The Story of How I Smeared Lipstick on Another Man’s Collared Shirt or How I Celebrated Valentine’s Day With A Dozen Dudes

I left my kids and husband at home and celebrated the Day of Love with bright cherry lipstick. The guy was taller than me so my lipstick didn’t stain his collar but it did stain his shirt as my pout landed on his shoulder. I went out on Valentine’s Day without my family and I had a great time hanging all over other men.

All dozens of them, all in one night, every Saturday so Valentine’s Day 2015 was no exception since I have been doing this regularly. Thankfully, GH and I don’t really buy in to the Valentine Schmalentime mess so off I went to leave lipstick marks on everyone instead of my husband. He got his night with me the evening before so I’ve met my Shitty Wife duty.

I’ve got my week jam-packed full ‘o strange dudes: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and, of course, Saturday. I have restricted my addiction to a few nights this week but I could do it 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. If I wanted and was up for it, I’d go every night and rotate a few dozen partners to dance with within my local social dance community.

Hope he gets the lipstick mark out.

Read my other post on strange men.

Happy Valemtimes!

Who or what did you/didn’t do on Valentine’s Day?

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Only the Most Important Things on My Phone

I’ve been obsessed with the iPhone since I got the third generation back in 2008. Six years later, I don’t know if I can live without it. It keeps me “organized,” in touch, and keeps my selfie game in check. Finally figured out how to showcase only the important things on my phone: de-clutter with a whole lot of adorable.

Just fucking kidding. I still am a hot mess.

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The Melanin Problem Runs Deep

For what seems like a cumulative two months out of the year in Seattle, the sun is actually shining without wind, rain, or some sort of mini natural disaster. I love the area we live in but the weather sucks for this desert girl. My hometown is a tumbleweed womb and it is hot for about 11.79 months out of the year. It was always hot and, if anything, we would always get a gnarly car tan. (Y’know when your left forearm gets all dark from driving?) Both thankfully and regretfully, we do not live in my hometown so my half-White/Lao children are pretty vitamin-deprived. Raising a biracial family in the Pacific Northwest means the weather literally rains on my race parade.

Raising bi-cultural/racial kids has been rewarding and interesting because of the push-pull of which genes they have. For those remaining 10 months out of the year, there is no doubt they are their father’s children especially Humnoy. With both -Noys, they looked much like me when as babies and Lanoy still does resemble me quite a bit. Would people think they were Asian, let alone Laotian? I never connected how anybody would always get confused when I told them I was ‘Asian’ when they didn’t know what ‘Laotian’ was. I got great grades in school, had a weird name, and many more stereotypes of a good Asian but still never fit in the mold of “Asian.” Forget my almond-shaped eyes, dark hair, wide nose, and all the prominent ethnic features; it was because my foremost characteristic is my skin tone. Thankfully, my children get the melanin problem too.

Summer’s here and Lao roots be so strong, I tell ya. It may have taken a couple decades of unlearning and self-acceptance but my skin color is no longer my problem. When people are paying to artificially and unsuccessfully attempt to reach the same color range as I have been born with then it’s society’s problem. My children may still experience the same problems for their presumed traits rather than their unique traits, physical or otherwise, but I hope their only problem is not having the appropriate weather to bask in the melanin from their strong, deep Lao roots.

What physical trait did you hate and have since embraced?

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How All Your Family Photos Turn Out

My White husband is just tickled about how Lao people take pictures. For as long as we can go back in my family’s albums, not a single person is smiling. Ever. They always have a stoic expression in any old black-and-white pic from Laos or the most recent Lao-lish wedding in front of the food banquet. Lao people just are not happily photogenic. Well, not I! Ever since I discovered social media a la MySpace, I have been taking my own selfies for years just with the surprise element of 35 mm disposable cameras! I just make sure I get to be in front from now on.

