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The Housewife Awards
How's Jen
MommaBlog
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Return to main Housewife Awards page
Check out our 2007-2009 archives.
Our 2010 winners are:
Adrienne Schoen Gunn - 6/22/2010
Cynthia Lofaso - 6/8/2010
Marlana Sirls - 5/25/2010
Julie Ackerman - 5/11/2010
Jody Spencer - 4/27/2010
Greta Hyland - 4/13/2010
Christina Holland - 3/30/2010
Daiva Natochy - 3/15/2010
Katherine Bruce - 3/1/2010
Jeannie Gardiner - 2/15/2010
Jaimee Star - 2/1/2010
Christine Adler - 1/18/2010
Alana Peterson - 1/4/2010
Adrienne Schoen Gunn of Los Angeles, California
Careful. Adrienne's hiding a hose behind her back.
Adrienne is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® for her Day Care Dousing.
Adrienne started her own home-based day care center when her two boys were little. Twelve years later, her day care was still going strong, only now, she expected
her kids to help out with after care yard clean-up.
So one very long and hot day, they started to have a water fight and got carried away.
When they didn't stop, Adrienne grabbed the hose and started squirting them.
They ran into the main room of the child care center, with Adrienne right behind them -- hose and all.
She squirted her sons and half of the stuff in the child care center.
Now a professor and child care director, Adrienne remembers: "They (nor I) could believe what I had done. It was hilarious and I still remember it 25 years later...
Bottom line: We are moms first -- no matter what we know! We have emotions and sometimes act before we think it through.
But I do love that crazy memory! Hang in there moms! My sons are 40 and 33 and still laughing as am I!"
You're a good mom, Adrienne! You win 5 Steri-Bottles,
BPA-free, recyclable, single-use baby bottles, and a copy of Jen Singer's Stop Second-Guessing Yourself--Baby's First Year: A Field-Tested Guide to Confident Parenting
and a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge.
Cynthia Lofaso of Forest, Virginia
Cynthia says nobody's getting a whippin'.
Cynthia is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® for her Wal-mart Meltdown.
Cynthia was four months into chemotherapy for ovarian cancer when she thought it would be a fabulous
idea to take her one-year-old shopping at Wal-mart. You know, a little normalcy in an otherwise anything-but-normal situation.
Who doesn't want that? Well, she got "normal" alright.
Her son wanted none of anything that Wal-mart had to offer, least of all the bottles that Cynthia was trying to buy. So he launched into
a full-blown, how-embarassing-look-at-that-boy temper tantrum. In. The. Middle. Of. The. Store.
There must have had a sale on Useless Parenting Advice, because a Wal-mart employee offered, "If he was my son, he'd get a whippin'." Luckily,
they weren't standing in the belt department.
Cynthia admits, "It was, of course, my fault, as I told my son that he could get a 'little' present if he was good in the store.
However, he would only choose large toys which I kept saying no to." And she still hadn't found the bottles they'd gone to the store for in the first place.
Eventually, he broke down. "That was the beginning of the end for him....and me," remembers Cynthia.
Ah, toddlers. They don't care if you're battling cancer (and Wal-mart employees). They want their way, and they want it now. Cynthia wound up asking her mother
to pick up bottles for her instead.
Eight years later, Cynthia is now cancer-free and her son doesn't have meltdowns in Wal-mart anymore. Phew.
You're a good mom, Cynthia! You win a copy of
Betsy Brown Braun's
You're Not the Boss of Me: Brat-proofing your 4- to 12-Year-Old-Child,
plus a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge.
Marlana Sirls of Flint, Michigan
Marlana is learning to be very literal.
Marlana is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® for her Princess and the Pee.
Marlana thought she'd give potty training a go. So she bought her two-year-old daughter a pink princess potty so her toddler could pee in style.
You know, the kind that plays "royal tunes" after each successful, er, "potty event."
Marlana explained to her potty princess that she needed to "ca-ca in the chair like a big girl."
But Her Highness was very confused. "I ca-ca in chair?" she asked innocently.
Marlana replied, "Yes." And her toddler added, "Ewwwwwwwww nassy [nasty].
