Awkward Moments

Mother Of The Year

April 2, 2013 By Kayla Aimee

This year I took Scarlette to her first ever Easter egg hunt. She was getting a bit tired after all of the festivities so while her older cousins were off doing some of the events for big kids, I took her down to the toddler playground. She had never sat in an open swing before and was having a ton of fun practicing pumping her legs. After a good ten minutes of pushing her, I snapped these two pictures on my cell phone to send to my husband who was stuck in the office over the weekend.

I went back to pushing her on the swing with one hand while texting the photos to J with the other when apparently I got a little overzealous and PUSHED MY DAUGHTER OUT OF THE SWING.

That’s right. I pushed my two year old daughter out of the swing, where she landed face first in the dirt.

GIVE ME ALL THE PARENTING AWARDS.

I didn’t even realize that she was falling until I heard a collective gasp from the playground benches where a group of parents were gathered. I looked up to see one woman raise her eyebrows and another a hand to her mouth and Scarlette hitting the ground all at the exact same moment.

This is the sort of thing that people write entire blog posts about which end up going viral on the internet, y’all.

I brushed Scarlette off and she looked at the swing, tilted her head, and then marched over to the swing next to it as though it were the fault of that particular swing that she faceplanted and not her mothers.

My child has a lot of grace for me.

I gave her a (much gentler) push and then addressed the gawkers on the bench because I find that it’s best to just call out all the awkwardness of a situation “So, obviously I just had a stellar parenting moment, I told them, I hope you’re all bloggers because that little spectacle you just witnessed has the potential to make you totally famous on the internet. You can totally write the next ‘Dear Mom On Her iPhone’ post.”

Weirdly enough, I didn’t leave the egg hunt with any new friends.

(I’m being facetious. They were are all very gracious post initial judginess, although sadly, none of them were bloggers or had any idea what I was talking about. No one understands me, internet!)
(I know, the awkward watermarking. If people didn’t steal photos and pass them off as their own kids with a fake story to raise money on the internet, I wouldn’t need to do that.)

22 Comments Filed Under: Awkward Moments, On Motherhood

Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty, Little Ball Of Fur

March 26, 2013 By Kayla Aimee

Seriously, I can not leave my house without turning into an utter train wreck. I’m like the chaste version of Lindsay Lohan.

We went to a local paint your own pottery shop as a part of a new play group that I joined for the first time. I was really nervous on account of how I have a tendency to be totally awkward. When I got home, I dialed my best friend and left her a voicemail that was all “WHAT THE H JUST HAPPENED?” And this? This is only a fraction of how weird my morning was.

After we left, I thought we might wander in and out of some of the little boutiques on Main Street because Scarlette loves walking around stores with me. I took my cup of coffee and put it in the section of my diaper bag that holds sippy cups because most places don’t like you drinking in their stores and I WANTED TO BE COURTEOUS. My intentions always start out so good, y’all.

We walk in one store and are met by a gigantic cat staring menacingly down at us from the counter. Scarlette freaks the heckfire out, wraps herself around my legs and starts screaming “DOGGIE! NO! NOOOOOO! NO DOGGIE!”

For reasons unknown to us, Scarlette is terrified of dogs. Despite the fact that WE HAVE A DOG. Also, it was at this moment that I realized Scarlette has never seen a cat in real life.

I am trying to calm her down and I’m saying things that normal people say to frightened children, such as “Actually that’s a kitty cat! It won’t hurt you. Pretty kitty!” I was half expecting the lady behind the counter to chime in with some backup but she just says flatly “The cat’s name is Misses Molly.”*

“See? The kitty’s name is Misses Molly. She’s a nice kitty cat!” I say brightly to Scarlette.

“Actually, she’s really not” the lady behind the counter ~~helpfully~~ remarks as Misses Molly hisses at us.

So now Scarlette is afraid of both dogs AND cats. Awesome.

