Sh*t My Kids Ruined
Page 3
“My daughter has eaten every in the house.” Submitted by: Judith
“My three-year-old thought our fish would enjoy an entire container of !” Submitted by: Sarah
“Everyone knows that cottage cheese, hummus, eggs, and butter are the cornerstones of any great structure.” Submitted by: Todd
“Family at Sears. The beast wanted to be in every picture!” Submitted by: John
“The first time I looked at photos on your site, I thought to myself, ‘These parents must have left their kids unsupervised for hours for them to do something like that. Well, we left our two-year-old son to play in the next room for, what, like, five minutes? Behold the destruction.” Submitted by: Nicola
“My for ‘one more baby’.” Submitted by: Bonnie
“The poor …he will never be the same.” Submitted by: Marvel
“Yes, a was way too close (apparently) to the eating area, grrr.” Submitted by: Sally
“Who stole the package of ?” Submitted by: Jane
“I waited until the night before the first Christmas gathering to wrap and put under the tree because I knew my three-year-old would have a hard time resisting. I stayed up late to get all of them wrapped. When my son woke up the next morning he was so excited to see them all, and we had several discussions about how they weren’t all for him and he needed to wait. Not an hour after I left for work I got this picture on my phone—every single one unwrapped!” Submitted by: Molly
“Someday my prince will come with a towel and some glue.” Submitted by: Julia
“Our beautiful …then again, we thought it was so funny, we ended up buying multiple copies of this one!!” Submitted by: Ryan
Image courtesy of Natasha Duckwall
“My plans to be on time!” Be advised … our kids can still get into things when seat-belted in the car seat!!” Submitted by: Susan
“So the walks into my office and has a wet head. I innocently inquire, ‘Why is Hadie wet?’ To which my five-year-old says about his three-year-old brother, ‘Hyland peed on her head.’ Duh! Of course! I should have known.” Submitted by: Kelley
“The of freakin’ England. She had a solar panel on her handbag that fueled her famous wave. A state funeral is in order, methinks.” Submitted by: Barbara
Submitted by: Amanda
+ salt = OSM*. “I was six feet away, back turned, washing dishes.” Submitted by: Susan
“It was when he came into the room and handed me some that I knew something was wrong.” Submitted by: Elaine
“He got into the Balmex butt paste while I was out shoveling. I call this, ‘The White Wonder Horse of Pittsburgh.’ ” Submitted by: Gretchen
“We were terrified the twins would kill themselves jumping from one crib to the other, so we put them in toddler beds by the time they were fifteen months old. Of course, they didn’t stay in bed. They emptied their dresser drawers and danced in the mess for a couple of hours, eventually falling asleep on the mess by ten p.m. or so.” Submitted by: Alyssa
Submitted by: Liberty
“Woke up to find my twin boys rehearsing for the Blue Man Group.” Submitted by: S.T.F.
* Wondering what “OSM” means? See Epilogue.
“Two hours in the ER and five (yes, five) staples later … Well, at least she has an awesome scar story to tell later.” Submitted by: I.C.
“My .” Submitted by: Olive
“Here fishy, fishy.” Submitted by: Michelle
“Blueberries smuggled into bed stain .” Submitted by: Mia
“My son ruined my daughter’s forehead.” Submitted by: Lou
“Attempting to open the back .” Submitted by: G.R.