I not ca-ca on chair."
Marlana, obviously tired from translating Toddler, says she
"explained to her that it was okay, and she needed to pee in the potty chair."
She adds, "Then figured I would give it a rest and try the next day."
That evening, Marlana entered the living room to find her toddler's diaper off
and the new couch soaking wet. She recalls, "OH YES!! She had peed on the chair -- just like momma said."
You're a good mom, Marlana! You win
a copy of Jeanne Muchnick's
Dinner for Busy Moms: Easy Strategies for Getting Food on the Table--Quick
and a Flings®, a pop-up recycling container perfect for picnics and parties. And, as always, a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge.
Julie Ackerman of Tremont, Illinois
"Pssst. Julie! Please don't get sick again.
Julie is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® for her Sick Day Epiphany.
One Sunday morning, Julie woke up with the flu. SCORE, Julie! You managed to get sick on a weekend when you have an actual shot at a sick day. Or at least a few hours. Congratulations!
Anyhow, her husband decided to take their kids, ages 22 months and 5 months, to church without her so she could rest.
When they returned, Julie heard her baby crying outside, so she went out to see what was going on. She helped her husband make a bottle for the baby,
while he went to get medicine for her.
He put the medicine on the ground so he could mix up the bottle. That's when their toddler grabbed the medicine and spilled it all over the ground and on Daddy's pants.
Then he walked through it for good measure like any accomplished toddler would.
When Julie's husband stopped feeding the baby so he could clean up the medicine, Baby started to cry. So Julie grabbed the baby and started to feed her while
her toddler decided to throw a little metal spade into the air, which hit Baby in the head, causing her to cry all over again.
Her husband stopped mopping up the medicine from his pants and asked, "How do you watch them both all day?" before adding, "I hope you are feeling better soon."
You're a good mom, Julie! You win
a Lil Baby Cakes 4 tier Pink Satin Frog Diaper Cake from
Lil Baby Cakes, which includes 70 size 1-2 diapers, a Pink Frog Satin Security Blanket,
a pacifier and J&J travel size baby items, plus signed copies of ALL THREE of Jen Singer's Stop Second-Guessing Yourself
books, Mom's Choice Award winners.
and a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge.
Jody Spencer of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Jody's toast is sitting on the kitchen table, cold.
Jody is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® for her Breakfast Blunder.
Here's Jody's story, in her own words:
"As in most typical households in the morning I get up, get the kids dressed and take them downstairs to make them breakfast.
"While they are eating, I feed the cat and then make coffee for my husband. Shortly after, I clean up the mess from breakfast,
send the kids off to play and my husband off to work.
"The other day, I offered to make my husband some toast, and he said 'No thank you, I don't like it the way you do.'
Curious, I asked him exactly how it is I like my toast. His response 'You like yours cold.'
"'Um, no Honey. After feeding the kids, you and even the CAT, that's just what happens to my breakfast, it's not that I actually like it that way!'"
You're a good mom, Jody! You win
a copy of Aviva Goldfarb's
SOS! The Six O'Clock Scramble to the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families
and a Starbucks gift card worth $15,
and a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge. Enjoy your breakfast -- when you get to it.
Greta Hyland of Dammeron Valley, Utah
Greta keeps a tire iron in her purse, just in case.
Greta is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® for her Breaking and Entering Momma Morning.
It started out a normal morning at Greta's house. She had to walk her five-year-old to the school bus stop down the street with her three- and one-year-olds in tow.
It was cloudy and windy outside, but she figured they wouldn't be gone long enough to need coats. So, she pushed her kids out the door, shut it --
and then had that sinking feeling she hadn't unlocked the door.
Sure enough, they were locked out of the house. Greta had no keys with her, and she'd left her cell phone inside.
She cursed herself all the way to the bus stop: Why did I do that?
Meanwhile, her trio of boys zig-zagged all the way to the bus stop, her one-year-old in the lead, while she screamed like a mad woman, hoping she could get to them before a car did.