I take her by the hand and we meander around the shop. Scarlette, I mean. Not the cat. Cat’s don’t have hands. She’s really very good but I give her constant reminders not to touch anything lest she accidentally break something. “Oops, we keep our hands by our sides! No touching!” I would say as her fingers would reach out for the tiny little candle tarts I was eying. “YUMMY! COOKIES! I BITE!” she kept saying as I picked through the different scents.

In her defense, they were all stored in glass cookie jars and they are the same shape as cookies and they smell just like cookies. Some of them were just scattered across the shelf so I was attempting to keep her from actually eating them when I turned suddenly and my coffee fell out of my bag and burst open on the floor.

I was totally mortified. “I am so sorry. I can not believe I did that. Do you have any paper towels and I will clean this right up” I say to the lady behind the counter. She looks at me and simply says “No.”

That’s it. Just no. And okay, maybe she was totally irked at me for spilling my coffee but it was seriously such an accident. I totally wasn’t walking around drinking it or anything. I had really tried to take precautions against this very thing happening.

“Oh, I say a bit flustered, well, I have some wipes in my diaper bag probably.” I dig around in my diaper bag where I discover that I used the last of the wipes earlier, when we were next door eating cupcakes and I wiped the remnants of them off Scarlette’s face while sipping on the very coffee that was now puddling at my feet.

While I am rustling around for something to wipe up my spill two other cats come slinking out of the ~~bowels of hell~~ back room and start lapping up the coffee. (You think this story is crazy but IT GETS BETTER.)

So I do what anyone in my situation would do. I tear open a spare diaper and use it to soak up the coffee while Scarlette tries to climb up my back shrieking “NOO! NO DOGGIES!”

Finally, I throw a few candle tarts into a bag and go to pay, because I figure I need to buy something and get the heck out of dodge. The lady points to a tin adorned with a handmade sign that reads “Please Donate To Spay And Neuter Our Cats” and she says to me “Can you donate?”

And I was all “Um, oh is that for like, the animal shelter?”

And she answers “No, it’s for our cats. In the shop.”

I really didn’t want to donate but I felt a bit obligated considering I had just spilled my cup of coffee everywhere so I threw some money in the jar, scooped up Scarlette and made a beeline for the exit.

The worst part is, I was so flustered that I just sort of grabbed a handful of candle tarts and a couple of hours after turning the burner on this morning I realized that my house now smells exactly like an antique store.

It’s been almost two entire years since the first time I attempted to leave the house with my child and obviously I’ve not gotten any better at it.

*I changed the cat’s name in this story. I don’t even know why. Like I said, TRYING TO BE COURTEOUS.

25 Comments Filed Under: Awkward Moments, Yes, this really happened to me Tagged With: Bob Barker's House O Antiques

Hey, I Just Met You | Visiting Chicago (v3)

July 25, 2012 By Kayla Aimee

When I finally reach my hotel there is only about half an hour until my event begins and I am plagued by two things: 1) I am starving because I haven’t eaten since I left my house at six thirty in the morning and 2) WHAT HAS CHICAGO DONE TO MY HAIR?

Apparently wandering around the outside of the airport in 90 degree heat in The Windy City did not culminate in a good look for me. Unfortunately for me I am just ~~insecure~~ ~~vain~~ insecure enough to care about that.

I quickly call room service because there is no way I can summon up the energy to play Just Dance 4 on an empty stomach and inquire as to how quickly I can get some crab cakes sent to my room. They tell me half an hour which is quite unfortunate as that is when I am expected in the hotel lobby. “What if I just order soup?” I plead in desperation. Twenty minutes is when the soup is due up and so I turn my attention to my hair.

I have forgotten to pack anything that might help me with this situation. Hairbrushes, curling irons, scissors. I’ve got nothing. Except for underwear. I have lots and lots of underwear.

When I was packing for this trip Jeff grabbed my stack of undies and made a move to put them away in the dresser. “No, those are what I’m taking on the trip” I told him. He raised an eyebrow at me. “Honey? Do I even want to know why you are taking six pairs of underwear for a trip that is less than twenty four hours long?” he asked.