I always want my and my children’s personalities to show through in photos. It’s no coincidence all photos of my children seem to scream, “crazy! loud! toddling!” They can’t sit still long enough for me to capture the cutest new thing they are doing or how Humnoy is planting a sweet kiss on Lanoy’s cheek. So a lot of the time, I have to wrangle the beasts in and make them take a picture with their mother: physically holding them otherwise all the photos will be flashes of flesh from their escape out of the frame. Of course Unfortunately, a photographubby can step in or I accept the awful pixel quality of the front-face camera for selfies. -_______-

That’s not the problem because when I’m trying to look my best, i have no clue WTF the children are doing at the camera. They look so fucking adorable one second and the shutter speed fail shows major baby derp. By the time the kids have had with my bullshit, I wisely nod at the 2 dozen rapid fire shots I snagged before the kids slither down my legs. All that comes in where I finally see all the hard work of trying to take photos with your kids:

Then there’s one you just say, “Fuck it; that’ll do.

How do you get kids to pose for pictures?

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#MomInFront: How I Want My Children To See Me

If I went back far enough, there are a bunch of random photos in my family’s albums. From my grandparents’ journey from Laos to my parents raising us four kids in America, I see a lot of other people and always wondered who’s behind the camera. Why did they take it? How are they related? How were they asked? My dad took a ton of photos of my mom with us it seemed. Never posed but candid ones of us watching TV or eating together. There are even ones of just her and I get to see my mom like I may not have remembered. With all this technology in 2014, I really want to make a point to step from behind the camera and in front.

I don’t care anymore when GH rolls his eyes at me when I ask, “Can you take a picture of me?” With motherhood, I was always embarrassed yet I never had this issue in my party days because liquid courage, amirite? Today, there’s this stigma of if you love yourself then you are conceited, vain, self-centered, and unapproachable. I really am neither of those things at all and would never want my children to think that of me either. In fact, it is the complete opposite if I want myself documented along with my children. In the rare instances I think of my self care, I am more confident, happy, and easy to be around therefore my family will get a confident, happy, and easy-to-be-around mother.

Look The Part This new goal also encourages me with looking presentable. No more un-brushed teeth and/or hair and less yoga pants. (I can’t quit yoga pants.)

Walk the Walk Rather than watching my children in their own world, I instead join them and try to document that best I can. Thank god for front-facing cameras.

Role Model These kids are constantly watching and copying me so I need to be a confident show.

Judging Panel There’s a little debate on makeup in a few parenting communities and I don’t claim that community. Makeup and clothes don’t make the woman but if the woman is happy then who gives a shit?

Creep Audience Not to mention that I will do my best to deter all the internet creeps to not use photos of my kids. If Mama Bear is in it, they might not find much use of it. Nasty ass creeps.

Instead of meekly asking GH, I’m just going to say, “Take a picture of the mother of your children, you fool.” Introducing: Mom In Front.

GH didn’t catch the “shadow face” memo

Who takes your pictures so you can be in front?

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Lao Motherhood Across The Years, Generations, and Oceans

Now you all know how I got here in the first place: Humnoy was born and all I could think was to do the absolute best to maintain my culture for him so that began this blog. To be completely honest, I don’t think I’d really even care about breastfeeding or elimination communication if it had not been my entire existence in the first place. If it were not for my mother and for my mother’s mother, I literally would not be here today. I would not be the woman, the (shitty) wife, the mother, the friend I claim to be today. Just peep my grandmother’s prop in the slideshow below and you’ll know why I’m much more alike than different than a refugee matriarch. Even if it weren’t for that Laotian Village that is woven into my culture’s sense of community, I still wouldn’t be half of those identities.

I am fiercely proud of being a Laotian mother only because I’m trying to make my truest inspiration, the Original Laotian Mama, proud as if she could still see me being a mama if she were alive today. My Mae Tao raised and transitioned four living children from a war-torn country to America. My own Mae not only had to adjust to a whole new culture but also birth and be a parent in this entire new culture. I would just like to say I ain’t shit compared to The Original Laotian Mamas:

1979: The year the first living grandchild was born to my aunt in a refugee camp and also the year my family traveled to America.

1986: The year the first American-born grandchild was born. Moi!

1987 – 1993: In just 5 more years, my mother had three more American-born children, including one with special needs.

2000-2007: I am a rebellious and free-spirited teenager and my mother does not know what to do with me.

2008: My mother cleans toilets to put me through college.

2009: My Mae Tao suddenly passes away.

