I Spend More Time Than I Should Being Pissed off at Bob Saget. subtitle: Happy Mother's day.

You know what? Full House really set me up to feel like a failure as parent.


That show was pretty much at the center of my television life from grades k-4 or 5, and maybe 6, who can remember. I swear though, that it wasn't just me. Without exception, each year on the first day of school when we did all that ice breaker/get to know your teacher stuff we would have to go around and say our favorite show. Now, this was back when TGIF was the height of the elementary-aged child's Friday night plans and Sunday's Casey's top 40 officially marked the end of my weekend so there really wasn't that much out there.  Also, now that I think of it, I did live in a very low income area and our playground was literally made out of old truck tires and wood logs (I promise you I'm not kidding)-- So maybe we all just bonded over that show because our home lives were pretty tragic anyway. I for one, took great comfort knowing that I could always rely on the worst problem of Stephanie Tanner's night being the lack of a ride home from the mall. That show was like my most comfy worn-in jeans.

I just KNEW that when I had kids, it was going to be all soft piano music and the quiet passing on of parental wisdom to a ready, listening ear. Then we'd all go out for ice cream and laugh about that time  someone's pet monkey snuck in the house and climbed in bed with another someone who mistook the monkey for a significant other. (Canned laughter Ad friggen nauseum).

Fast forward to reality. Did you know that in real life you can't just get down on one knee and endlessly lecture a five year old? Shocking! As it turns out, not enjoying criticism is kind of a universal human trait. Who knew? Not this girl. Danny Tanner LIED to me.

I try to gently reason with my kids all the time, and guess what? Eye rolling is not just for teenagers. It starts early, people. Not for the first time, earlier this week while I was trying to sweetly drop some serious wisdom to my seven-year-old he turned to me and said, "Mom. Please. STAHHHHP."

And this is exactly what pops in my head. 

So I'm dropping my wisdom here. The trick to lecturing your kids is just to flat out trick them, ninja-like. Ply them with something sweet. Get them into the car and don't start until it's running (I realize this sounds a lot like kidnapping and that's because it almost is, which is actually the brilliance of it). Then, condense your entire life's worth of awesome advice into maaaaybe five words and spit them out quickly, because it's the digital age and the average attention span is like two seconds. Boom. Parenting.

You know what's heartbreaking though? Bob Saget might be a hilarious comedian but I will never know, because the second I started watching that Netflix stand up special all I could think was, Omigod, Danny Tanner! What a terrible potty mouth you have!!! I turned it off five minutes in. My childhood was built on lies. Cheesy, piano music laced lies.