Um, what if I get stranded somewhere Jeff? I can wear the same clothes for a few days straight and thanks to watching copious amounts of Man vs Wild + a few years of earning merit badges in the Girl Scouts I can snare a rabbit and cook it over an open fire. But I can NOT make do with just a single pair of underwear. So they are IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. Obviously.

A quick glance around the hotel room unearths a hair dryer and in a stroke of genius I decide that I can wet my hair, use the (clean!) extra undies to wrap my hair in rag curls, blast them with the hair dryer to set and have them out before my soup arrives. Which I will then throw back like a shot (I think, I’ve never actually done a shot) and arrive in the lobby promptly at four pm. Holla!

Except that about nine minutes later I am in the middle of blow-drying my curls when I hear a knock on the door. I freeze and debate just not opening the door at all because there are five pairs of panties on my head but the thing is, here’s the thing: I am about to pass out from hunger. So I open the door, the room service attendant hands me a bowl of soup and I blurt out “YOU SAID TWENTY MINUTES! I WAS NOT GOING TO HAVE UNDERWEAR ON MY HEAD TEN MINUTES FROM NOW!”

And then I signed a ticket for a $17 dollar bowl of soup (SEVENTEEN DOLLARS) and commenced said blow-drying.

I know, you think it can’t get any more awkward than that right? OH, IT CAN.

I emerge from the limo-bus at the Wii U Experience event (Nintendo is fancy) and figuring that I’ve hit my awkwardness limit for the day I decide I may as well SING KARAOKE.

While I am waiting for my turn I discover that one of the Nintendo guys putting on the event looks exactly like my old college pastor. Who I remember has two brothers. And I’m like “This guy is Kevin Pound’s brother. I am one hundred percent sure of this.” So I tell him about how he looks just like this guy I know and is he his brother? He says no (I don’t believe him) and asks me if Kevin is a handsome guy, to which I offhandedly reply yes because I’m trying to figure out how to slyly take a picture of him with my cell phone because I need to send it to my best friends so I can be all “THIS GUY LOOKS JUST LIKE KEVIN POUNDS, RIGHT?” Validation is important to me.

Only he sees me doing this and winks at me and that is when I realize that this guy thinks that I am hitting on him because “You look just like my friend’s BROTHER” is totally a pick-up line. And secretly trying to take someone’s picture with your cell phone is something people do in seventh grade. And since my undewear-rag curls did NOT go according to my awesome plan, a seventh grader is what I resemble. So there’s that.

I have no idea how to save this situation so I say “I’m a mommy blogger!” because apparently I just assume that everyone around me can follow the train of thought happening inside my head. Then it’s my turn to sing and the song is CALL ME MAYBE and I’m all “Hey, I just met you and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me maybe” and pretty much could not be more mortified except for that I’m sort of used to this sort of mortification at this point in my life.

And that’s how I kicked off my trip to Chicago. I had a blast the rest of the night and will at some point talk about the less embarrassing parts of my trip where I did not greet total strangers with pick up lines or underwear in my hair.

Part One & Part Two of my trip, which are not accompanied by awkward photos of me playing SiNG. I’m really glad someone caught this moment on camera.

Disclosure: While I am affiliated with Nintendo as a Brand Ambassador and they provided my travel/accommodations for the Wii U Experience, they quite definitely did not ask me to write this post. In fact, they are most likely reading this thinking to themselves “Selves, we are way in over our heads with this one.”

9 Comments Filed Under: Awkward Moments, Uncategorized

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner | Visiting Chicago (v2)

July 24, 2012 By Kayla Aimee

My next task is to get on a shuttle to my hotel. This seems completely do-able, even for a directionally challenged person such as myself. I mean, sure I manage to get lost on my way to the mall in the town that I grew up in and once I ended up in Alabama when trying to go to the tag office that is just down the street but I can totally find the shuttle service in the O’Hare airport, right?

