Playlists for Posterity – The Car List

This morning Daddo held his hands over his ears emphatically saying, “Men Without Hats? AGAIN?” It’s true I’ve become more than reasonably obsessed with “Safety Dance.” I’ve discovered that Men Without Hats Radio on Pandora is one of the greatest station choices I’ve made. Ever. New Wave should make a comeback. But my kids, young as they are, have a very distinctive musical taste on their own. And apparently they’re not too young to criticize mine. When they’re teenagers I want to be able to say, “When you were five we listened to this song TWENTY NINE BILLION TIMES.” So I thought I’d make a list of their favorites for posterity. The following is our car playlist – because the car is where we ask them the most, “What do you want to listen to?”

1.  Hey There Delilah – Every single morning for a year, after dropping Pickle off at school, Daddo and I would listen to this gem from my high school days over and over again on the way to his pre-school. He LOVED it. Every now and then he’ll still ask for it.
2. Ring of Fire – This is the song that is helping the boys grow out of their “literal phase.” I spent half an hour explaining to them why Johnny Cash isn’t talking about an actual ring of fire. Besides, of course they like it. They’re Texans.
3. Gangnam Style – I take no responsibility for this. For the longest time this “song” was the bane of Joe’s existence. But man, the boys thought it was HILARIOUS. It’s currently banned.
4. Roundtable Rival – I can turn on any Lindsey Stirling song and Pickle will say, “It’s Lindsey Stirling!” We all love “Roundtable Rival” for it’s sheer awesomeness and I never mind repeats.
5. Skyrim – AKA “The Knight Song,” another Lindsey Stirling favorite. The boys always want to watch the video too. Dylan likes knowing names and wanted to make sure he knew who Peter Hollens was when I first introduced him to this.
6. My heart was a lonely hunter – This is actually one of mine because A Love Song for Bobby Long is one of my favorite movies. But Pickle loves this song and you can tell it calms him down.
7. Let it go – Not so much anymore but during the Frozen craze the boys loved this song as much as any Elsa crazy little girl. Daddo is also a really big fan of Olaf.
8. Rio – Another song from a movie with a surprisingly awesome soundtrack.
9. Whiskey for my men, Beer for my horses – I hate, loathe, and despise country music so the fact that I will endure this song over and over should be a testament to how much I love my children. Plus it’s pretty adorable when Daddo starts singing this on his own.
10. Budapest – This is Petal’s favorite. At just seven months old, I have to applaud her taste. George Ezra has an incredible voice.
11. Dark Horse – This is another song that the boys think is funny, especially after seeing the Katy Perry Baby

I leave you with this.

10 things you should be able to do one-handed as a parent

Petal is my third child. And it’s been a while since I’ve taken care of a baby. There are things that I remember and things that I’ve conveniently forgotten. And I’ve been thinking about when the boys were babies. I remember everyone telling me when I was pregnant with Pickle, “Oh, it’s going to change your life!” And I remember thinking, “Duh.” The thing is, it’s easy to tell new parents platitudes like that. But I think there’s a conspiracy at work here. People who have had children don’t really tell people who are about to have children exactly what’s going to change. Instead they sit back and watch the hilarity with a glass of wine in their hand thanking God that they don’t have to do it anymore.

The major cliché for new parents is this: two jetsetters with stable careers deciding they’re going to have a baby thinking they know exactly what they’re getting themselves into because they won’t be able to up and leave on spontaneous weekend excursions anymore.

Who the hell does that, anyway? I mean really.

This particular fantasy makes people think two things. 1. That they are more successful and fabulous than they really are at their jobs, so of course they’ll be fashionable and awesome at parenting. 2. That the little weekend thing is the only thing that will change in their lives. Clearly they won’t be able to go on short notice anymore. They’ll need at least 24 hours to call a babysitter.

So back to reality…. no one tells you how it will change your DAILY lives.

But I will.

You will lose an arm.

I’m not kidding.

Unless you want to hear crying and screaming and pitiful whimpering you will lose an arm because you’ll be carrying a baby on your hip 85% of your waking hours. Of course there are baby carriers that you can wear – but what attachment parents won’t tell you is that sometimes, just sometimes babies don’t like being in them. Like two of mine.

So I wrote up a handy little list of things you should be able to do one-handed as a parent. Anyone who is not yet a parent should attempt to do all of these things while carrying a 20lb sack of rice.

1. Brush your teeth. This can actually make a crying baby stop crying. Petal thinks it’s fascinating.
2. Apply make-up. There’s a reason why the bottom of mascara tubes are flat. It’s so that you can set it down while holding the brush in your free hand so that the baby won’t stick her fingers in a bunch of black goo.
3. Use nasal spray. There’s an art to this. What you do is while your first and middle finger are poised to push down, you hold one nostril closed with your ring finger. It also takes a bit of coordination to hold, push, sniff, and breathe all at the same time.
4. Wipe. I’m talking honestly here. I haven’t had to do this with Petal, but Pickle was a traumatized baby from a couple of hospitalizations and there were days when I literally NEVER put him down.
5. Wash dishes. This is an absolutely necessary skill if you want to be able to cook/eat. It helps if you balance the dish/skillet, etc on the already full sink of dishes as a sort of platform with which you can leverage against the side of the sink so that what you’re washing doesn’t slide all over the place.
6. Open a box of diapers. This is a long and arduous process, but necessary because you can’t survive without diapers. First you have to get through the outer tape which sometimes you can peel off and sometimes you can rip by holding the box firmly between your knees and yanking the flaps with your free hand. Then comes the fun part of trying to poke a hole through the plastic with your fingernails (if you have fingernails). An alternative is grabbing the tiny baby nail clippers and slowly snipping an opening big enough to tear open the diapers – which still takes a log time one handed. You have to do it in sections. Rip a section of plastic then jump ahead several inches and rip that section, continuing thus until there’s a space large enough from which to pull the coveted object through. The other day Joe watched me do this, not because he’s mean or unhelpful, he was just enjoying the free entertainment.
7. Unload the dishwasher. This actually isn’t that difficult. The hard part is the bending and stooping to put things away while carrying a grabby baby.
8. Start a load of laundry. As with #7 you kind of have to get in touch with your inner yogi which in normal circumstances wouldn’t be a thing.
9. Pump gas. This isn’t always necessary. Usually you can leave the baby in the car seat, especially if they’re sleeping. But if you have offspring like mine that start crying as soon as the vehicle isn’t moving anymore you will at one point have to attempt this. But again, it’s FASCINATING.
10. Shop. Both online and in person. Shopping online with an awake baby is like juggling. Except that you’re juggling a live baby, a computer with BUTTONS, and a credit card that looks really delicious. With shopping in person you have a little more flexibility because generally babies will tolerate riding in a cart or stroller for an amount of time that seems to have been predetermined by a secret baby committee. What you do have to deal with while shopping out in the world is a variety of mostly unanswerable questions. Is there a changing table in the restroom? Can I leave my cart/basket full of unpaid items so that I can go change this blow out diaper? How am I going to change this diaper without a changing table or the stroller? I can go out to the car but what about my cart/basket of unpaid items? if I forfeit the cart/basket am I going to have to go back through the store and do all of the shopping over again? This is to say nothing of the Olympic caliber skill of holding a cranky baby on your hip while pushing a heavy cart ONE-HANDED.