"Camp Patyon"
"Camp Pattin"
"Connie Britton Hair"
"Crying it out" (Simon will roll his eyes right now because Julia was up 99 times on Sunday night and guess which sucker of a mom went and listened to her specific requests? -- we turned the monitor off last night so you can pretend to pat my firm and disciplined back if you'd like)
"Camp Blog"
etc etc etc
And then there are some that are giggly:
"onesie as diaper" (I'd love to hear how that worked out for you ... )
"Simon met Grace at party?" (not this Simace)
"mind over bodily fluid"
"hiking chapped pain butt paste"
"are culottes back in style?"
"candid mom in bra on couch"
"chubby housewife in socks"
ETC.
But the search, "bad mom" is always always always on the list. Does that make me feel like a bad mom? Add one too many blog reads about the importance of fostering a creative spirit in your children by way of arts and crafts in the home, the dangers of listening to secular music around small children, or the multiple benefits of exclusively breastfeeding (which is great - and my children are probably doomed -- winkety wink) and maybe I feel like not the greatest mom for a second or ten.
Simon is the wise 1/2 of our marriage and tells me to rise above the nasty comments and I know I should but a couple of months ago some (sane) reader combed through over 1000 blog posts and listed every single mischievous thing the kids have ever ever done on my watch - some of the things were fabricated, some were exaggerated, and some were true. If her intentions were to make me feel like the worst mom ever - success! She won. I'm mostly over it (this is what we'll call closure - I guess) and Maggie - if you're still out there - I hope you're doing well.
Anyway ... this weekend we went to a nice lodge with Simon for one night for a work conference. I was not expecting the fanciest lodge in all of the land but that's what it was and if I had to guesstimate I'd say there were no fewer than ten dead animals on the walls (including a huge raccoon that Simon dreamt about).
(random church that Julia assumed was a princess castle because we are raising saintly little heathens)
The kids loved it. Julia kept asking if we were at "the trip" and she slept in a bed (NOT A CRIB ... there is hope) like a normal 2.8 year old
(this will be the picture - in the future - that Julia asks about, "you know that one picture of me looking so cute and notcreepy with my hair in a notmullet?!")
and Sebastian slept in the bathroom in a portacrib because the bathroom was the size of eight of our bathrooms and Theo slept in his car seat because ... we mean.
Saturday morning Simon woke up and did not shower (because you do not wake a sleeping Sebastian that was up until 11pm) and went to present his poster that had LARGE pictures of ... female anatomy and if Julia finds that poster and starts asking questions ... Simon can handle that precious moment. The kids woke up and I got them all set up with the smuggled muffin that Simon had stolen from his free breakfast and an episode of Dora Authentica (¡en español!) and popped in the shower.
I was lathering my hair with the fancy little shampoo from the fancy little bottle when I heard the hotel room's door open and slam. I peeked through the bathroom window (because I'm sure they had Grace Patton and Brood in mind when they designed the rooms) and saw one zombie of a Julia, one kicky Theodore and not one Sebastian.
I will not type all of the words I said from my post in the shower at this point but they were as sinny as you can imagine. This lodge was fancy but still had the towels that covered to about my tailbone but!!!!! robes - luxurious robes they had. I threw one on - white lathered hair and all and peered outside to find Sebastian chumming it up with a middle-aged couple down the hall ...
nice couple: where is your mommy?
Bash:
nice couple: where did your mommy go?
Bash:
nice couple: is he? no. is he eating deodorant?!
And that was my cue. I wished I'd been lathering my face to hide the bright red but ... of course not. I dragged deodorant breath back into the room ... and inspected the lock situation (door locks until it is opened - with no upper lock - dumb) finished my shower. Sebastian brought me Simon's now empty deodorant container that Simon had left out before he left and so I'm hoping that the new popular search will be, "bad dad" .... because ...
ain't no bad mom here.
For once.
haha. you are too funny. we just had a less than stellar hotel stay this weekend too but i wasn't as upbeat about it as you.
ReplyDeleteYour labels are absolutely hilarious...honest abraham?? LOL
ReplyDeleteThat picture of Julia in the bed is too adorable..I want to sleep in a bed like that.
Old Spice Mountain Breeze Breath strikes again!