She remembers, "My mind was racing: 'What should I do?'" She was new to the neighborhood and didn't know anyone. How do you admit to a group of mommies that
the new mom on the block has gone and locked herself
out of the house with no coats for the kids and no cell phone?
Naturally, it started to rain and the wind began to gust. She didn't want to have to ask her new neighbors to use their phone to call her husband to come home
and let her back into the house. So she said nothing, put her kindergartener on the bus, and returned to her house.
"I started looking for something to break a window, as all of them were locked along with all the doors," Greta recalls. "I decided on the garage window,
since it wouldn't let all the cold air into the house."
So she went into the tool shed to find something that would break the window, and found a long piece of iron. She says, "Then it hit me: Maybe I could force it into the door and pry it open."
She stuck the metal rod into her garage door and POP! It opened.
"After that I decided that beautiful piece of metal would be my hideaway key for future blunders," says Greta. And then she'll never have to tell the other mommies her secret.
You're a good mom, Greta! You win a copy of Ada Calhoun's
Instinctive Parenting: Trusting Ourselves to Raise Good Kids
and a Starbucks gift card worth $15,
and a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge. Please remember your keys.
Christina Holland of Airdrie, Alberta, Canada
Christina is hoping the next little one doesn't
figure out the door locks anytime soon.
Christina is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® for her Off the Leash Outside In.
Some time ago, Christina had a two-year-old toddler and a newly rescued six-month-old dog. Sadly, only one of them peed oustide.
Zoey the dog is very shy, the product of a previous bad life that left her terrified of the leash. So Christina took her outside
to pee -- offleash -- in her condo's greenspace area while her toddler hung out inside the house. Christina took care to shut the door so the cat wouldn't escape.
After Zoey did her business, Christina went to open the door, but it was now locked, courtesy of her toddler.
"I didn't know my son knew what a door lock was!" admits Christina. Ah, the milestones pediatricians don't tell you about.
Christina kept trying to mime through the window to her toddler
how to unlock the door. "It shouldn't be that hard right?" she asks. "I mean, he had locked it in the first place. Surely he could figure it out?"
Uh, no.
Christina spent several frustrating minutes watching him turn the door knob instead of the deadbolt. So she trekked down the block until
she found some people in their driveway, asked to borrow their phone and called her husband to come home from work and let her into her own house.
She says, "I was seriously worried they might call child services for leaving my son unattended in the house at all."
Meanwhile the neighbor's kids wanted to play with the leashless Zoey, who tried to run away every time they came near.
The kids' mother laughed the whole time as Christina told her why she needed to use her phone.
"I maintain that it's not funnier from the outside looking in," she asserts. "Now I always take both my house keys and my cell phone whenever I step outside my house!"
You're a good mom, Christina. You win a copy of Elizabeth Pantley's
The No-Cry Nap Solution: Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems
and a Mom Works "Job Security" T-shirt, note pads, pen and mini-tote,
and a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge.
Daiva Natochy of Fremont, California
Daiva is out of duct tape today.
Daiva is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® for her Child Proof Spoof.
Here's Daiva's story in her own words and photos, reposted with permission from her funny and wonderful blog,
Diaper Monologues.
How To Baby-Proof Your Home for $4.99+tax
You know all those people who tell you, "Oh the second trimester is like a honeymoon! You will have so much energy you will re-tile your bathroom during
baby’s naps just for the fun of it?" Well… as Joe Wilson so eloquently put it: YOU LIE! I am about as energetic as a DMV clerk. So when Leila found a new activity:
I just asked Dennis if he could “take care of it”……. But what he heard was, “Sweetie, could you put some of that good-looking stylish duct tape on my kitchen cabinets?”…
I was going to say something, but decided to take a nap instead… which was interpreted as a green light to use a duct tape to baby-proof the rest of the house.
…like a fire place…
…or that little rip on our couch that Leila has been poking at…
… finally I had to say something… you know… for the sake of the baby:
 
You're a good mom, Daiva (and funny too)! You win a copy of Jamie Novak's
Stop Throwing Money Away: Turn Clutter to Cash, Trash to Treasure--And Save the Planet While You're at It
and a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge.
