Tag: crazy

Trying to Recreate the Parent Trap IRL

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So, here’s a thing that happened.

It was 1998. A beautiful time of matching windbreakers over mom jeans and boy bands with frosted tips. 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Boyce had just blown everyone away in the school talent show by singing “My Heart Will Go On”. And while all the adults were laughing at There’s Something About Mary, the kids were all about Lindsay Lohan in the remake of Disney’s The Parent Trap.

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If you’ve never seen it, first off – shame on you because it’s a real treasure. Secondly, the idea is that two twins separated as babies by a divorce meet at a summer camp. After camp, they pretend to be each other in an effort to rekindle their parent’s love. To this day, my sister Natalie and I are still huge fans of both the old movie and the new movie. In fact, when it first came out we were so enchanted by it that we decided, Hey, let’s switch places…

Here’s the problem. Um… we look nothing like each other. I was a super blondie and Nat had really dark hair. We didn’t even really look like sisters, let alone twins. Also, we were three years apart. My sister was in the fifth grade and I was in second grade…

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Nevertheless, we were sure that this was a good plan.

We planned it out for weeks. We each had a notebook with tons of important tips jotted in them, where my desk was in the room, where I kept my markers, nick names I called my best friends so they would be none-the-wiser.

The day came and we went right to each others classrooms. Natalie went to second grade and I went to fifth. My sister, haha, recognized RIGHT AWAY that it wasn’t going to work. She stepped into class and the teacher was all like, “Can I help you?”. She just kinda shuffled back out the door, “Uh, no. I’m good.”

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I, on the other hand, was still so sure about this. The teacher had kind of the same reaction.

Teacher: Do you need something?

Me: Nope. I’m Natalie.

Teacher: …. wut?

Me: I’m Natalie.

All the other kids started laughing so hard! And they were big kids. And it was scary. So I started to cry. My sister’s teacher had to walk me back to my second grade classroom. Ah, man.

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Anyways, coincidentally! Utah Children’s Theatre in Salt Lake is putting on The Parent Trap. How fabulous is that? Doesn’t that sound like the most fun ever? Come and see it! Tickets and showtimes can be found at uctheatre.org I can’t even tell you how excited I am to check it out! I’m definitely bringing Natalie with me.

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What Does a Stay At Home Mom DO All Day?

valmanwill2 Comments
janice
*NOTE: Mothers who work full time are actually amazing and I admire their ability to balance that into their lives. But I DON’T ADMIRE mothers who shame other mothers and act like they are the superior beings. JANICE! This meme got me TRIGGERED

You stay at home with your kid all day? Liyke, what do you EVEN doooOOOOoooOOOoooo?

Seriously?

Alright, well, this is what my average day looks like:

8:30 Get him up and dressed.

Sometimes if I’m lucky, he’ll want to cuddle into me for a bit. I give him breakfast (which is usually waffles and cereal) and I put on Sesame street. While he’s distracted and buckled into his high chair I RUN, take a shower and get dressed for the day.

9:30 ‘No-screen-play-time’

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This is usually the second most exhausting time of the day. It involves a lot of going up and down the stairs, opening and slamming doors, jumping on the bed… I have to SECURELY HIDE my phone and remotes to pull off no screen time.

11:00 Probably caving into more screen time

Around this time I’m usually like, okay… let me destroy you with more TV. Jack LOVES music videos! So he’ll usually go for that. He likes Coldplay, OK GO, Fun, Fall Out Boy, selective Taylor Swift (he’s really picky about her stuff), weird viral music videos like Gangham Style and that Pineapple Pen song.

12:00 Lunchtime!

By now I’m usually giving him a hot dog or a sandwich OR BOTH. (He eats a lot). String cheese, veggies, maybe a cookie 😉 😉

1:00 Nap

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Finally! The glorious nap time! Jack is a good sleeper, so I can count on at least two to three hours. Sometimes he’ll fall asleep right away, sometimes I have to put him down like three or four times while he laughs at me.

This would be a good time to get cleaning done… you’re right. It would. BUT I try to reserve this time for writing. That way I’m working on it everyday and it’s just a way to ensure that mommy gets time for herself.

