I’ve Moved!

The Newborn Identity can now be found here: http://thespohrsaremultiplying.com/newborn-identity/

My Wife Is Da Bomb, Yo!!!!

Today is my wonderful wife’s 29th birthday. Her last year has been very hard as those of you who follow her blog know, and yet she always continues to be the beacon of sunshine in this pessimists’ life. I admire her so much for how she always chooses to love people no matter what. Even when I am like, “Babe, he/she is a moron!” she will scrunch up her nose and explain to me how that person has value, and you know what? She is always right.

In order to honor Heather upon entering her final year of youth (’cause yeah, it’s all down hill after thirty…I know from experience) I thought I’d make a list of but a few of the reasons why I love her. Feel free to add some in the comments section if you like, but here are mine:

After I feed Maddie in the middle of the night she always says, “I love you,” as I get back under the sheets.

She can do a funny dance that never fails to make me crack a smile.

She is the cutest woman I have ever seen…and other things too.

She is a really good singer.

Sometimes she will sing one of the songs I’ve written as she gets ready in the morning and it makes me really happy.

She changes her hair a lot, but I always think it looks awesome no matter what.

She was the prettiest bride of all time.

She checked out of the hospital against doctors orders to see Maddie when we were told our daughter wasn’t going to make it. Watching her come off the elevator and lead me into the NICU that day was the closest I have ever come to living within a “movie” scene.

She understands baseball.

She likes baseball!

When she comes home and I am watching a Giants’ game she never makes me turn it off until it is over. This may be two hours of waiting even, and when some random dude like Brian Horwitz hits a homer she will smile and say something factual like, “Wow. He just got called up, didn’t he?” even if she doesn’t give a schizzat. (NOTE: Ladies, take notice of this one! This one is very appreciated!)

If there is something I want to do that she REALLY doesn’t want to do, she will organize a day where I can go do this thing.

I am half Portuguese, and once when I visited her in New York (where she used to live) she took me to a Portuguese restaurant to eat the kind of food I hadn’t had for the twenty years since my grandparents passed.

She has truly beautiful eyes that I am so stoked she has passed on to Maddie.

She loves her friends so much she would do anything for them. This amazes me and impresses me. It’s like that Australian joke where a couple guys are out in the bush and one gets bit by a snake on his weiner while peeing. The other friend races to town where the doc tells him that the only way his friend will survive is if he sucks the venom out of his friend’s penis. Upon returning to his friend his friend asks, “What did the doctor say?” The first guy responds, “Sorry, mate. He says you’re going to die.” Dudes laugh at that joke. Heather, however, would suck out the venom. Heather is a great friend. Note to Heather…if it was one of your girfriends who got bit on the chaach you can save her and tell me about it later. If it was a dude…please let him die.

She always looks to me before making a decision…not in a creepy 1950s patriarchal way, but in a “I love my my husband and respect him so I will get his opinion” sort of way. This doesn’t mean she always does what I say, in fact she rarely does, but she does listen to my advice first no matter what which is appreciated.

She admires me (and I admire her.)

She has never said a direct insult to me. She will tell me she is disapointed in me, but never directly insult me. To some this may seem unimpressive, but to others this will seem VERY impressive.

She is funny (how did I not get to this earlier?)

There is a friend of a friend who always kept saying she wanted to meet a “good egg.” She’s now engaged, so I hope she has, but I must say, I am married to the definition of a “good egg.” Honestly, she is an amazing person, and I love her.

Happy Birthday, Smokey!

More Crazy Mama Stories!!!

Okay. So I totally don’t want to turn this site into a “My Mom Is Crazy” blog, especially since www.mymomiscrazy.com is already taken, but based on the comments on my last post it seems people need to vent on the subject. I’m totally cool with doing that…after all…my awesome baby daughter can’t talk, roll over, or eat solid foods, so it should come as no surprise that the best material I have about her of late is that I helped her move her bowels with a thermometer. (Yes, I will blog about that in the future…poor kid.)

In the meantime though let’s talk crazy parents! I will tell you a couple more vignettes from “The Wacky World Of The Newborn Identity’s Mama” before handing the reigns over to you guys.  And I better hear some outlandish stories, especially since many of you commented that you were certain your Mom is crazier than mine!

One quick thing before we get started. The following image isn’t an actual a photo of my Mom, but it makes the stories better if you imagine it is.

Okay…let’s start with another traumatizing birthday party anecdote. (Note to self: Keep Mom away from all birthday parties Maddie is ever invited to.)

One Saturday during the fifth grade my mother told me I could invite my buddy over to play.

“That’s okay,” I replied as I played Sonic the Hedgehog. “He’s at Kevin Chan’s birthday party.”

“Why aren’t you?” she asked, offended.

“I’m not really friends with Kevin,” I replied as Sonic fell off a cliff. My Mom nodded and left the room.

Half an hour later Mom hurried back into the room, breathless. “You won’t believe who just called!  Kevin’s Mom!”

I hit pause and eyed my Mom, surprised. “Kevin’s mom?  Why?”

“Well, it turns out she forgot to mail your invitation to the party.”

“I was supposed to be invited?” 

“Yeah!” my Mom said, all chipper-like. ”So turn that game off and let’s get you over there!” 