ReplyDeleteYou're a wonderful mom!!! I love it when you post videos, I can always hear the love ooozing out of your questions to the kids (seriously!) Thank you for continuing to blog despite all of the "bad dad" searches that lead people to your site!
ReplyDeleteLOVE this. one time james put my mascara all over his face when i was trying to rest my eyes for a few and said, "look i got into a fight."
ReplyDeletehaha, nope, you'd only be a bad mom if you left him out there while you finished rinsing and then went ahead and shaved your legs too. and i still wouldn't blame you if you did, because i HATE getting out mid-shower...
ReplyDeleteI don't think you're a bad mom at all. I do think you keep it real though, which is a breath of fresh air when every other blogger on the face of the planet seems to have angel children. Seriously how did that happen? Your kids are smart, funny, and know how to keep life and your blog interesting ;) Seriously, anyone that has the time to look through 1,000 posts and make a list... needs to get a hobby. I truly enjoyed this post!
ReplyDeleteI was going to say the exact same thing, who has the time to do that? Anyway, winkety wink to you too Grace :)
Deletehahaha you are a great (and hilarious) mom! i love these stories!
ReplyDeletehaha- are culottes back in style? is my favorite. Thank goodness for robes. And I cannot believe someone combed blog posts for every mischievous thing! Wow.
ReplyDeleteThis gave me my evening chuckle.
ReplyDeleteMy husband keeps an academic-ish blog of his favourite quotations & passages from the ten million books he reads each year. He was checking his google search results to see what sort of traffic he was attracting and was somewhat surprised, disturbed, and possibly flattered to find that someone had located his blog using the search term "erotic pictures of [his name here]"... I think that person must have been sadly disappointed!
Ummm...I love your posts and I have probably read all 1000 of them but wow, making a list and checking it twice for parenting fails...someone has WAYYYYYY too much time on her hands.
ReplyDeleteI have seven kids and if I listed everything naughty/mischievous that the first three did, I would def be labeled a bad mom. there are waaaaay too many things that I'd like to forget. The woman who wrote to you probably had no children, or just one, or a couple spaced years and years apart. You just need to laugh and be grateful that all survive the day, including you!
ReplyDeleteAnd FWIW, I can tell you're a good mom with a refreshingly biting sarcasm.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for the "how to" link your email address to your name. Not that I think you or anyone else would want to respond! ;)
ReplyDeleteYou really should warn me when you're going to write something so darn funny...now I have to clean the ice tea off my screen. Oh.my.word! That Sebastian is just too cunning for his own good. I can only imagine what high school will be like with him. LOL!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your honesty and transparency here in this special place. I needed to laugh today. Truly I did. Give Sebastian a hug for me. He made my day!
on the floor. laughing. bad grace. bad grace for making me practically pee my pants in front of my kids.
ReplyDeleteWow. Spending your life telling other people in elaborate detail how they are living their lives wrong...I think my irony meter just broke. At least now, the next time she writes, you can be all, "Yeah, but Simon left his deodorant out that one time, so."
ReplyDeleteyour blog makes me so happy.
ReplyDeleteThere keeps being a "he grabs his pee pee" search that leads someone to my blog and I don't understand what post it's taking them to! So weird...
ReplyDeleteAnd seriously, what kind of hotel room has no upper lock? Ridiculous...
Hi! Longtime reader, first time commenter (officially a lurker, then?). You're always so funny and real and this miiiight be one of my new favorites. Dying over "deodorant breath." I think you're a GREAT mom and if I can maintain 1/8 of the sense of humor you have once I enter mom world, well, I'll consider myself a success. - Liz
ReplyDeleteBest tag ever.
ReplyDeleteLast hotel stay- I went to get ice, came back upstairs to find Grace trying to get back into the room. My mom and Joe were both inside and had no clue she was gone.
And I think Maggie/anon has much bigger issues if she feels inclined to comb through your entire blog and keep track of your kids' mischief. I'm guessing she has zero of her own children, or she should certainly know better.
Hilarious Grace! I think that your a pretty awesome mom! I cant stand when other people are so critical of mom's... we all need to be supportive because its one dang hard job! I love the humors in your blog and writing... It keeps the mom sanity in me! Thanks for the laughs!
ReplyDeleteMind over bodily fluid needs to be painted on a plaque and hung in my house of boys. I will be chanting that as they get older.
