Parenting: You're doing it right

    Sorry folks. Not feeling very funny today.  But I won't leave you hanging.  Here's 10 parent's that are doing it right.

10. Darth Daddy

9. What's for dinner?

8. Superhero Dad

7. Teaching them mechanics at a young age

6. The classic "Get Along T-Shirt"

5. What little girl doesn't want to be a princess?

4. Annoying stick figure families? Not anymore! 

3. Tea party photoshoot

2. Motivating your children the right way.

1. Two words. HELLS. YES.

All the Mama Ladies by Mom-O-Tron Feat. Stephanie Ponting Barron (Single Ladies Parody)

Here's a little comedic relief for all those mama's out there who are just holding on by their coffees.

Special thanks to Stephanie for helping me when the lyrics just stopped making sense (I blame the lack of sleep)

Disclaimer: I'm not actually losing my sanity.

All the mama ladies, all the mama ladies,

All the mama ladies, all the mama ladies,

All the mama ladies, all the mama ladies,

All the mama ladies,

Now put your hands up!

Just woke up, coffee in ma cup, doing my own little thing,

Baby is asleep, don’t make a peep

Wish I knew what it was like to get sleep.

Nap time is here, attempt number three,

Don’t pay me any attention.

Just cried my tears, from nap time fears,

Is she going to go down easily?

Chorus

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m going mad cause my baby won’t sleep through it

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m going mad cause my baby won’t sleep through it

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

Weight is here to stay, aint goin' away,

Got me tight in my old pair of jeans,

No time to eat; grab a small piece of meat,

Oh how nice it would be to have a seat,

Where did I put that?

Did I mention, don’t pay me any attention?

My memory is dirt, spit up on my shirt,

Oh the mommy life was made for me.

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m going mad cause my baby won’t sleep through it

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m going mad cause my baby won’t sleep through it

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

Oh, the past three months are a blur,

I’m so in love with her,

My love is what she deserves; it’s how she will learn.

Here's a girl that takes me, she makes me
Motherhood is my destiny, to infinity and beyond,

Pull her into my arms, speak with a gentle tone,

If I don’t, I’ll be alone, cause before I know she'll be grown

All the mama ladies, all the mama ladies,

All the mama ladies, all the mama ladies,

All the mama ladies, all the mama ladies,

All the mama ladies,

Now put your hands up,

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m going mad cause my baby won’t sleep through it

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

I’m going mad cause my baby won’t sleep through it

I’m about to lose my sanity bit by bit

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

What pregnancy does to your tattoo

A common question I've received since getting pregnant and giving birth is: "What has it done to your tattoo?! I bet it stretched it, didn't it?"

No.  But what it did do was add some beautiful character by displaying stretch marks throughout my guitar.  I suppose it could be worse. They say a tattoo is really only ruined after the second or third child.  My future children will owe me big time.

Here's a short timeline of what my poor, poor tattoo has been through through-out the past year. I guess when I take a better look at it, it has stretched a little bit.  But it still looks great.  It just looks a little... Bass-y now.  That's all.

Yes, I am shamefully still wearing maternity shorts.

Mamma-out.

What not to do when making a Batmobile

    Once upon a long time ago, I was browsing Pinterest (Or something equivalent to a-place-for-artists-to-steal-ideas-from-artists) and I came across a cute upcycle project (See >here<, or >here<, or >here<, or... you get the point).  I promptly re-pinned so that I too, could steal the idea later, and then I totally forgot about it.

    Fast forward a few years to when I have my very own child and would love to provide their first bat-mobile. My dad comes home with a Cozy Coupe car to sell in our second hand shop. I obviously wasn't going to waste any time. The world had spoken.  That was the day I was to steal the Bat-mobile project.

    I've never done anything like this before, and I obviously didn't look up the instructions, because I'm a completely competent stubborn person.  Thus, I had to iron out the kinks all by myself, through various mistakes that has costed me money and time.  I know that everyone reading this wishes to one day create their child's very own bat-mobile (Who are we kidding? We're trying to grasp at the last string of our own inner child.  If only I could fit into the cozy coupe...) so when that time comes, I want you to think back to this blog post and not do all the things that I did.

    Let's start.  The first thing you're going to not want to do is not clean the batmobile.  This means that when you stand back and take a look at it right before you begin, and you think "Damn, that's a lot of mud all up in this shit" and then immediately think "The Windex is all the way in the garage." and then decide that you don't need to wash it, then just stop right there. Turn around.  Go get the Windex and a rag, and clean the cozy coup/batmobile.  Because when you start spraying your spray paint all over that bad boy, you're going to wish you had washed it from the get go. And then you're going to wash it anyway.  And then the black spray paint is going to smudge everywhere cause you're an impatient mess.  And this brings me to my second point.

    Do not use regular spray paint.  I was so excited to begin the Bat-mobile that I didn't even consider driving to the hardware store and checking out their spray paint selection.  I got a ratty old can from the garage (Next to the Windex and rag that I had earlier decided was too far to retrieve.) of black spray paint and started spraying the muddy bat-mobile.  It was looking pretty good, even after I'd smudged it all with my rag and windex.  But I couldn't stop thinking to myself "Damn, don't they make spray paint for plastic stuff? Its 2013, man." and kept spraying.  It also began to rain right about that point.  I ran my bat-mobile onto the deck and out of the rain.  It rained for about 3 days straight (Thanks Montreal), and by the end of the storms the cozy coup/bat-mobile had already started to chip.  I surrendered to my stubborn ways and googled a quick tutorial on how to make a bat-mobile. What do you know? They make spray paint for plastic.  I ran out and bought some, but who's to say if "plastic bonding" spray paint will bond to regular spray paint.  One can only hope.

