Super easy

Pre made chocolate chip cookie mix because we moms don’t have time for the from scratch bs

Cheapest bacon you can find

Shred bacon and cook til crisp
If you don’t want splatter because #grease
Bake your bacon and convince yourself it is much healthier

Add cooled pieces of bacon to chocolate chip mix

Form into balls
Follow directions for cooking time that comes with the package

And done

Enjoy
Can be used to bribe people to help others 😂

Today on “what the heck is dusty cooking” – some kind of squash concoction – for friends who need something quick and simple

Throw a bag of frozen chicken tenderloins in crockpot
Cut up 2 squash and 2 zucchini – add to crockpot – I haven’t tried other vegetables with this because why mess with something that is already yummy
Throw Kroger brand cacciatore sauce on top
Put lid on crockpot (this is a very important step)
Cook for 8 hours on low
Serve over rice or noodles or not as it is good just on its own for you carb haters out there
Will feed a herd of teenagers with leftovers
Plus – said herd will be eating healthy stuff and not complaining
Wine with this dinner is up to you 😂

When you throw 5 rowdy, loud boys in a tent, they will be up til o’dark thirty and have a blast – you, however, will wake at dawn wanting to kill birdies for making so much noise

Adulting is getting excited over your husband power washing the back deck. Great parenting is dragging your youth to watch and explaining the coolness of it while you both exclaim “ew that is gross” at each new line of dirt.

No one will ever claim trash on the floor as theirs. They will also never pick up without threats from parent. Eradicate this problem by threatening to charge each child in your household $1 for every random qtip, candy wrapper and dryer sheet you find in the house. Let them know that you will use this money to either hire a housekeeper or to purchase those $3k italian leather boots you have been eyeing for ten years. Then smile. Evilly.

Parenting lesson #876: When having dinner with teens, they will want to test out the hot sauce you have in your fridge. You know, the one that says “eat this at your own risk” and scores eight skull and crossbones out of ten. Yeah that one. ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

Said teens will challenge each other to a “burn your mouth til you puke” duel and you, remembering the lessons of logical and natural consequences, will issue warnings that will be unheard and definitely not followed. Because teens.

They will then scare the shit out of you with the amount they have poured into their Cuban stew and you will take the bottle from them and move it to the other side of the table.

You will do this because you will not want to explain this obvious parenting failure to an ER physician in a couple of hours. That is appropriate parenting right there. You will high five yourself in your head and wonder when you will get a gold sticker.

Hilarity will ensue. Coughing, gagging and lots of milk. Funny as all get out. You will remind them that you warned them and caustically mention that this is karmic retribution. Oh the universe will laugh with you…

Until …. the universe turns on you and starts laughing at you because ….

you will go to wipe the tears of laughter from your unprotected eyes, totally forgetting that you just handled hell itself in a bottle without welding gloves.

Did you know that getting hot sauce made with Carolina Reaper peppers in your eyes hurts like hell? I assumed it would but could never speak from experience until about a half an hour ago.

After about a half an hour of washing my eyes out with both water and milk, it still burns a bit but not the like the previous sensation of being dunked into flaming pits of the deepest hell you can imagine.

However, comically, Son freaked and threw out the hot sauce and the trash bag while Daughter and my husband held back my hair so I could run my burning eyes under the kitchen sink.

From there, it was the shower … and not a romantic shower. Simon had to hold a dish of milk while I dropped the precious liquid into my swollen, burning and very red eyes.

On the upside, before it happened, I was laughing so hard that I was crying so there was already some saline coating my poor and very sensitive eye balls. On another upside, there is always wine.

#parenting

Lesson:
Buy toddler stuff gently used. It will save you time, money and wine because you won’t have to put the damn thing together on a Tuesday night when you could be at the local pub watching an acoustic act. You could be at a movie or cat circus or even just relaxing watching some cheesy cat video on Imgur.

No instead, you will be drinking a gallon of whatever wine you can find on your basement shelves and cursing at the directions that don’t make sense. You will then cry, curl up into a fetal position around your now empty gallon of whatever wine you could find and wished that you had bought whatever you are assembling gently used. You will wish a horrid accident on the plant that made your plastic toddler dream kitchen because their stupid holes don’t line up. You will spend twenty minutes looking for the right drill bit because you are crying into your empty gallon of whatever wine you could find.

You will drop a screw down your heating vent and probably want to punch the pink plastic kitchen right in its recycle bin. You will curse at yourself and probably your dog, the cat and the bookshelf that is in your way. These curses will be uttered in a vehement whisper because your toddlers are asleep in the next room.

You will subsequently wake the next morning to a gallon of whatever wine you could find hangover and wonder why you ever wanted children in the first place…

So buy gently used and save yourself the headache.