ReplyDeleteI have a half written post titled bad mom that's just a list of the things I am really succeeding at (potty training is holding tight at the tip top of that list)
As always your blog makes me smile and laugh, and wish we were a bit closer so Bash and Easton could at least tear up the town together! :)
Ahh Grace. I'm not sure how to write this without being patronising because 1) I don't have children yet 2) I'm probably about half a foot shorter than you (maybe more, I'm really short) and 3)I'm a fair bit more junior than you; so a combination of all of these would in real life make me completely unqualified to comment.But I think I should tell you anyway and you can pretend I'm not being icky.
ReplyDeleteI just finished my law degree and I studied criminal law, where I learned about lots of bad mothers. They went from being the kind of crappy kind to the downright evil - directly abusive allll the way to just bog-standard-disinterested. Then I just walk around the city I live in and I see plenty of mums that couldn't care less, or scream at their children and swear and drag them along too fast.
I can one million percent say, from the year I've been reading your blog, that you are not a bad mum. Not at all. You're a really good mum that tries really hard and has secure, well loved, healthy, safe kids. You're the kind of mum I would like to be and you do everything with loads of humor and humility. If I knew you in person I would roll my eyes and shake you a bit because you really are awesome and in no way a bad mum. Not for a millisecond. Your husband is right - find a way to rise above the bad comments or the bad search phrases. And ps - if anyone's opinion counts about the quality of your mothering, it's Simons. If Simon reckons you're doing a decent job then that's the highest affirmation you will ever get. They're his kids too and if he believes it, you should.
Flora x
www.twowithseven.blogspot.co.uk
If being a bad mom means loving your kids, having them in precious outfits all the time (yes, I want Julia's entire wardrobe) and being hysterically funny, then who wants a good mom? Also, I just wrote a post about trolls because this post and a few others have me so angry about stupid people with nothing better to do than bully strangers.
ReplyDeletexoxo =)
One time my son found a chewed up peice of gum on the bathroom garbage can in Walmart and popped it in his mouth. Then he climbed under the stalls and asked the other ladies if they were using their "butt-chinas". He was a little over 2.5. So, don't feel bad.
ReplyDeletePiece not peice
ReplyDeleteMy youngest was a wanderer. We changed his name from Austin to "Lostin". The neighbors would call and say, "if you're missing Austin, he's in our living room" - in the time it took me to pee he opened the window, pushed out the screen, climbed out the window, over the fence and went into the neighbors' house. Anyways... I will admit to once or twice not looking when I knew he was gone. He knew his way home which is more than you can say for most 2 year olds. My blog is "Tightening The Corset" which is supposed to be a take on Scarlett O'Hara having her corset strings pulled to make her look thinner. You wouldn't believe the crazy kinky sexy things people search and end up at my little blog.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the time my sister hired a sitter to watch my (supposedly) sleeping niece (age two) in a hotel suite during an Adults Only wedding. (reception held in the same hotel we were staying in) For some reason the sitter (who doesn't know Violet) chose not to take my sister's warnings of her daughter's prowess seriously. Violet pushed a chair to the door, snapped back the lock, and escaped into the PARKING LOT, where she was intercepted by a hotel employee on the verge of entering the empty lot on the far side of the hotel parking. We were interrupted in our reception festivities by a maid carrying a nightgowned Violet into the ballroom and querying, "Does anyone know this little girl?" Took her back to hotel room where sitter was watching tv in the adjoining room, still none the wiser.
ReplyDeleteI read all 1000+ Camp Patton posts over a couple weeks fairly recently and it never even occurred to me to make a list (like Maggie's or otherwise). If I WERE to make a list, it'd probably be of times your posts have made me laugh aloud. I can't think of another blog that's ever made me LOL, and yours does so regularly. So, um, congratulations.
ReplyDeleteExpert that I am on this matter (allow me to again mention I've read every C.P. post), I am quite comfortable declaring that you are an excellent (and hilarious) mother.
And an excellent, hilarious writer.
Why do they even HAVE those non-locks?? We had one in an (ancient, awful) motel a while back and Wes totally escaped at like 5am when we were both too out of it to notice. Awesome times.