For more good-natured laughs, drop by Daiva's blog:
Diaper Monologues.
Note: No babies were harmed in the making of this award.
Katherine Bruce of Galva, Kansas
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty...
Katherine is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® because of her Im-purr-fect Check-out.
A few weeks ago, Katherine ducked out of work early to make it home before a pretty heavy snowstorm was expected to hit her area, causing travel issues for the entire weekend.
So, Katherine's husband met her and their 21-month-old at the grocery store before heading home to hunker down.
Katherine realized it was a bad plan all around, attempting to go to a crowded supermarket with a cranky toddler whose schedule had been completely messed up.
Not only did he have to leave daycare early - which he hates - but the Cheerios and milk she'd brought for him in the car were not acceptable to his needs at the time, and he let her know it.
She didn't want to bring a cranky and hungry toddler into the supermarket. Thankfully, though, the store was offering samples of cooked salmon in the seafood department.
They took three samples, and fed them all to their son. As they got to the checkout, Katherine's toddler had enough of the carseat, so she picked him up.
When his face got close to hers, she blurted the first thing that came to mind: "Somebody's breath smells like cat food."
Of course, the cashier heard her, and of course her husband was laughing too hard to explain that they did not, in fact, feed their child cat food.
Katherine was too distracted by her son's antics to clarify that her child hadn't been nibbling on spilled Meow Mix in the pet food aisle.
So now the grocery store thinks she let her son eat cat food and everytime she goes to the supermarket, she gets the weirdest looks.
Katherine says, "But I figure, if thats the most embarassing thing that happens, I'm okay with that."
You're a good mom, Katherine! You win a copy of Ellen Pober Rittberg's
35 Things Your Teen Won't Tell You, So I Will
plus a bonus copy of Jen Singer's "Stop Second-Guessing Yourself -- The Preschool Years,"
and a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge.
Jeannie Gardiner of Dayville, Connecticut
Warning: School buses ahead.
Jeannie is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® because of her Back-Seat BUStle.
One day, Jeannie tried to cram too much into the day. First she and her 13-month-old went to a play date, followed by a visit to her
office and the girls at the bank.
It was a full morning and early afternoon for her toddler, whose naptime started sometime in the middle of all that. So, Jeannie
got her little guy settled in the car, offered him a blankie and a binkie (even though, she says, "I'm trying to pull the plug")
and made sure he was snuggled with a neck pillow so he could nap comfortably on the 35-minute car ride home.
As she exited the bank parking lot she could hear him moving erratically in the back seat. Startled, she
stopped the car, turned around and found him flailing his arms and legs and shaking his head. Jeannie's heart sunk.
She thought something was terribly wrong with her toddler.
She yelled to him, "What's wrong, baby?!" But she couldn't see the expression on his face behind that big ole binkie.
As she frantically tugged at her seatbelt to try to unlatch it, she noticed a school bus on the road,
waiting at the red light. She admits: "What I thought was a medical emergency in the back seat was simply school bus excitement!"
Her toddler, it seems, is a huge fan of school buses. To him, it was like siting Elvis.
"I can only hope he'll have this same excitement for the big yellow bus in high school," says Jeannie. Good luck with that one, Jeanne.
You're a good mom, Jeannie! a copy of HappyBaby: The Organic Guide to Baby's First 24 Months
by the founders of HappyBaby, plus a bonus copy of Jen Singer's "Stop Second-Guessing Yourself -- The Toddler Years,"
and a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge.
Jaimee Star of Tremont City, Ohio
Jaimee is hiding her lollipops.
Jaimee is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® because of her Sane Shopping Trip, Sucka!
Jaimee just wanted to buy dinner and go home. But her three-year-old was being particularly fussy that day, so she had to resort to every mom's dirty little secret:
She handed him a bag of lollipops. Only, he didn't just choose one and eat it contentedly in his car seat en route to the supermarket. Rather, he unwrapped one, licked it
and put it in his lap. Then he unwrapped another one, licked it and put it in his lap. Again, and again and again.
Jaimee did not care. It was that kind of day. She admits, "I felt it was a small sacrifice to make."
