missed part one or part two? check em out!

alex isn’t like a regular mom, she’s a cool mom! image source: world lifestyle.com

Ugh, are we still reading this?  Anyway, Alex and Simon have “spirited” children (anyone who saw them on Real Housewives of New York may have another adjective for them) and you know what?  Alex doesn’t give a shit if they are “nice.”  Um, okay.  I get you can’t control your children’s personalities, but I think raising kids to be kind isn’t some trendy nonsense that Alex and Simon are above.  There are a bunch of super boring anecdotes no one gives a shit about (Johan took Francios’s coloring book!  Mon dieu!) and then Alex goes on a long weird tangent about how even though she was raised in the midwest, she is still totes classy and urban.  Her father was in the oil business and so they HAD to live in Kansas after he bought “hundreds of acres.”  Calm down, Dorothy.  But they also had a house in the Caribbean, so don’t you DARE think Alex isn’t cultured.

dude, if JILL ZARIN (of Zarin Fabrics) is concerned about your behavior, you might want to check yourself. image source: giphy.com

After Alex humble brags about her bougie upbringing, there is a super fucking weird section about them basically hurting animals (Simon hit a toad once with a golf club because he thought it would make him blind if it sprayed him; Alex liked to pull the tail of the dog who lived next door to their VACATION HOME in St. Thomas and one time put a turtle in her mom’s purse and it died).  I guess what I am saying is they better keep an eye out on their own little monsters.  I think we have all watched enough serial killer based programs in the past few years to know that sociopaths often start harming small animals before escalating to humans.

watch your chipmunks, girl. image source: realitytvgifs.com

Next up, an actually (semi) sane section about all of the judgment they have faced about the parenting from the tv show.  On one hand, when you are literally putting your life on camera for public consumption, and you are knowingly at the mercy of a team of editors, you have to anticipate some sort of criticisms if you have any self-awareness AT ALL.  However, this is Alex and Simon we are talking about!  I mean, I would never want cameras around while I take care of my son.  It’s really hard work and you do what you have to to get by sometimes and I get that it is SO EASY to judge other people’s kids and parenting choices, especially if you have no children or have grown children.  My mom claims that my brother and I NEVER cried or did anything wrong as children, which is complete fucking horseshit (I mean, look at this sentence I just wrote, clearly I am a disaster).

HOWEVER.

Alex immediately judges the shit out of some other lady who has a “clearly hyperactive” daughter and Alex didn’t like how she was handling her at the pottery painting place Alex took her kids too.  You can’t have it both ways, lady!

man, most alex gifs are just her laughing or breathing erratically.  where’s nene when you need her? image source: giphy.com

SO this is really weird… (things I have said 800 times while reading this book)- Simon is very obsessed with his kids understanding that food comes from animals, like real animals like the cute cartoons of cows in their books.  One of his fave activities is taking F & J (i refuse to type their names anymore, they have been through enough) to the butcher to understand that their yummy bacon came from a real live pig.  I mean, I am all for transparency with kids, and I could especially understand this if they were vegetarians, but they aren’t!  It just seems cruel and so fucking odd.  Also, Alex works a billion hours a week but still makes her own yogurt.  HOW YOU LIVIN?

there she is! image source: wordpress.com

Then MORE tips for taking your kids out to dinner at non-kid restaurants.  Great ones, like bring flash cards!  Because if there is something kids like better than eating at stuffy places with grown-up food, it’s fucking math.  I am SO SO SO weary of this book.  One more section to go… can’t Sonja write a book already?

anyone? image source: giphy.com