ReplyDeleteIf you were a perfect mom with perfect kids (and a perfect husband too), I'm fairly positive I would not read the perfectly boring blog you would write.
ReplyDeleteSO TRUE!
DeleteHomegirl who made the list... guessing she doesn't have any kids?
ReplyDeleteWe stayed in a hotel room like that!!! Who doesn't put some lock up high??? Maybe our room was handicap accessible or something, but we barricaded the door at night since the door also opened out, it didn't seem like a fire hazard... or the risk of fire < the risk of someone escaping.
I want you to know that even though I don't have kids yet, i hope to someday be a mom as great as you! Your ability to find the humor in the situation, particularly when you have to deal with your kids on the worst rotation nights, is truly inspiring. I adore your blog, it brightens many a day for me!
ReplyDeleteJ slept in his carseat until he was 8 weeks old. You gotta do what ya gotta do ;)
ReplyDeleteI found your blog when I Googled 'surviving two under two' on a day when I was barely surviving. Since then I've read almost all 1000 and I think you're great as days like today when my not quite two year old bit another child because she was overtired and I took my eyes off her for .2 seconds so that I could have a sip of coffee, it is comforting to know that some children eat deodorant.
ReplyDeleteFYI: Nothing was fabricated. And several incidents were omitted. These incidents are all funny ha-ha when read individually. When reviewed en masse, not so funny any more.
ReplyDeleteOh, be nice! Be kind! You know the smallest fraction of what goes on in her life. Just let it be.
DeleteWhen reviewing your comments en masse, still not impressive. Grace wished you well in this post!
DeleteJust wondering..
Delete1- How many children do you have?
2- Why do you have time to sit and compile a list of "incidents" for someone you don't even know? Does it make you feel better about yourself?
I will pray that God gives you a sense of humor (or a hobby) someday.
Oh Maggie, if any one of us looked at every bad thing that has happened to our toddlers "en masse", we would all call ourselves bad moms. Toddlerhood is just individual incident after individual incident. That's how we learn as parents and how our kiddos learn to be independent and confident adults. It's all a learning process & if I were to make a list of all of the "incidents" that I have had with my 3 year old twins, you would probably call child services. Thanks Grace for sharing yours with us. I love reading an honest blog and always walk away thinking, wow she really loves her kids. At the end of the day, that is really all that matters. xo
DeleteYou don't even KNOW Grace, your little stunt has failed to prove that Grace has no business being a mother but has, without a shadow of a doubt indicated that you have no life, no children, no sense of humor or a decent thread of sense for your safety because I do know Grace and if I EVER meet you in real life I promise I will NEVER be as nice to you as she is and I am at least 3 Grace Patton's in width and 10x Grace Patton's in my tendency to throw punches so I promise I am not fun to run into. What you do need to remember is while she is far from perfect she is even FARTHER than that from being a bad mom.... and I am a pretty awesome mom so I know what I am talking about. You on the other hand are an inexcusably poor excuse for a blog follower and an even worse excuse for a woman because we need to SUPPORT each other not tear each other down.... esp. women who have 3 kids under 3!!!! GET A LIFE or I'll give you something to really whine about.
DeleteYour post was just cryptic and confusing. So you compiled these incidents and they weren't funny, so...what? Grace should have her comedy license revoked? Exactly what are you saying - that she's a bad mom, that her readers shouldn't laugh, what? If you have something to say, then come out and say it.
DeleteAlso, please publish that compilation - the rest of us would see it like a greatest hits of CP.
I can't help but think it funny that I was reading your "bad mom" post while hiding from my children in the kitchen with all the lights turned off. And while my 20-month-old was stowed in the high chair in front of the TV because he won't go to bed for me. Like, ever. My own children will not go to bed for me, so bedtime waits on daddy, even when he gets home at 10pm. And to top it all off, my nearly 3-year-old walks in while I'm sitting here in the dark, holding his pull-up and telling me it fell off. So I send him back into the family room with a bare bottom, even though he's asking me for a diaper.
ReplyDeleteYou are most definitely not a bad mom. I don't think I am either. We just all have our moments.
Who are these people?? And can I have some of their free time to get actual things done? Crazy. Don't think about her for another second.
ReplyDeleteThis one got yet another chuckle from me. Keep writing.