Upon arriving at Kevin’s house I was taken to the backyard where Kevin and his friends were playing basketball.

“Hey, Kevin! Happy Birthday!” I said as I shook his hand.

“Hey,” Kevin replied, barely audibly, before turning back to his friends and dribbling.

“Can I play too?” I asked. Kevin sighed and share annoyed looks with his friends as his Mom came running over.

“Of course you can play, Mike,” she said.

Kevin’s face turned red. “But that would make it six on five!”

Kevin’s mom stared at Kevin a long time before saying, “Kevin. You know what we talked about.”

Anyway, the party went on like this…every game featured unevenly matched teams, the cake had to be cut into smaller pieces to accomodate me, and the gift bags had to be taken apart and reassembled with less candy in each in order to make one more. Slowly but surely I started to realize something was wrong.

Toward the end of the party kids were taking turns riding Kevin’s new bicycle. When it was my turn Kevin reluctantly let me take a ride. Unfortunately, after about fifty feet or so I wiped out and slammed into the ground. As I sat up, bleeding from my arm, Kevin ran over and lifted his new bike. It was scratched. 

“I hate you, Mike!” screamed Kevin, going ballistic.

“You hate me?” I asked with tears welling in my eyes as I clutched my bleeding arm.

Kevin glared at me with dead eyes. “What are you even doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t invite you! Your stupid Mom called and yelled at mine for leaving you out, so my Mom made me invite you, but I don’t want you here!”

Kevin turned and wheeled his bike toward the house. The rest of his friends sent me disgusted looks before following Kevin. I got up and went to wait outside. There was an hour or so of the party left, but I wasn’t about to go back inside, so I just waited on the curb, bleeding, until my Mom finally picked me up. Good times.

On to story #2!

A few years later my Mom was petrified that I was going to get a girl knocked up in high school. (Never mind that I hadn’t even kissed a girl yet and was a junior in high school…Wait. Did I just admit that?)

Anyhoo…there was this Italian girl we will call Jenna (good fake name, huh, BHJ?) who I was smitten with, and, after weeks of nervous deliberation, I finally asked her out. She said yes and I was stoked. My Mom, on the other hand, was not.

“You better not have sex with this girl!” Mom yelled at me after I told her I had a date. “You don’t want to ruin your life like (insert the name of five or six of my cousins who impregnated girls as teens).” I promised her I was different and that she had nothing to worry about.

The day of the big date I waved goodbye to my parents and drove over to pick up Jenna. She looked great when she exited her house, and, as we drove to see “Reality Bites,” we had a really good conversation.

“Yes!” I thought as I pulled into parking lot of the movie theater. “This awesome chick is totally into me! She’s going to be my first kiss, I just know it! Maybe even my first girlfriend! Man life is good!”

I hopped out of the car and ran around to the other side to open Jenna’s door. As Jenna got out, however, my heart sank. Everything turned to slow motion like in a movie right before someone gets shot. Charging across the parking lot was none other than my Mom clutching a jacket.

“Hi, honey!” Mom said as she stopped in front of me and Jenna. “You forgot your jacket!”

“Thanks,” I mumbled as I took the jacket and prayed Jenna didn’t find this weird even though it was nearly summer.

“Wait,” Jenna asked, finding it very weird. “Your Mom came all the way from home just to give you a jacket?”

“Oh, no!” my Mom said. “I was just out and about and saw you kids, and well, I thought I’d give Mike his jacket.”

It was then it dawned on me that a car very similar to my Mom’s had been trailing mine ever since I’d left home.

“I’m Kathy by the way!” my Mom said as she offered her hand. Jenna listlessly shook it as my Mom looked her up and down.

“You two be careful okay?” Mom said. “Don’t get into any trouble like some of these teenagers do today. You know…with drugs, teen pregnancy -”

“Mom!” I shouted.

“Alright, honey,” my Mom cooed as if I was being silly. ”I said my piece. Have fun!” She then started back to her car.

I looked over at Jenna who was less than happy. The rest of the date was very awkward and Jenna barely said a word to me. Needless to say she wasn’t my first kiss or any other.

Okay, folks. Now it’s your turn!

And just to get us started, here is a certainly traumatic comment the kick-ass Maya left on my last post: “I once saved a week’s worth of allowance to buy a toy through the mail. I gave my mom the cash and the envelope and waited for ups. Ups came, but always for my brother. My 8 year old self waited on that porch for that doll for months. My mom said it would come. One day as I was searching for candy in my mom’s purse, I came across the envelope. It was empty and was never sent. How sad is that?”

Pretty sad, Maya! 

Alright, everybody. Let’s hear your most horrendous crazy parent stories!

EDITED TO ADD: Feisty Charlie came up with a great idea to let the readers vote for CRAZIEST PARENT (because I’m dying to hear about The Bloggess’ crazy dad)!!! All you have to do to submit your parent is tell a crazy parent story. You can leave it as a comment here, or write it on your own blog with a link back here (and leave a comment below linking to your post. Get your submissions in by midnight on June 28th. I will then make a subsequent post where I list all of the nominees and ask the readers to vote for MOST CRAZY PARENT!!! The child who went through the worst torture will be sent a gift which in no way will make up for a crap childhood, but will be better than nothing!