When they got to the supermarket, Jaimee pulled her son out of his car seat and began tossing the barely licked, yet sticky, lollipops in the trash can by the cart corral.
She picked out a kid-sized cart for her son to keep him busy so she could buy what she needed fast and get back home.
As soon as they walked into the store, Jaimee felt people looking at them. She figured they would comment on how adorable her son was or about
how determined he was as he sped down the aisles.
But two younger guys looked at them, and began laughing hysterically.
Jaimee wondered if her son was picking his nose or if her fly was undone.
When she got to the van, she figured out what was so stinking funny. As she shut the door,
she saw her reflection in the window. Turns out, she had several Dum-Dum lollipops stuck to her armpits and her chest.
Two red, one green and one of those "funky white coconut or pina colada,
sticking around as though I had intended to finish them later," remembers Jaimee.
She yanked them off and had a good chuckle as she tossed them into the trash --
just as the two amused guys yelled out their window while they drove by, "See ya, Sucka!"
She says: "The best part? Still feeling it was all worth it because my son was so content and calm and cool ... worth any price in humiliation!"
You're a good mom, Jaimee! You win a copy
of a copy of Kristen Chase's The Mominatrix's Guide to Sex: A No-Surrender Advice Book for Naughty Moms
plus a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge.
Christine Adler of Somers, New York
Christine is getting ready to deal Crazy Eights.
Christine is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® because of her Just Say No to Homework in the Waiting Room.
When Christine took her two sons for their physical exams one Tuesday right after school, the pediatrician recommended an
EKG for her fifth grader, who had been having chest pains during gym class.
Concerned, Christine took her 10-year-old to the radiology center right away.
While she waited for the appointment, she played cards with both of her sons in the waiting room for about 20 minutes.
By the time they finished the EKG, it was late. They went home, ate dinner, took showers and went off to bed.
The next day, Christine wrote a note to her son's teacher, asking her to give him an extra day on his homework, given the unexpected EKG and all.
But the teacher wrote back asking why he couldn't have done his homework in the car or the waiting room.
She said that he'd need to keep up or he'd be ejected from the advanced class. Though she did excuse him from his homework,
Christine says "for about 10 seconds I was kicking myself for not making him do the work in the doctor's office.
Then I decided that the teacher was INSANE, and that playing Crazy Eights with my son was far better before a scary test
than making him do homework. Harvard be damned! And if that makes me a bad mother, I don't care!"
Turns out, the chest pains were caused by stress. Go figure.
You're a good mom, Christine! You win a copy
of of Leah Ingram's Suddenly Frugal: How to Live Happier and Healthier for Less,
plus a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge.
Alana Peterson of Monroeville, New Jersey
Alana has kicked off her shoes.
Alana is our latest winner of the Housewife Awards® because of her High-Topped Christmas party.
Here's Alana's story, in her own words:
"I managed to rush and get dressed in a beautiful red velvet jacket with matching taffeta and velvet striped,
long skirt in prep for my husband's Christmas party, postponed from a week prior due to a massive Nor'easter.
Threw on my Chuck Taylor High Tops, because I couldn't find my boots... grabbed my dress shoes and off
I went.
"Got to the kids' postponed Christmas program at church in time to help coordinate the line-ups.
The girliest little girl dressing in a foo-foo holiday creation told me she had to go potty and off we went...
I held her aloft the potty because we were NOT to crinkle the 'crinkle-ing' in her dress. Got her cleaned up, running down the center isle,
only to hear my little boys' friend say, 'Your mom's cool. She's wearing CT's with her outfit, there's a turd on her shoe,
and, she doesn't even care.'
"That's right. I grabbed a tissue, plucked the offending turd and wore said CT's to the Christmas Party
instead of the dress shoes."
You're a good mom, Alana! You win a copy
 
of Tracy Beckerman's Rebel without a Minivan and Beth Feldman's See Mom Run: Sidesplitting Essays by the World's Most Harried Blogging Moms -- with an essay by MommaSaid's Jen Singer --
plus a Housewife Award® certificate for the fridge.
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