Perhaps Miss Maggs just doesn't appreciate the art of putting life eloquently into the written word. You're a fantastic writer not a bad mom - she was looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
ReplyDeleteHave never commented but stalk your blog/Instagram/Facebook regularly. (When I first found you, I mayyyy have read years back in posts). As a labor and delivery nurse, I love hearing your prospective of Simon's work life. Too funny. Thanks for letting all of us into your life. I feel like I have grown to know you and your kids personally, all the way from Ohio.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you are obviously an awesome mom. "Maggie" can jump in a lake!
(Different Maggie here! LOL)
ReplyDeleteI think you are a good mom. I mean, if you were a bad mom you would hardly be stupid enough to put it all on the internet, right? Besides, no bad mom could have such chubby, healthy, happy, adorable children. Your Vimeo movies alone show that they are cheerful little buglets.
I think no matter how great of a mom you are, your kids are going to do crazy things on your watch. My mom was very strict with us and hardly ever let us out of her sight -- and we still did crazy things like slide down the stairs on cushions (so fun!) and dump entire containers of soup on the floor. Don't let people get you down. You love your kids and give everything to them, and I hope I can be half as dedicated a mom.
ReplyDeleteSomeone went through a 1000 posts?!?! She's got some major problems and a whole lot of time. A whole lot. Look, you write what we all experience. All of us. That's why I read. That & your babies are the cutest ever.
ReplyDeleteI have a pretty tame historical sewing blog that gets about .01% of the traffic your little slice of heaven does. That said, a few of my recent favorites from the "blog search keyword roulette" feature on Blogger include:
ReplyDelete"nice huge tits"
"rump history"
"clear vinyl underwear"
AND (personal favorite) "Flannel wedgie"
So, in other words, don't tie any of your self worth to the tormented drunken Googling of your reading public.
As to the self-proclaimed authority on child endangerment who sent you the list, forget her. Her heart may be in the right place, but she's grossly unqualified to make judgements on your parenting skills. Good job on the catharsis. I sincerely hope she is able to move on and apply her focus and good intentions to herself or someone else who needs/wants it. Your candid, self-effacing humor only draws attention to the great person you probably are and the genuine GOOD that you do.
This is one of the all time best stories ever!!! Soooo so sorry, and sooooo sooo funny.
ReplyDeleteYou'll just have to figure out a way to get even with Bash when he's a teenager. Like, set his alarm for 3 AM on a Saturday and when it goes off say, "Ha! That's for the lodge incident." Or something.
Obvi it's time for me to go to bed because that's how my mind works on no sleep.
Oh please you are not a bad mom.. peeps be crazy
ReplyDeleteWho writes a list about that kind of stuff? Seriously you have 3 kids under 3 - they're gonna get up to stuff! I love your blog and always have a giggle at Julia and Bash's antics!
ReplyDeleteI'm not a mom, but I hope I'd be a mom like you someday. Someone searching for "Kardashian salad kanye west" lead to my blog and I really, really, really don't want to know what they could have been looking for.
ReplyDeleteI've been lurking for awhile (here and on Instagram), you are an awesome mom and a fantastic writer!!
ReplyDeleteI always felt like Simon was the bad parent, just didn't want to say it.
ReplyDelete;)
I can't believe Sebastian left the room and you had to jump out of the shower to catch him. You could not make this stuff up, Grace! So funny. Is it too soon too laugh?
FFFFFFFFFF em!! You are an inspiration
ReplyDeleteI'm sure others have said it, but who has time to read through 1000 posts and compile a list like that? And who cares? Seriously. Get a life.
ReplyDeleteI think you're a great mom and your stories are hilarious (I can relate to too many of them - but I guess that's just toddlerhood rearing its ugly head).
Dear Camp Patton.....
ReplyDeleteThis old catholic gal LUV's coming to visit via internet and hear all of the antics of the inmates ;-)
Maggie my dear if you need something to criticize, head over to blogher...http://www.blogher.com/blogher-topics/love-sex there is enough to get yer nickers in a knot eh!
FFS, who is this perfect Mom? Where is she? Can she come watch my kid so I can get a break?
ReplyDeleteMs. Maggie might want to visit my town and watch how some of our Mennonite and Amish families raise kids: barefoot all summer, in the field next to the road with tractors/cows/horses/sharp objects/bees/you name it...even the toddlers are out there, being watched by the preschoolers. Everyone is fine and happy too.