2010: I am unknowingly pregnant the same week I graduated college with the first great-grandchild just nine months after my grandmother’s death.

2013: I am a mother to two under two.

2014: I survived being a mother to two because of the Original Laotian Mamas.

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Happy Mothers Day to you and your Original Mamas!

That Damn Children’s Book That Made Us Cry But Not From Reading It

For three years since we were gifted a children’s book by a dear friend, GH and I had never been able to end the reading with dry eyes. For me, I blamed it on hormones— pregnancy, breastfeeding, or my cycle. As for GH, I don’t know what’s up with him but he cries every single time he reads the book “Love You Forever“. Each time we are near the book, we unofficially challenge each other to get through the book without crying. I have won each time because I am a cold-hearted woman; GH is very sensitive.

The most recent “Love You Forever Challenge” (LYFC) happened when it was Lanoy’s turn to choose a book. She randomly chose Robert Munsch’s “Love You Forever,” written by a Canadian whose wife experienced two stillbirths. The premise of the book is about a boy and his evolving relationship with his mother from birth to her old age. If you haven’t read it, it’s a cute and creepy book. Not even gonna lie to ya. I also won’t lie that even I, Cold Woman, have had warm, moist things well up my eyeball sockets by line two.

Tonight though, tonight was a different type of cry: I wanted to document my LYFC opponent’s impending defeat so I snapped a bunch of photos to document that grown men let go of their thug at this book. So, per usual, GH was bawling by the second-to-last page and I’m crying because he’s crying but he cried first so I technically win and that was that. Later that night, I sent GH the endearing photos of him reading with his kids and this is the photo that made us cry even harder:

#mememonday

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What’s a favorite children’s book that you cannot get through?

Perks Of Being An Annoying Sick Person

I knew I caught the kids’ cold virus when a stream of ninja mucus would show up on my lip with no warning. My nose was running so much that I could not blow my nose fast enough so it would just keep coming out. So, enter Phase: Tissue Plugger-Uppers just to go ’bout my domestic duties. My day including two young kids under the age of three and a husband, who loves my “sick” attire of days-stretched yoga pants with little else due to my high body temp. Parenting while sick can buzz all the way off.

Both GH and I got sick right when Humnoy was feeling better. Seriously though, the kid was sick like 1.25 days and I swear his energy level got a massive reboot since then. How in the f— anyway, Lanoy is the saddest little sickie: marbled snot bubbles, red, hound dog eyes, and little to no solids appetite. Week-long illness does not mean there isn’t a positive spin on things. I had to make the best of one of the shittiest situations experienced in parenting so here are a few benefits of being sick while caring for sick others:

In Sickness and In Health “No, babe, I really have a headache this time” just is more believable when your congestion has moved to your head and apparently to my crotch. “Til death so us part” isn’t the same as “through dry, red nostrils from abrasive wiping”.

Maybe She’s Born With It I don’t know about you but I could never quite cover up my look of death with makeup so I don’t even bother. I mean, if I’m going to do this illness act justice, go big or ho home, right? I let it all hang out so to make it a bit easier for others to deduce I’m sick and why I look like shit.

Sick Person of Walmart Before you judge my Christmas fleece, please see up at my Look of Death. I’m sick so you can fuck all the way off, Judgey McJudgerson. I’m gonna wear these same pair of pajamas for the rest of the week too.

Ill Introvert Since parenting, I have not been much of a people person like my dress-over-the-head party girl days. Sickness is yet another introverted way out of social engagements. The sick hermit inside you smiles when your contagious presence part crowds upon crowds. Sickness gives introverts everywhere a huge congested sigh of relief.

The Television Cure I would feel a little guilty that the tv has been on a lot more than usual but if it means I get to rest a bit then Disney Junior show marathon is just what the doctor ordered. Illness and near-death brings down the parent shame down to penance levels though.

Up The Fluids Any excuse to hop in a hot shower multiple times a day is just the biggest perk around, amirite? Steam helps relieve congestion by breaking up the mucus so this was the only time we will justify a high water bill.

