Not everything you need to know to raise a child is in a book. Little nuggets of Awesome are discovered, most by accident, through the years as your seed grows into a Real Live Human! being.

Many of these nuggets are found by stumbling through actual poo, sleepless nights, and all-day crying fits where you’re found in the corner in the fetal position with mouth corners of chocolate and an empty bottle of Xanax, wine, and/or both.

Yeah, sure there are oodles of websites, blogs, and message boards *shudder* dedicated to passing along information “the books don’t tell you,” but there are just some things other mothers don’t think are important enough to pass along.

I’m here for you.

My goal in life, besides World Domination, is to Spread Awesome. You are so welcome. Part of my job in Spreading Awesome is to inform new parents, friends of people who are parents, and veteran child rearers of all they need to know.

Things like…

When you are kicked out of your comfy bed that you’ve spent many nights making just right with YOUR butt imprint in just the right place and has YOUR smell and has YOUR high thread count sheets, TAKE YOUR PILLOW WITH YOU TO YOUR KID’S BED. Taking YOUR pillow to the short person’s bed will trick your sleep-deprived mind into thinking you’re fast asleep in your comfy, smells-like-you bed and not on your kid’s faint-scent-of-pee, rock-hard mattress.

When you think it’s time to move your toddler to the Big Kid Bed, it’s too early. No matter when you think it’s time, it’s too early. WAIT AS LONG AS POSSIBLE TO MOVE THE KID TO THE BIG KID BED. If it means keeping the kid in the crib til she’s 5, do it. Safety note because I feel compelled to put it here so you don’t go blaming me in a lawsuit: If your kid can climb out of the crib, try a canopy net. If the canopy net doesn’t work, move the kid to a bid kid bed, but do it regretfully and sigh a lot. I’m not suggesting you go all bloody steak Joan Crawford and strap your kid to the bed, but if you leash your kid at the mall, I’m sure you’ve thought of recreating Mommie Dearest to keep kiddie dearest in bed. Whatever safely and morally works for you.

TEACH YOUR KID TO WATCH TV. Enough said.

NEVER EVER NEVER BUY CRAPASS CDS LIKE “KIDS BOP.” Any music sung by children should be saved for that child’s parent and should never ever never be recorded for purchase. If you want your kids to be exposed to good music like Kings of Leon Owl City, Kelly Clarkson, or even the made-for-commercial-sell-out Black Eyed Peas, please just play the music as it was originally intended. You’re welcome.

Please use these simple, helpful Nuggets of Parenting Awesome in your child rearing life. I’ve failed in 1-out-of-4 times, so having a 75% success rate in my own parenting class, I’m giving myself a pass for my one fail.

I need some more tips no one else told you about that you had to find out on your own as you stumble through parenting. TELL ME, DEAR INTERNETS. What more do we need to know?

I’ve pretty much had only one goal in my life, and I achieved it pretty much exactly.

What that leaves me with is a lifetime of mindless living without goals.

Goals? I don’t haz* them.

Really. No goals.

Why? The only thing I can think of is that I don’t want to fail.

It goes along with the Lazy Perfectionist Theme to my life.

Why make a goal if it’s just going to fail and cause me strife and stress and depression and anxiety because I didn’t follow through?

No goals = No failure

The one and only set of very specific goals I can remember having was shorty after marrying my beloved (barf). I planned to get married, live a little married life having crazy young married sex anywhere we could and not have to schedule it because little people could walk in at any time, travel nowhere, buy a house, have a baby girl right away, then have another baby girl right away.

Goals? I achieved them.

Now? I don’t really know what should be sparkly lucky enough to catch my attention.

What else is there for me to set my sights upon?

The only specific goal I can think of: World Domination

Realistically?

Maybe just keeping a clean, organized home could be a goal.

For real, realistically?

I have absolutely NO idea other than to bathe at least every other day.

You can haz goals for me?

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(LOLspeak is stupid.)

Most people have a “most regrettable moment.”

Not me.

Except for all those times I used a credit card when I should have, said something really dumb, or said yes when I should have said no.

But specifically, that ONE regrettable moment?

Is an entire year.

I have a year of regret.

An entire year that has made me fat who I am today.

How, pray tel, does a year make me fat who I am today?

Let me be more cryptic specific.

The year after I graduated high school and before I met Patrick was a very exploratory year, and not the kind of exploration that required spelunking gear. Though it totally could have.

I wasn’t, we’ll say, focused on my school work. I was still living at home going to the local community college, but I really wasn’t home much. At 18, I was so friggin smart! and free! and a girl! and I was cute! and I had a job!

and I was HOT!

Oh, damns was I the shit. Long blond curly hair, size 28 men’s jeans shorts (they were cool back then), weighed 123 pounds cause when you weigh 123 pounds once you remember, had a cool new tattoo, and then another.

I was pretty much the one that brought all the boys to yard.

And they came for me.

I think a small part of me knew this, but a more conscious part of me just wanted the attention. That part of me ruled the rest of me. I was wanted.

Kind of like how I want freshly baked brownies right now.

Which brings me back to how that year made me fat today.

I met Patrick when we were both 18. We immediately stuck to each other and never let go. He loved me like no other guy had ever loved me. He respected me, he doted on me, he listened to me.

He didn’t want to let me go.

So I stayed. Thankfully.

He made me feel wanted. Special. Needed.

But I still noticed all the other boys in the yard. And they still noticed me.

To keep Patrick and to keep myself sane and to keep myself from making the other guys notice me, I subconsciously made myself fat.

Now, at 33, a mom, a wife, a woman. I’m not noticed. My husband loves me, I know this.

But subconsciously, I don’t want to be noticed because then, THEN, I might want them to be noticed.

Nobody notices a fat, 33 year old, mom, wife.

And, like that carton of milk in the back of my fridge with the expiration date of Sept 08, I just recently realized this.

Spoiled milk can become cheese, right? I’m pretty much the cheese.

mmmmm… cheese…