“Having three in diapers has completely ruined the .” Submitted by: Amy
“My daughter decided to head-butt me in the mouth and broke my front tooth. I had to find a new dentist pronto the next day or else look like a goober.” Submitted by: Tedd
“I couldn’t help but pull out my camera when I saw him climbing on the table … getting the action shot of the entire doused was a bonus.” Submitted by: Kim
“Why there was no pie at our , circa 2003.” Submitted by: Sharon
“I guess our talks about toy cleanup and training got conflated … I submit to you our lovely TOYlet!” Submitted by: Laura
“My . Now missing a painful chunk after my daughter’s giant melon head rocketed up into my jaw.” Submitted by: Paul
“SMKR: Every single tube of I buy.” Submitted by: Becky
Submitted by: Dave
“A simple tube of paint in the hands of a three- and a four-year-old … people were impressed with the detailed coverage, not me really.” Submitted by: Sally
“Two dozen eggs.” Submitted by: Cathy
“She was supposed to be taking a nap but sang for half an hour instead. Didn’t take long to realize why she had been so happy.” Submitted by: Susanna
“My four-year-old ran in the room telling me that he made his sister into a man … he failed to mention that she now looks like a little hatemonger.” Submitted by: Courtney
“Spray-painted the and each others’ backs and hands … When asked who did it, they said, ‘Not me.’ ” Submitted by: Emily
“My seventeen-month-old twins wanted to watch Cars in the .” Submitted by: Shelly
“My wedding , which I last used ten years ago and no longer need … but still. Someone better want to be a ghost for Halloween.” Submitted by: Alexis
. “Birth ripped the L5/S1 disc apart and resulted in two back surgeries … sacral nerve was kinked like a garden hose. Yes, that’s as painful as it sounds. Really insane thing? I had another baby two years after this.” Submitted by: Laura
“Here are photos of my twin boys (probably about eighteen months old at the time) ruining my . With great joy, I might add.” Submitted by: Sommer
“My daughter found one of my wife’s tubes of lipstick, and decided to write on the . When we saw what she was doing we grabbed the camera and ‘caught her in the act.’ She immediately covered it with her hand and said ‘NO NO NO NO NO.’ ” Submitted by: Brandon
“My wonderful children have thrashed my since the day they were born.” Submitted by: Jim
“ ‘Really, you can’t do anything–not even something quick like throwing in some laundry or washing a couple of dishes?’ Chris asked last night. Yes, really! Here’s what happened when I spent 90 seconds in the bathroom today.” Submitted by: Christine
“Cat’s at Grandma’s house. My almost-three-year-old’s interpretation of a toilet.” Submitted by: Laura
Submitted by: J.P.B.
“I found these a few months after I asked, ‘Did you put my tools away?’ This is a payback for all of my dad’s tools that I treated the same way.” Submitted by: DeWitte
“Behold the marital bed!” Submitted by: PJ
“Forty-five seconds is all it took for our kids to empty an 8,602.2 gallon pool while I went to check on their mother. She never even had a chance to use the pool. I had spent a week getting it all clean.” Submitted by: Robert
“I’d like to pretend that this was a tribute to Woodstock instead of a mudpit in my front yard.” Submitted by: Jennifer
“My then one-year-old thought it would be cool to mix that Twix red and blue .” Submitted by: Jessica
“What your older brother can do to you when he thinks you need a better look.” Submitted by: Monica
“Our kids have undoubtedly ruined . Sorry.” Submitted by: J.P.B.
“Ugh! Just ugh!” Submitted by: Brynn
Wow. Well, that was exhausting! I have to remind myself that each photo came from a different family. But the totality of the kid devastation is certainly impressive.
Photo submitted by: Gina
Something unexpected happens to Shit My Kids Ruined with the passage of time. We look back at these incidents, and where there was once frustration, there’s now affection. These become the stories we remember and retell. It turns out that this collection of uncomfortable, u
npleasant moments is the substance of life. They are the color, the spice.
“We sat for days wondering what stood for. Then we realized our five-year-old meant ‘Silas is Awesome.’ He is.” Submitted by: Lisa
A portion of our rug is now framed and hangs in my office. And I look upon our defaced little couch with a fondness I could never have predicted. These have become signifiers of an age and developmental stage gone by. These items, these memories evolve into Shit My Kids Enhanced. With some time and acceptance, I’ve come to realize that most of what I once deemed ruined by my children is, in a sense, improved. In the end, it is their mark that makes things special.
First and most important, I am grateful to all the families who have submitted photos since the inception of the website. Thank you for sharing your private moments and making Sh*t My Kids Ruined work. I mean, my kids can only provide so much material!
To those whose snapshots appear in this book, I offer you special thanks. You endured continual emails from me, some with requests that had you digging deep into old memory cards and computer files and shoeboxes of photographs. Thank you again and I wish you all the very best.
Thank you to my extraordinary team. Richard Pine and Ethan Bassoff of InkWell Management, I am grateful for your help and guidance. I could not have done this without my editor, Marnie Cochran of Ballantine Books. Thank you immensely for this opportunity and for your invaluable direction with this project. I’ll never forget our first formal meeting when I arranged nearly 500 pictures of ruined shit around an enormous Random House conference table, and you and I discussed the merits of the cartoon beaver and determined the acceptable amount of poop for this book! The memory will always make me giggle.