On a different note, they better love this thing… 
#fosterparenting

 

Lesson : there will be time when you truly wish that it was legal to send your toddler to to daycare naked. However that is frowned upon.

Here is why you will staunchly wish for that very thing. You will wake one morning and all will be well. Breakfast goes well. Potty goes well. Smiles and hugs all around.

Until your precious little bundle of seething diva attitude decides that she does not want to wear clothes or fix her hair. You will look wide eyed at the pretty princess dress and the Afro of tangled curls and wonder what you should do.

First you will fail at an attempt to wrestle your biting alligator of a toddler into a diaper. After twenty minutes of fighting with a stupid piece of Velcro, you will silently think ” F this” and wrestle her into a pull up while dodging her attempts at being the next Cujo. Pull ups are easier and don’t come with minuscule tabs of Velcro. Even though you hate them, it is a bandaid to this initial problem.

You will eyeball your now demon possessed stomping toddler and her coat and actually debate in your head how much trouble you will get in if you send her to daycare after winning this minor battle just the way she stands. Your car has heat after all. Tempatures are not freezing. All sorts of logic will run through your head as she screams “no dress” over and over again.

You will resign. Open her drawer and say “pick out your clothes” 
She will scream “no clothes”
You will want to cry once you realize it is too early to drink and showing up at work with a drunk smile probably violates some company policy somewhere.

The thought of calling your boss for a sick day for the simple fact that life with a toddler can be hell also runs through your mind.

Deciding against all of the above, you will grab whatever you can find that even closely resembles an outfit and put it on her. Avoiding her Hannibal lector antics the whole time. There could be scars from teeth.

You will finally get to daycare, explain to them why she is a hot mess and apologize for failing as a fashion forward parent.

Your evil little monster will have calmed down at this point. You will shoot her a fake smile that resembles a painted on clown face and say “have a good day”

Said toddler, dressed in stripes, fleece, mismatching socks and shirt that saw better days in a ditch on the side of a dirt road, will then run to you with hugs and kisses and “nice day” and you will melt. Literally.

All will be well until the next time she turns into a fire breathing naked dragon. This is why you should be allowed to send your kids to daycare naked at times. Because the battle is never really won. I will say that the hugs and kisses and “nice day” are always worth the war.

#fosterparenting

If you have teens, you will automatically be qualified to wrangle rabid and grumpy velociraptors should a need for that ever occur.

In the event that your herd of mouthy dinosaurs are being snarky with each other while in the middle of making dinner, might I suggest some creative discipline?

Now step one: Breathe

Step two: cry for a brief moment because you are out of wine

Step three: attempt to calmly put a stop to the snark with a firm “knock it off already”

Should snark continue – proceed to steps 4-6

Step four: issue a gentle warning that you are quickly losing your patience and that you are in the middle of a wine drought

Step five: shake your head in abject denial from the other room while you hear the snark escalating between your ferocious flock of pterodactyls

Step six – google wine delivery services and hope they exist as the snark continues to increase. At this point – issue an even firmer warning such as “do I really have to have this conversation again?”

Now that you have reached step 6 and if the snark continues – step 7-10 are extreme but it will be ok.

Step seven : take a deep breath and imagine yourself immersed in listening to old timey music while sipping wine. If you can calm yourself, the escalating snark will not touch your inner merlot zen

Step eight: ok now you blood pressure is starting to rise – it is time to bring them in to have a talk. Breathe deeply and remember the next two steps.

Step nine: look at them, (your evil little t-Rexes) and firmly (or as in my case loudly) state the following “I am done listening to you be hateful. One more nasty word and I am going to take your phones, shut off the internet, make you all sit in the living room and sing bad 80s love songs to each other” – feel free to edit the music selection

I promise it will stop them dead in their little brontosaurus tracks.

They will look at you and promptly go about making dinner in seething teenage silence.

Step ten: settle in and while lamenting the lack of wine – consider this a moment to revel in. No one got hurt, no real damage was done and they will spend dinner time being civil and shockingly nice to each other.

#parentingteenscreatively 
#herdsofteensinmyhouse
#omgwhyareteenssoangsty
#defenseistheirlovelanguage

When your toddler is having a temper tantrum in public and you are ignoring them, someone who doesn’t recognize your little diva’s emotional expression will saunter by and pick up said toddler. They will shoot you a dirty look for not picking up said toddler and comforting her in her obvious time of need. You will smirk and say “watch out, she bites when she is angry” and watch the color drain from the mean mug they are shooting you. They will look for ways to put her down without being obvious. They will fail and just hand her back.

Say thank you and go on about your day with your pissed off 2 year old.