No. No, I can not.

I start blindly following these signs that say “Airport Transit” and even though they seem to be taking me away from the general crowd of people I assume that they will lead me to the shuttles because shuttles = transit. I come to one of the signs that is accompanied by the words “exit only” and I SHOW the employee my shuttle slip and ask if that is where I go. And he tells me yes, but he is a lying liar who lies.

Because when I go down that escalator, I am met not by a shuttle but by a train. I do not want to get on a train. The train lady directs me to the elevator and instructs me to walk through the Hilton to get to the shuttles. I get on said elevator, press the button that says HILTON and then find myself at the top of an escalator that looks eerily like the one I was just on. I ride down. And am greeted once again by train lady. I wave at her sheepishly, get back on the elevator AND REPEAT THE ENTIRE PROCESS.

“I have no idea what just happened, I say, I got on the elevator, I pressed the Hilton button and now I’m back here with you again.” She just shakes her head and motions toward the elevator where she GETS ON WITH ME, presses the Hilton button, and points at the Hilton when the doors open. Apparently she does not deem me worth speaking to. I can not blame her.

“First of all, I think you’re magic, I tell her, and second of all please don’t ever tell my husband that I needed help RIDING AN ELEVATOR.”

I walk through the Hilton and find myself in a bus depot, which is most definitely not where my shuttle is. “Take a right out of here and the building is at the end of the street” the guy tells me. Except when I do that I find myself standing in the middle of the airport parking deck. I feel as though something has gone awry. The parking agent takes pity on me and transports me to the other end of the airport where the shuttles are located. Which also happens to be BAGGAGE CLAIM. Which is basically where I exited the airplane to begin with.

(Later on the drive home my husband will interrupt me in the middle of this story to say “For future reference honey, just always go to baggage claim when you get off of a plane.” To which I replied “That is great advice for the next time I fly, WHICH WILL BE NEVER.”)

I recount this tale to the shuttle dispatch verifying my confirmation and he laughs at me and remarks “Oh yeah, those guys up there, they just like to $&*! with tourists.”

What?!

Why would they do that to me? Why? Do I look like the sort of girl you should send wandering out into the city on her own? No I do not. I look like Polly Pocket. I am not even being funny here. That is literally what people call me. I look like someone you should tuck safely on her shuttle and ask kindly where her parents are.

At this point I’m feeling incredibly stressed because my connecting flight was late, I’ve wasted 45 minutes wandering around the airport and my event starts in less than two hours.

The driver waits until we’re safely out of the airport and then pulls out her cell phone and begins chatting with someone about her dinner plans while barreling down the highway. At first I was all

But then I was like, “Wait, she just told someone to go get ten pieces of chicken for a dollar fifty. I don’t know if I am seriously interested in knowing about this chicken’s whereabouts because I am totally starving or seriously freaked out about the health code at this really cheap chicken place.”

And y’all. THIS IS NOT EVEN THE MOST AWKWARD THING THAT HAPPENED. Oh no. That involves me, my undies, and a room service attendant.

In case you’re just joining me, here is part one of the tales of my travels to Chicago. Things like this happen to me because despite being a well educated woman, I’m a completely incompetent traveler.

Once again, here is my legal disclaimer that while I am affiliated with Nintendo as a Brand Ambassador and they did provide my travel/lodging for this event, they most certainly did not ask me to write this post. I’m sure this is quite a bit more than they bargained for.

15 Comments Filed Under: Awkward Moments, Uncategorized

Well Goodbye, Earl | Visiting Chicago (v1)

July 23, 2012 By Kayla Aimee

Note: epic awkwardness is about to ensue.

First of all, I hate flying. I think we can all agree that my tendency towards the slightly neurotic + my obsessive compulsive anxiety disorder do not make for a calm, collected, somewhat rational flyer. No. My fear of flying is well documented because despite it, I KEEP GETTING ON AIRPLANES. See here. And also here.Why I keep torturing myself like this I do not even know.

