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  Praise for

  Leanne Shirtliffe and Don’t Lick the Minivan

  “Leanne Shirtliffe is awesome and so is this book. I’m bad at writing blurbs.”

  —Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess), New York Times bestselling author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened

  “Toddler diarrhea and newborn vomit aren’t all that entertaining, but somehow when Leanne Shirtliffe writes about it, it’s laugh-out-loud funny. I swear, she’s living in my house and taking notes. Actually, I wish she were—we’d have a freaking blast together.”

  —Jill Smokler, New York Times bestselling author of

  Confessions of a Scary Mommy

  “When you become a parent, conversations start to sound more like a game of Mad Libs than anything actually sane. In the laugh=out-loud book Don’t Lick the Minivan, Leanne Shirtliffe shares the funniest phrases she never thought she’d say. Hands down, the best book with the phrase ‘He looks like a human Pez dispenser’ I’ve read all year!”

  —Kristen Pomranz, Editor, Nickelodeon’s NickMom.com

  “Leanne Shirtliffe has a sharp eye for the little moments of insanity that make up the modern parenting experience. Also, she’s super funny and the chapters are short enough to read in the four minutes you’re allowed in the bathroom each day.”

  —Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, bestselling author of

  Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay and

  Naptime Is the New Happy Hour

  “Forget about the darndest things that kids say, it’s what comes out of our own mouths when we become parents that’s the real shocker. Leanne has a way of making us see the humor in the exchanges we have with our kids, our friends, and most importantly, ourselves. Her quick and witty writing style is the perfect antidote for all moms suffering through life’s most unfunny moments with our kids.”

  —Kathy Buckworth, author of Shut Up and Eat and The

  BlackBerry Diaries

  “Leanne Shirtliffe has written a side-splitting and thoughtful take on life with twins. As a humor writer, a parent, and a twin myself, this book had me laughing and thinking, then laughing again, long after I finished it. If you’re into public fits of hysterics, try reading this book on a subway or bus, and prepare for strange looks from fellow passengers.”

  —Terry Fallis, author of The Best Laid Plans and

  winner of both The Stephen Leacock Award for

  Humour and Canada Reads 2011

  “Leanne Shirtliffe provides a heartfelt, honest, and hilarious journey through parenthood in this high-flying family love letter, cautionary how-to, and what’s-got-to-be-a-pro-vasectomy screed. After achieving Zen through laughter, you’ll wish you were her, be glad you’re not, and order two more shots.”

  —Jeff Kreisler, writer for Comedy Central and

  author of the bestselling Get Rich Cheating

  “From forgetting your kid’s . . . um . . . name, to packing an ‘eco-friendly lunch’ (by de-plasticizing the individually wrapped cheese sticks at home), this book had me realizing: All us parents are partners in absurdity. And that’s a good thing!”

  —Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe

  Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)

  AND OTHER THINGS I NEVER THOUGHT

  I’D SAY TO MY KIDS

  LEANNE SHIRTLIFFE

  SKYHORSE PUBLISHING

  Parts of this book have been taken or adapted from the author’s blog, IronicMom.com.

  Copyright © 2013 by Leanne Shirtliffe

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, educational purposes, or Colin Firth groupies. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Shirtliffe, Leanne.

  Don’t lick the minivan, and other things I never thought I’d say to my kids /

  Leanne Shirtliffe.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-62087-526-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Parenting--Humor. I.

  Title.

  PN6231.P2S55 2013

  818’.607--dc23

  2012047599

  Printed in the United States of America

  For C and VW,

  You three make me laugh like no one else.

  Thank you.

  For my children’s future therapist(s),

  You’re welcome.

  “Having a baby is like suddenly

  getting the world’s worst roommate,

  like having Janis Joplin

  with a bad hangover and PMS

  come to stay with you.”

  ~Anne Lamott

  “There are two things in life

  for which we are

  never truly prepared:

  twins.”

  ~Josh Billings

  CONTENTS

  Introduction: A Rambling Preamble, or How This Came to Be

  A word to the reader, or more precisely, 452 words to the reader

  Get that train off your penis

  Part One: Pregnancy and Birth, or Is This Really Happening?

  So the accountant got her aunt to do some woo-woo on our unborn babies?

  We’re in trouble if our doctor doesn’t know how women do it

  You thought telling me I have good stats for a football player would be funny?

  Do you think it’s heretical if I refer to myself as the Trinity?

  Why do so many people say stupid things to pregnant women?

  Can you imagine if Tarantino made a film about pregnancy and birth?

  The Sappy Files, Part 1 (or Why My Kids’ Future Therapists Should Be Kind)

  Part Two: The First Twelve Months, or The I-Barely-Remember Year

  Please take these crying things away

  Follow that car. My babies are in there

  Can you stop selling boob-show passes to our guests?

  Do you think they dropped our babies into a big vat of soup?

  You spit at the taxi driver while pushing the stroller?

  How long were those drunken women holding our babies?

