Schoberl - Kids Are Turds: Brutally Honest Humor for the Pooped-Out Parent

Praise for Kids Are Turds

Moms everywhere, rejoice! Kids Are Turds gives you permission to whine into your (much-needed) wine as you flop down in exhaustion after another day of wiping up the unmentionable mess you know will magically reappear tomorrow. Laugh it off, ladieslet Jenny show you how.

Karen Moline, coauthor of the New York Times bestseller, Sh*tty Mom: The Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us

I couldnt wait to review this project, and it did not disappoint. I have been a longtime follower of Jennys blog and Facebook page and love them! Her real talk approach to parenting makes you feel like youre not failing to live up to some unrealistic standard. Even with her blunt honesty you can see her deep love for her children throughout the book. Its a great reminder that we all go through times like this, and were all doing the best we can. Thank you, Jenny, for bringing humor and creativity to this life we call mommyhood!

Dawn Recor, blogger of Diary of a Not So Wimpy Mom

Getting shockingly emotional over soup commercials, treating solo grocery-store trips like tropical vacations, staying up and watching kiddie cartoons hours after her kids have gone to bed and, of course, compiling a blackmail album for when her boys get old enough to date? Jenny Schoberls Kids Are Turds is a ridiculously funny and heartfelt chronicle of what it means to be a mother, and whether falling into parental stereotypes is something to fightor something to embrace with all your heart.

Dressler Parsons, Student-Tutor.com

If anyone can prove that youre never too old for bathroom humor, its Jenny Schoberl. Lock yourself in the bathroom with Kids Are Turds and laugh away likely while your own kids are being turds!

Leanne Shirtliffe, author of Dont Lick the Minivan and Mommyfesto

Copyright 2016 by Virginia Schoberl

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Sarah Brody

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-0497-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0498-5

Printed in the United States of America

C ONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

M OM JEANS ANONYMOUS

I AM A MOM. THERE . I said it. I dont know why that feels like Im saying something bad, like I should be speaking in hushed tones in dark alleyways so that no one can hear, but it just feels old. Boring. Frumpy. I am someones parent . The man that I married isnt an eighteen-year-old high school senior anymore; he is someones father . Good ol Mom and Dad. Yawn.

Day to day, I think being a mom is an awesomely exciting thing, but why does it still feel so strange to say the M-word? Why do I get a full-body shudder whenever I use the word mom or refer to myself as a parent ? Ive spent years conducting extensive hands-on, in the field research (a.k.a. blowing em out of my crotch and diapering their stinky ends), so I should have answers by now. But I dont. Parenting is just weird .

I always thought I would be able to remain the same exact person I was prior to squeezing humans down my pipes and through the trap door. Me? Im not gonna be a mom , Im gonna be a MILF! Im gonna drop the baby weight immediately and be so hot with such a killer bod that people will question whether the kids are actually mine. Ill spend the afternoons with my other hot mom friends sipping martinis on the front porch and cackling as we discuss the most scandalous neighborhood gossip. My perfect kids will be at school earning straight As and will never make any trouble. This whole parenthood thing is going to be a piece of cake, and I will be the Sexy Supermom. End of discussion.

I also vowed Id never be one of those nasally, naggy type moms you see on TV with the school-marm un-styled hair (and definitely never the Kate Gosselin infamous porcupine mom-trocity). Id be the furthest thing from the typical honey-do list-making, high-waisted-mom-jeans-wearing, PTA-attending, helicoptering, minivan-driving soccer mom.

The awful word mom described those types of women, and that was not who I envisioned myself to be. Of course I knew I was technically a mom; you cant exactly deny that when you have two kids wedged so far up your ass they can smell what you had for lunch yesterday. And lets not forget pain! A body doesnt just forget the torture that is childbirth. Neither does a vagina. Poor vagina.

As much as I loved my kidsand I loved them an embarrassingly huge, going-to-kiss-them-in-public-well-past-their-twenties amountI never felt like I fell into this parenthood is my destiny! groove as easily as everyone else seemed to. I just couldnt ever get into the whole cheerleader mom mindset. No Rah Rah Sis Boom Ba! None of that Im Supermom! Being a parent is so fabulous! Lets go make crafts out of pinecones! crap. It actually seemed pretty frickin obnoxious to me.

And I didnt ever want to be the person who completely handed herself over to her kids. I couldnt become one of those women you see at Walmart who look like they have given up on living their own lives in favor of their childrens. The ones who dont even seem to care that theyre in public wearing flesh-colored spandex and a dirty, old, too-big t-shirt, or that their kids are screaming bloody murder about wanting a giant box of teeth-rotting cereal. I did not want that to be me. I wanted to stay me ; the me that existed before kids got in there and jacked it all up. I could do that, right? I could still be me. My husband, Thomas, and I could still be us . With crotchfruit. It was as simple as that. I was pretty sure that Id just solved Parenthood.

Now, after spawning not one, but two babies, I have the distinct urge to reach back into time and smack the crap out of young me for being such a fucking idiot . Way to go, genius! You really called that one. Yes, deary, that was sarcasm. I know its hard to pick up in your brains deteriorated state.

So yes, things have most definitely changed. A lot of things. It wasnt until I was intimately familiar with being elbow deep in a diaper change that was more like a Play-Doh fun factory that I realized the truth: no matter how hip or cool you think you are (and I cant believe I just wrote hip . It shows you just how deep into this I really am), once you add children to the pot, your life will never be the same. The progression into accepting parenthood may be one that happens slowly, but my mom always warned me that it would inevitably occur. But do we ever listen to our parents advice when were little? I was positive every bit of wacky advice my mom dispensed was a product of inhaling way too much hairspray from aerosol cans and bleach seeping into her skull. Obviously I wasnt going to take her seriously!