That’s not true. I totally know. This time it was because I was invited to attend the WiiU experience, which consisted of demo-ing the new WiiU months before it is released and then drinks + dinner with my fellow Nintendo Brand Ambassadors. Which sounded like a really enjoyable night out for a stay-at-home-mom who has only left her baby overnight once in the past 20 months. Except that the event was in Chicago which is a place that I have to get to by airplane.

I got to the airport with what should have been plenty of time to go through security. Except that for some reason, every single person in Atlanta decided to also leave the city at nine o clock on a Saturday morning. I was in line for nearly an hour just waiting to get IN the line for security. Once I was finally deemed “not a threat to society” I discovered I had exactly seven minutes until my plane took off. Presumably without me on it as Hartsfield-Jackson is a very large airport and I have very short legs.

I sprinted up the escalator to my gate, yelling profuse apologies behind me to the grandfatherly-looking man that I had accidentally run in to, and collapsed at the counter flashing my flight number.

“They’re closing the door, you better run for it” said the completely-apathetic-to-my-situation man behind the counter, lazily pointing towards the gate.

I started waving and yelling “WAIT! DON’T LEAVE ME!” while hurtling over empty seats as they pulled the door closed.

And that is how I ended up barely making it on to the plane, the checker-inner lady pursing her lips and shaking her head at me as she scanned my ticket. It seriously should have qualified me for a spot on the US Olympic team.

Apparently, I was not the only one with a fear of flying as the middle aged ladies behind me began drinking in excess the moment we were in the air.

They were seated next to an older gentleman named Earl.

Poor Earl.

They began by inquiring into Earl’s work (turns out, Earl is a super important person. I totally google-stalked him.) Then they began to harass him with repeated requests to join them for dinner. Except Earl kept politely declining and saying that he was sure his work had arranged his dinner plans already. Drunk Lady #1 kept slurring “But I want to just listen to you talk, Earl. You’re shoo inte-le-shual. I never meet inte-le-shual people. I jusht meet shtupid people.”

Then her slightly less drunk friend told her to quit harassing earl. So Drunk Lady #1 did what anyone would do in that situation. SHE BIT HER.

SHE BIT HER! And then she kept biting her! And then when told by the flight attendant to quit biting people, she began yelling vulgar statements that I can not repeat on this blog lest my site turn up in quite the inappropriate search result listings.

She returned her attention to giving Earl her number, despite the fact that he kept politely giving it back to her. “Earl, she exclaimed, I don’t wanna have shex with you! I just want shome inneleshual convershashion. And maybe shome drinks. But I won’t get drunk”

“I won’t get drunk neither, said Drunk Lady #2, becaushe I drink every day.”

I inwardly congratulated myself on thinking to pack a pen and proceeded to immortalize this conversation on the back of my Sky Mall magazine.

Just then Drunk Lady #2 began shouting “Wait a minute! I didn’t know we had to fly over the ocean! I’m not flyin over no ocean!” to which someone informed her that it was, indeed, a lake below us. And also could she kindly shut up?

Now, I, being slightly incompetent in all things geographical, also did not realize that flying over a large body of water was how one gets to Chicago. I have no recollection of this from my last trip, although I flew into a different airport so maybe that’s why. Or I repressed the memory. In any case, as it turns out this is when the airplane begins to make it’s descent and as we all know if there is anything I fear as much as tornadoes and airplanes, it’s crashing into a large body of water. Please see here. Here. And also here.

So Drunk Lady #2 starts yelling “Oh my $@#&*!! stars we’re going to crash into the lake! We’re crashing into the lake!”

And that’s when I once again grabbed for the hand of the complete stranger sitting next to me and thought to myself “Self, there is no way I am getting on an airplane to get back home. Jeff is just going to have to put the baby in the car and drive to Chicago to get me.”

This is just the flight to Chicago y’all. This is only about 1/3 of the awkwardness I have to share. Except now I have to feed my baby because she has declared war on spoons.