  We travel with our own dual airbags

  I’m screwing up our kids

  We’re scarring them for life

  The Sappy Files, Part 2 (or Why My Kids’ Future Therapists Should Believe I’m Somewhat Sane)

  Part Three: The Toddler Years, or Reasons to Start a Therapy Fund

  We need to outwit, outlast, outnumber our kids

  I’m swearing my way to cleanliness

  Would you put your penis away?

  Mommy will sneeze like Donald Duck if you pick up your toys

  You don’t need clothes to be a dancer

  The Sappy Files, Part 3 (or Why My Son’s Future Therapists Should Adore Him)

  Part Four: Preschool, or Who Taught You That?

  Eating kids’ Halloween candy is a community service

  We can use the money from the kids’ account to pay the credit card bill

  Did you pee on Minnie Mouse on purpose?

  You
can buy a baby at the hospital

  It’s not an ice cream truck, it’s a vegetable truck

  Hop on Pop, if you know what I mean

  Who told you that you should breathe through your mouth when daddies poo?

  The Sappy Files, Part 4 (or Why My Kids’ Future Therapists Should Believe I Don’t Need to Be Committed. Yet.)

  Part Five: Kindergarten, or Why I Had a Breakdown

  I put the mental in environmental

  A homeless princess and a lion preparing for a flood, excellent choice of costumes

  Her puke ruined the new car smell

  Did you actually lick the tire?

  Do you want to come to Stripper Barbie’s funeral?

  If you can’t stop laughing, think of something sad, like dead puppies

  I can’t cope anymore

  The Sappy Files, Part 5 (or Why My Daughter’s Future Therapists Should Adore Her)

  Part Six: Beyond Kindergarten, or Putting the Fun in Dysfunction

  Stop using your straw to suck up spaghetti

  You can’t shoot people in church

  He put the hose down the vent and turned on the water

  The next time you come out of that room, you’d better be bleeding

  I love the sound of vacuuming up LEGO in the morning

  I’ll smuggle some Pinot Grigio in the kids’ water bottles

  The Sappy Files, Part 6 (or Why My Kids’ Therapists Should Have a Drink, Unless They’re Alcoholics, in Which Case Don’t. Blame. Me.)

  The Post-Amble, or The Sappy-File Finale

  The Final Sappy File (or Why I Need to Laugh)

  Acknowledgments, or People I Didn’t Forget to Thank

  Resources, or High Tech-y Stuff

  Index, or A Completely Unhelpful but Accurate Classification

  INTRODUCTION

  A Rambling Preamble, or

  How This Came to Be

  A WORD TO THE READER, OR MORE PRECISELY,

  452 WORDS TO THE READER

  Don’t Lick the Minivan is a work of nonfiction that my brain believed to be true when I wrote it. Keep in mind that this same brain once believed that alligators lived in toilet bowls on the Canadian Prairies.

  If characters in Don’t Lick the Minivan bear any similarities to my husband or twins, it’s not a coincidence. Some names have been changed, mostly in the Acknowledgments.

  A small portion (think the size of a Polly Pocket purse before you’re about to vacuum it up) of the content of this book appeared on my blog back when my mom and that guy in California were the only ones who read it regularly. An even smaller portion appeared on a friend’s blog.

  Many nonfiction books start with a section entitled “How to Use This Book”; so does this one. Here are Ten (+ 1) Ways How to Use Don’t Lick the Minivan:

  1. Read it, especially after your kids have licked or carved their names into your minivan.

  2. Use it as a paperweight for either your child’s art projects or your unpaid bills.

  3. If you hate saccharine reflections on how changed women are because of motherhood, skip “The Sappy Files” at the end of each chapter.

  4. If you like saccharine reflections on how changed women are because of motherhood, read only “The Sappy Files” (don’t worry—you’ll be done in five minutes so you can get back to scrapbooking your child’s first and second bowel movements).

  5. Throw this book at your husband if he tells you that you have the stats of an NFL football player. (Note: If you bought the e-reader version, disregard.)

  6. If you have anxiety, insomnia, or depression, put the book down. Call a friend and your doctor. Once you assemble your team, feel free to read this book. Or not. I understand.

  7. If you’re thinking of having kids, skim the book. You might as well have a sense of what’s in store for you, including how hard it is to pee after a C-section.

  8. If you’re debating scheduling a vasectomy, you might as well be sure. Skim the book, and then make the call.

  9. Place Don’t Lick the Minivan on your bookshelf so that the cover is facing out. You’ll need to fill the space after you throw out your how-to-parent-like-an-expert books.

  10. If you’re doing a master’s degree in psychology, peruse Don’t Lick the Minivan. You’re going to need to know how to counsel my kids.

  11. Finally, if you’ve ever told your daughter to stop licking the minivan or your son (or husband) to get the train off his penis, this book is for you.

  GET THAT TRAIN OFF YOUR PENIS

  There are some people who think kids say the cutest things. I’m not one of them. I mostly block out what my twins say because it’s the only way to get some silence. But occasionally I do tune in, and what I hear shocks me. It’s not so much what my kids say—it’s what comes spewing out of my own mouth.