Everything here either has happened to me or is going to happen to me. And I let Adam eat M&Ms for dinner. Bad moms unite!
I tried to feed my niece a piece of pizza when she was 4 months old....
ReplyDeleteAlso people searching "WB Frog" are driven to my blog.
This comment is sad.
You're literally the coolest mom I know. Besides Barb.
See ya later from the bushes.
whoever this maggie lady is, she needs a good lesson compassion. i only have one child and i can think of a million things that have already happened that would put me in her "bad mom" category. my favorite memory that comes to mind is of me sitting on the toilet nursing my kid on one side, and pumping on the other side. yup.
ReplyDeleteoh and there are plenty of days where lunch is made entirely of sugary puffy snacks. stuff happens.
you are an amazing mom and your littlins are just as wonderful! please don't ever ever ever stop blogging :)
OMG! I hope Sebastian is OK after eating all that deodorant (sorry but that was way too funny! Poor thing).
ReplyDeleteUmmmm...can you say "bad hotel"??? We just had our first hotel stay with a mobile toddler (because she was a super late walker and definitely wasn't walking the last time we stayed in a hotel!) and I was soooooo glad they had that top lock thing. I didn't even occur to me until I happened to see her walk up to the door and open it with ease, and then I was like, "Ohhhhh, man. So glad I was actually in the room for that and not in the bathroom because she definitely looked like she would have waltzed right out of there! Soooo, you are totally not a bad mom. Hotels just aren't toddler proof, evidently!
ReplyDeleteI want to know who has time to read all 1000 posts while keeping a running list of such things. Wow. That women needs something to do in her life. It is easier to believe the icky stuff--don't let it get you down. My kids are eight and almost five and I just survived my third semester of an RN nursing program. I assure you I have done what I needed to to survive school. That includes a lot of tv mixed in with the snuggles when I am not super stressed out. Your kids are loved, treated with kindness & well adjusted. That is what comes through in your blog. Enjoy your week! We are covered in fog here....but headed to the pool just the same!
ReplyDelete*woman. Darn autocorrect!
ReplyDeleteI know it's probably hard to remember but I hope you can put that one sane reader's comment in perspective. For every one negative comment you get, I'm sure you have at least 99 other readers who enjoy all of your posts. I know I always do - even the sponsored ones. ;)
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine how busy busy busy you must be ("Looks like you've got your hands full!") and, yet, you always write out a hilarious post that can make all the other not-perfect, "bad moms" (no, I do not think you are a "bad mom" AT ALL) feel like they are not alone.
And I've gotten a number of traffic from pervs googling "hot blonde girl getting towel pulled off". Whatever gets me page hits, right? *uneasy fake laughter*
Ha!!! Love this story- one for the record books (blogs) for sure :) And screw Maggie, seriously.
ReplyDeleteDid you call poison control? Because that's what I did when my 18 month old ate my deodorant. (Not to harmful to kids.) And wheh he ate carpet shreds at church (who knows what they use to bind industrial carpet?! They were a little clueless on that one). And when he may or may not have swallowed a penny (not, but I didn't know!) while I was on the computer. (BAD MOM!) And when I had my second child and she spilled-then-sucked-on-the-nozzle of my curl enhancing spray (boy do they have a complete catalog of beauty product brands and ingredients at their finger tips! John Frieda has a high alcohol content, fyi). Had no idea if she sipped that one before spilling or not, but since she didn't get drunk or have booze breath, we concluded not. That's how I discovered she could untwist caps. Yup, I've made a few calls in my day...
ReplyDeleteThose ladies are the nicest, most non-judgmental people who follow up with you and help you as quick as a lick when you need it. If you need a pick me up, just call. They never called me a bad mom! (I took care of that myself!!)
Grace you make us laugh and your kids are great. One time my (very good mom) friend's kids locked themselves in a hotel room while the (the mom & dad) were next door with her parents. I think she had put them to bed but the 4 year old got up. They had to get the management and everything after the yell-through-the-door coaching didn't work. lol.
(FYI, I apparently didn't tip off the Poison Control 1-too-many-calls-referral-to-CPS radar - but I may have come very, very close.) :)