I’ve had the great fortune of support from so many friends and acquaintances, it bowls me over. To you incredible people who first posted about my blog on your Twitter feeds and Facebook pages, I’ll never be able to thank you enough for getting the ball rolling. Bloggers Emma Waverman (EmbraceTheChaos.ca) and Nicole Kane Knepper (MomsWhoDrinkAndSwear.com), I thank you for noticing my little site so early on and posting it for your readers. Special thanks goes to Sara Schneider and Elissa Hecker Strauss, two friends who helped the site directly in numerous, imperative ways. And to ALL who encouraged me, and you know who you are, I feel incredibly fortunate to have each one of you in my life—thank you from the depths of my heart.
To my mom and dad, Margot and Ray Haas: I hereby publically acknowledge and apologize for all the shit I sent your way! Thank you for thirty-six years of love and support, and for equipping me with a set of tools with which to do nearly anything. I admire and love and value you immeasurably.
I’m extraordinarily grateful to Brian Haas, my brother, best ally, and now business partner in Sibling Thrivelry, LLC. I love you, and I treasure our friendship and shared humor. There’s nobody else on the planet with whom I can imagine collaborating so effectively and trusting so completely all while having fun. You are irreplaceable.
Of all the things for which I can thank my husband, Paul Brophy, it’s his seventeen years of encouragement and unwavering confidence in me that has my deepest gratitude. And I think he’s cute! I love you, Pablo. I’m proud of you, and our beautiful boys and I are so lucky to have you.
Thank you to our sons for the endless inspiration and support and direction you’ve given so generously and unknowingly. You make me laugh and beam, and I love you always.
To all the shit-ruining kids across the world: Thank you for providing SMKR with so much fabulous material! You keep the lives of all who love you exciting, exhausting, surprising, and meaningful. Keep it up!
Thank you to the following families for allowing their photos to appear in this book: Alison family, Amber and family, Anderson family, Bagshaw family, Bandelier family, Bateman family, Bauer family, Bayer family, Beasely family, Bell family, Beveridge family, Black family, Bowles family, Brandenberger family, Britvec family, Brosha family, Bundesen family, Cameron family, Cashen family, Child family, Clark family, Cohen family, Cook family, Cooper family, Cramer family, Cronck family, Danas family, Davis family, Derhak family, Domingue family, Duren family, Eddington family, Edelstein family, Edgerton family, Ernst family, Farrell family, Fletcher family, Force family, Freitas family, Garcia family, Gavel family, Gillmer family, Gros family, Gryphon family, Halpern family, Ham family, Handru-Celestin family, Havenridge family, Hayes family, Helene family, Helmick family, Hershey family, Hix family, Hosford family, Howard family, Hudson family, Hughes family, Jenkins family, Jill family, Jones family, Kat and family, Kelley family, Kelter family, King family, Kinney family, Knell family, Kolasa family, Lappegaard family, Larson family, Lawrence family, LC and family, Lederman-Rowe family, Liberty and family, Lieber family, Lilley family, Little family, Macias family, Mann family, March family, Martinchick family, McCalpin family, McCann family, McClain family, McCormick family, McDonald family, McNaughton family, McPherson family, Moore family, Morgan family, Murray family, Naumovich family, Newman-Shotton family, Nienaber family, Nott family, O’Hearn family, Olive and family, Pave family, Payne family, Peterman family, Porter family, Prestoldt family, Prys family, Puma family, Rachel and family, Radwood family, Rall family, Ramos family, Ray family, Raysor family, Rebecca, Riggs family, Robinson family, Rosier family, Salazar family, Sawyer family, Serpette family, Sheade family, Silverman family, Sladic family, Smith family, Smithson family, Snyder family, Sontag family, Stejskal family, Stewart family, Stone family, Tedd and family, Thimot family, Tireman family, Townsend family, Turnbull family, Tysinger family, Wallace family, Bowie Wankel, Rebecca Weaver, Webb family, Weiss family, White family, Wilson family, Wright family, Yankee family, Zerby family, Zelasko family, and all the other awesome families who submitted photos, tips, and anecdotes. Special thanks to Natasha Duckwall of CaptureByNatasha.com, the only professional photographer whose photo appears in the book.
JULIE HAAS BROPHY is a mother of two, fledgling mosaic artist, and accidental blogger. She earned her BA from Columbia University weeks before turning thirty, and enjoyed more than four years at home with her young sons before creating ShitMyKidsRuined.com. Julie lives with her family in New York.