  Like the time I said, “Get that train off your penis.”

  It was a typical enough I-need-a-nanny-or-booze hour. I whizzed around the kitchen packing lunches for Earth Week, which, as the preschool memo dictated, meant litter-less. Nothing like taking a horrible task and making it harder. I started unwrapping granola bars.

  “Get ready for your bath,” I yelled. In our house, this once was an invitation to get naked and run around with arms waving.

  Before I could place two freed-from-plastic cheese sticks into containers, my twins had stripped and begun dancing in the living room, two bare butt kids doing a leprechaun jig while singing, “We’re naked, we’re naked, we’re naked.”

  When Vivian and William clasped hands in a Ring-Around-the-Rosie move, visions of pagan rituals à la Stonehenge flashed through my mind.

  “Get upstairs,” I hollered, trying to shove eight Tupperware containers into a single lunch box. One druid listened.

  After I crammed the lunches into our fridge, I looked into the now silent living room and saw a bare leg near the toy table. I walked over and found William gripping his Thomas the Tank Engine firmly in hand.

  “Get that train off your penis.”

  I blinked away images of Sir Topham Hatt leering around the corner.

  And that was the moment. The moment when I realized there may be a lot of crap that comes out of your kids’ butts, but when you’re a parent, almost as much comes out of your mouth.

  Better get the shovel.

  PART ONE

  PREGNANCY AND BIRTH, OR IS

  THIS REALLY HAPPENING?

  SO THE ACCOUNTANT GOT HER AUNT TO DO

  SOME WOO-WOO ON OUR UNBORN BABIES?

  When I got knocked up, my husband Chris and I had been living in Thailand for three years, teaching at an international school. It took what seemed to be the majority of our first year in Southeast Asia for me to find someone who could cut my hair so that it didn’t look like I’d been welding while standing in a bathtub full of water. Bangkok’s humidity meant that pieces of my hair flipped in every compass direction, like they were trying to escape my head.

  I found a woman with curlier and nicer hair than mine.

  “Who does your hair?” I asked.

  “Franck.”

  Soon, I hunted down Franck, a French expat living in Bangkok whose name rhymed with “honk.” Franck knew how to cut hair, even if his methods were unorthodox. For part of the appointment, he’d sit on his stool-with-wheels and encircle you, not unlike a kid who’s discovered his parents’ twirly office chair. For the end of the haircut, he’d rise and ask you to stand up, finishing off his magic while standing.

  He had a good thing going. He charged Parisian prices in a developing country; desperate and frizzled expatriates emptied money from their wallets. After I became his client, a dozen of my colleagues followed.

  I’d been seeing Franck for three years when my love for him temporarily faded.

  “Allo, Leanne,” he said, holding the last syllable of my name as French men do. He was always good-natured. Then I watched as his eyes squinted at me, bringing me into focus against the blinding Thai sun.

  He walked over. �
��Your hairrr,” he said. “Your hairrr look like sheet.”

  “What?” I said, even though I’d heard perfectly well. “My hair does not look like sheet, does it?”

  “Ah. But it does. It look like sheet. Who cut deess?”

  “You did.”

  “Non. Not I. I did not cut deess.” He inspected the ends.

  “You did. Two months ago.”

  “Some-ting happened den. Tell Franck de trute.” He led me to his chair, which might have been electrified given what just transpired.

  “Seet,” he said. “And tell me.”

  I sat. “Well, I’m pregnant.”

  “Aha. So dat eez it. Dat explains it.”

  “It does?”

  “Bien sur. Your hair look like sheet because you’re pregnant. De body changes. De hair changes.”

  “But I thought your hair was supposed to look better when you’re pregnant.”

  “Ahh, Leanne. Most women, yes. But you? Non.”

  Parenting Tip: Avoid looking in the mirror during pregnancy. Denial is an excellent strategy that will help you once your child is born.

  “Can you make me look less like sheet?”

  “I try,” he said. He must have noticed my pout. “But pregnancy is good, Leanne, non?”

  “It’s good, Franck. It’s good.”

  He motioned for his assistant to wash my hair.

  “But please don’t tell anyone,” I said. “Other than my husband, you’re the only one who knows.”

  “Leanne, I won’t tell anyone your hair look like sheet.”

  “No, Franck,” I said. “Don’t tell anyone I’m pregnant. No one knows.”

  Franck smiled. “Pas de problem.”

  There are things that turn my stomach more than a French man telling me I look like sheet and more than pregnancy. But being knocked up is still high on my list. It’s not so much the pregnancy; it’s my memory of being pregnant with twins in Thailand.

  While Bangkok might be called the City of Angels, it sometimes felt more like the City of Smells. The spectrum of stenches presented a multitude of problems for pregnant me, not the least of which was eating fried rice without upchucking refried rice. I stumbled along the sidewalks, climbing two-foot curbs and dodging vendors who were hawking a variety of smelly goods ranging from deep-fried bugs to papaya with chilies. If those didn’t turn my stomach, the hawkers promising pirated Celine Dion CDs or sex would.