Comfort Food Measures OMG, GH brought home Panda Express for dinner one night and made me almost reconsider my sinus headache. There is a lot of comfort in eating artery-clogging food. When you’re mouth-breathing to save your life, the last thing you want to inhale is a house salad.

Vitamin V for Vodka Did I already mention food? Wash it down with a beverage. Illness and stress along with it can be the perfect excuse to have a screwdriver in the AM for the vitamin C and the slew of vita-mins and minerals Smirnoff has, which is like a ton. Cheers. You deserve it.

How do you survive being sick?

How Lao Parents Avoid Buying Children’s Clothing

Growing up Lao, our clothes were either hand-me-downs, thrift, or too big. Too big because my mom would buy us the next size(s) up so “we’d grow into them.” I would be wearing size 9 women’s shoes in 5th grade sounding like a scuba diver walking in the hall. Embarrassed as little Theek was, my mom was right in sticking us in oversized jackets and clown shoes. Not only because we were poor but because kids grow like fucking weeds and you can’t catch up with them. If I’m gonna buy these snotty-nosed womb-squatters brand clothing, they better wear it for longer than that size range on that tag. Knowing that they can’t, forget me spending money on it.

There are a rare exceptions when I pay for new children’s clothing but mostly the stars have to align above that Target, where I find that nice clearance sticker on something that I already wanted. Well, that happened when Humnoy screamed “Spider-Man!” at a pair of footed pajamas swinging about in the shitty tangle of a clearance rack. I don’t even care that it’s a shitty tangle of a clearance rack because I’ll sift through it all day long to not have to pay full price. I need to thank my mother for passing on the frugal gene because overpaying for kids’ (and anybody’s) general clothing is just not smart. How to shop like a Laotian mama:

1) Avoid eye contact with shiny, organized racks up front Just keep looking ahead. Never left, never right, just ahead toward the back to the clearance section.

2) Check each and every item I just go for anything not white because KIDS.

3) Check the size The clusterfuck of clearance is that it’s an OCD nightmare so make sure you look through it all: the tag, eye-ball it on your kid, etc.

4) Check the price If at least half off, get it. If not, I make a face then put it back. Unless it’s really cool then we can get away with maybe 30% off.

5) Repeat for off-season, next size, and staple clothing items. ‘This’ll be the shirt that they won’t eat in!’ – said no one ever.

Lo and behold, the Spider-Man footies were more than half off and came in Lanoy and Humnoy next-year size, respectively. They rang up for ~73% off original price so <$10 total for two awesome pairs of footie pajamas. I say they were a great deal because this wouldn’t have happened:

How do you justify your and kids’ clothes shopping?

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When Your Husband Wants You To Go To The Arms Of Other Men

Eyes studying and a stranger’s hand touching mine, I was pulled to him just like the many men before him. Only thing holding my body up was the stiff of my arms and hand walled by a set of arms and hand but never are they my husband’s. My husband knows this makes me satisfied in my life, therefore marriage, and actually drove me to be with these other men.

There are rules, however: respect space (boundaries), be courteous (always ask), and have fun (of course). My space grows void as other couples pair off and courtesy is always, “May I?” I have never turned down an offer in five years and we begin the connection go-round once more: eyes, hands, wall. We are coupled for just a song’s play and we go our separate ways after dancing a little dance. Rounding out dance etiquette, he returns me to my place when we first locked eyes and our time is done until we meet again. Social partner dancing is a funny thing: you either hate it, love it, or kinda love it just enough for some nightclub confidence. Partner dancing without your husband is even funnier because you hate the fact you are alone or realize this dance partner wants to “partner.” (More on this later) My actual real-life partner has my back while another man’s touching mine and it works for us.

GH has found that my sole solace has nothing to do with him. He forces me to go out even after I elaborate on the dirty dishes or feign another yawning excuse. He tells me to not even ask but to just do this one thing for just me. With this full support finally in place after co-parent resentment of three years, I now find it a bit exhilarating to sneak away from domestication and responsibility for this time away from my man, my kids, my work, my home and be me. The me before I was buried in routine, unfolded laundry, and kids and this me is a lot more enjoyable to be around after these dance floor rendezvous. I get to be free and me and all these other men are just there for the ride and dance.