4:00 snack / hobbit dinner / outing

Like I said, he eats a TON. Dad doesn’t get home until later and I know that he won’t make it until then so I feed him when he wakes up. After he eats, this kid needs to GET OUT. Lately, it’s been freezing outside so it’s been hard finding things to do. Sometimes we visit someone. Sometimes we just straight up go to a toy store and run around. The afternoon outing is interchangeable with the morning playtime and I do that sometimes especially if grandma invites us out to lunch or something.

5:30 starting dinner, trying and failing to do a last minute clean before dad gets home

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This is the hardest part of the day. I’m running around like a zombie while Jack is pawing at my legs and crying because I’m not playing with him. Aaaargggh! Sometimes I leave my phone on the floor at my feet so he can have a go, but then he usually tries to video chat random contacts in my phone.

6:30 Dan is home and we have dinner together

I’m so glad when daddy comes home. Glad as I can be. We all have dinner together (including Jack whose hobbit dinner is wearing off by then).

7:15 Mommy needs to freaking LAY DOWN

Dad usually plays a game of Hide and Seek with Jack, (his favorite thing). When Dad is exhausted we have family time by watching a couple of Fail videos on YouTube which our little one year old is all about tbh.

8:15 Bedtime routine

Jack gets a bath. Jammies. A book that he picks out. His teeth brushed while he tries to push you away. Family prayer. A song. Tucked in.

8:30 Bedtime

Now Mommy and Daddy can binge watch Catfish and eat the ice cream that we didn’t want to share with our son.

THE END

 

Trapped by a Parade of 2,000 Naked Bicyclists (No Joke)

valmanwillLeave a comment

My parents had this fun incentive that every time one of their children graduated from high school, that graduate got to pick where we went for our summer vacation. And while the limit of my imagination was California, my little brother chose to go to Europe.

June 2014, we were in London: me, my immediate family, a couple of my brother’s friends and my then fiancee Daniel.

We were scheduled to tour the River Thames, which I was particularly excited for because we were going to float past the recreation of the Globe Theater. And, hey, Shakespeare is sorta my thing. I was even IN an award winning Shakespearean play that summer so *sniffs and tosses hair over both shoulders like a snob*.

I was in the hotel getting ready to leave. When Dan calls me from outside.

DAN: Hey… There’s something really weird going on out here.

VAL: Oh, yeah?

DAN: There’s a big crowd of people… I think it might be a protest or something…

DAN: … … You should come down here.

When my family and I stepped out of our hotel we were greeted by a huge crowd of butt naked people standing around with bikes.

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So I guess the World Naked Bicycle Ride is a thing. (Don’t click on that unless you want to see nudies. NSFW. You’ve been warned.)

Us kids had a pretty good laugh at it, as my conservative parents were trying to herd our wandering eyes down to our river boat tour. We were only one crosswalk away from the dock before we found out that the streets were completely closed off.

So here we were caught watching the craziest parade ever. Thousands of naked dangling bodies zipping by us. Some were on rental bikes, which was… not something I wanted to think about too hard.

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(You know. In a weird way it was a confidence booster. In our society we never really see any ‘average-looking’ naked people. If you feel like you don’t look that great naked. Hey. Neither does anyone else. And I’ve seen a small towns worth of naked people to know. Everyone’s got rolls and flab. Guys are pretty much the same size… well okay, there was one guy that was “particularly brave”.)

Anyways, my mom is SUPER pissed off that we can’t cross the street. We’re about to miss our river boat tour because we can’t get around this moving wall of butt-cracks on bicycles. She WIGS THE FREAK OUT and just FLIPPING steps out INTO the middle of the parade.

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The guy has to squeeze his hand break and like skidded on his bare feet to stop from hitting my mom. Four to five people behind him are swerving and stopping and almost falling over. I thought for sure I was about to see my mother buried by an avalanche of a$$. She’s like waving us all to cross the street after she had just created the most awkward pile up in history.

That was embarrassing AF, but we made the river tour.

I feel like I can count that as one of the craziest things that has ever happened to me. I mean seeing a thousand lil’ Johnsons in one day is up there. I post crazy stories every month now, so if you haven’t subscribed yet, you may want to consider it.