    While we're at it, don't just jump into the project without planning something.  If I had sat down for even a nanosecond to think about what this project entailed or even how I was going to carry it out, I'd probably already be finished.  Halfway through spray painting it black, I realized that I also wanted to spray some parts yellow.  The parts that I intended to spray yellow were now black.  I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with spray paint, but yellow on black doesn't go over very well.  It was back to the drawing board.  I went through a few kinks like this.  I decided that since I was about to pull my hair out, I was just going to spray paint the whole thing black.  I could worry about the yellow after.

    Finally, don't use vinyl sticker to create your stencil.  It seemed like a great idea at the time.  I had even put some thought into it! I cut out the batman emblem in the vinyl sticker and spray painted the yellow over it so that it would peel off beautifully and - VOILA! My batmobile would be completed.  Unfortunately the jokes on me.  Even though I had used my trusty "bonds-to-plastic-not-to-spray-paint" spray paint, when I pulled off the sticker, a bunch of nice big chunks of black spray paint came off to reveal the dreaded red undercoat of the cozy coupe.  Oyoyoy.

    Alas, my cozy coupe batmobile sits on my deck awaiting me to finish it.  I'll return to it eventually (Shortly, because it has been purchased by someone) and this time, I'll be relying on the internet to guide me through the process.  At least I did something right.  Check out these killer rims.

    Interested in doing your own Cozy Coupe upcycle? Visit this blogger to see how she did it (And similarly seemed to struggle on it too! Phew, I'm not alone.)

New Super Mario Bros. 2 for Nintendo 3DS stinks and here's why

    Guess what I did three days ago? On a whim, I ran out and bought a new Nintendo 3DS XL.  What a hit to my wallet.  I also bought three games with it. Zelda, Brain Age, and - Super Mario Bros. 2.  "I'll take that one," I said to the Walmart employee, to which he cheered about how good it was.  Obviously this reinforced how excited I was to play it.

    I grew up playing Super Mario World, which was the bomb, so I was sure I was in for a treat.  I got home, put my baby to bed, fell onto my couch and popped the game in (Oh, also, /gasp, I didn't charge the 3DS before I turned it on like recommended in the information booklet.  #yolo) and started playing.  At first I was too distracted with the amazing 3D screen, and the fact that I was playing a DS, when mere hours earlier I was playing Candy Crush on my "measly" iPhone (And by measly, I mean still awesome and expensive.. but not an actual video game system) (By the way, a 3DS is a great way to break the CC addiction) But the more I played, the more I noticed major flaws in the game.  Okay, not so major.  But they stink. And here's why:

    1. "Lives" are a dime a dozen.
Seriously.  It doesn't matter how many times you die.  You know why? Cause you get 5 freaking lives for every level you play.  I remember when I would play Super Mario World, I'd have maximum 8 lives.  I even remember returning to some levels because I knew they had lives in them, and I needed some.  It gave you a reason to go back.  Guess how many lives I have in Super Mario Bros. 2? 104.  I can die one hundred freaking times before I need to search for new lives.  Which I wont have to.  You know why? Yup - because the next level is going to spoon feed me 5 lives anyway!

    2. It's really short.
Did I mention I bought my 3DS three days ago? I'm already halfway through the game.  Compared to Super Mario World (Can I just call it SMW and SMB2 from now on? Too bad, I'm doing it anyway) where I would probably still have 85-90% of the game to go after 3 days, that's pretty stinky. Let us remember that I'm a new mom. I basically have about 2 or three hours that I really get to sit down and play the DS, and I'm also switching between Brain Age and Zelda.  That leaves me about an hour of SMB2.  And I'm 50% through? Whaaaat.

    3. It's nearly impossible to struggle.
The first time it happened I thought it was pretty cool.  Mostly because I'd never seen it before.  It was a striped golden leaf - you know, the thingy that makes you fly (Ignore my super technical jargon).  It was after I'd lost a level probably about three times.  At the beginning of the level there was the golden leaf awaiting me in the trusty little box.  It looked like this:

    Upon further research it appears to be called an invincibility leaf.  It sounds basically like what it is.  The game basically said, "Shit, this momma sucks at this level.  Lets make it impossible for her to lose." And with that, I started my level.  The first time I should have died by accidentally hitting a Kooper, instead of me dying, the Kooper died instead.  What the f-. As I progressed through my level I realized that I could also walk on water, and nothing could kill me.  It was such a boring level, and I instantly felt like a 7 year old playing a video game who was handed a freebie because I stunk.

    4. The whole game itself is not very challenging.

Maybe it's just because I'm older now.  In fact, every one of these points could be because I'm older.  The game feels shorter.  It feels easier.  It IS easier because I've grown.  However I like to believe the that original SMW was still relatively challenging.  In SMB2, I can beat a boss in under 1 minute.  Give me a few seconds, even.  In SMW I often had to fight a boss at least twice, even if it was just from human error (like falling into lava - doh) 

    5. Finally, and most importantly: Where the hell is Yoshi?

I don't really think I need to elaborate on this one.  Maybe I'm behind the loop - did Yoshi go on strike, and separate from Mario? I miss flying in the sky, and hatching eggs, and - aaah, nostalgia.

    I will continue playing this God awful game until the end, just to get my money's worth.  But I wish it was better.  In the mean time - I will probably continue to buy every and all Super Mario games.  You win this time, Nintendo.

Tell me, viewers (or lack there-of): If you've played this game, did you enjoy it? What are some other 3DS games you can recommend to me?

(On a side note, my wonderful daughter decided to have the loudest, smelliest, most-resembling-grown-up-diarrhoea right as the cute Walmart employee was selling me my 3DS.  Imagine the horror upon my face as I try to explain that "I'm not farting, it's my daughter, I swear!")

Momma - out.