kid day camp this summer: the kind where they swim twice a day, do archery, rock climbing, horseback riding… basically non-stop action and outdoorsy stuff, which has been wonderful. He comes home all sweaty and salty and tired and happy. Skywalker is one of the younger rising Kindergarteners, though, and sometimes the long hot days in the North Georgia sun are a little wearing on him. If you’ve ever had young kids you know that whatever wears on them, wears triple on you. We’ve had some tantrums lately that are both maddening and pitiful in their obvious roots of exhaustion. And the early-to-bed, early-to-rise schedule leaves him with less time than he would like to just play with his own toys at the house. I can’t say I blame him.

Times like this make you question yourself as a parent. The camp structure I so carefully crafted this spring to meet everyone’s needs this summer is harder than any of us thought it would be – or at least it’s starting out that way.  Is this a great learning opportunity for all of us as we muscle through it and get stronger together? Or do I acknowledge that my “ideal” structure for the summer may not be working as well as I’d hoped and try to find a way to back down from it somehow? (This camp doesn’t do partial days, but dropping a single week later in the summer could be possible — if we go that direction I’ll have to find out what all the cancellation and refund policies are). But he loves the camp…. Ugh!

Fozzie loves archery, too!

Wrapped up in all of this are my own desire to slow down, my urgency to make progress on the novel I’m working on, all my childhood memories of summer (which involved more hanging around the neighborhood and going to the library than structured camps), my desire/need to have a professional life for part of the summer while still giving my kids everything they need, and of course the insane mommy guilt that plagues me no matter what my kids are doing or how happy they are because I will never, ever give them a perfect childhood experience and all it takes is ten minutes on any social network where moms hang out for me to realize that I’m doing about seventy different things that are not as good as they could be, or as good as they were in the old days or the way they should be now or the way people remember them being but they really weren’t. WHEW. I’m exhausted just from trying to figure out if I should be exhausted or not.

Enough second-guessing, right? I hate the sense I so often have these days that I can orchestrate our family life and my kids’ lives the same way I can control the fates of characters in my novels. If people are tired or bored or hungry or overscheduled or understimulated, why does that mean I need to re-evaluate my entire life philosophy? Can’t we just fix the immediate need, learn something, love everyone, and move on?

I don’t have to re-create my childhood for my kids (there are many parts of my childhood I’m trying desperately to avoid creating for them – and me having my own mental health space is part of that). This summer is ours. And it’s been a terrific summer so far. It’s going to continue to be an amazing summer, or an average summer, or a pretty decent summer. It will be the summer it is, and all will be fine.

Hopefully.

Please tell me I’m not alone in this – does anyone else feel this crazy pressure to make summer perfect, or at least to meet some unattainable standard of activity, or relaxation? Do you feel hyper-responsible for how your kids spend their summer hours? If you don’t have kids, is there pressure to have the most amazing vacation or make the most of every weekend?

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog about writing, publishing, motherhood, health, psychology and whatever else strikes me in the moment. I went to a Christian summer camp with a friend for a week one summer and I still remember all the songs.

If you enjoyed this entry, please follow along or join my Inner Circle monthly email list. At the end of each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and everyone who comments on the blogs. Good luck with that!

My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

 

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