Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Preventing Grace

Home
Evangelical
Cute Is Not The Word You Were Looking For

Cute Is Not The Word You Were Looking For

Last updated on: December 18, 2018 at 9:21 am by Anne Kennedy

Cute Is Not The Word You Were Looking For 2018-12-18T09:21:39-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I’ve been saving up this charmingly terrible goop gem for a few days. I thought about letting you know about it before, in time for your actual Christmas shopping, but then I thought I would do the moral thing and only bring it to your attention when it was too late, in order to spare you the agonizing pain of wondering, “Should I or should I not spend $959.00 on an avocado vegan mattress?” In other words, you don’t really have time to treat yourself before Christmas, phew. But you’ll still, I think, want to know about it, and what it would do for you if you were to buy it. But still don’t, because what kind of person would you be…not someone who could ever come back and read this blog without lowering your perfectly threaded eyebrows in shame.

What is a vegan avocado mattress? Calm down. Chill. Before you can even know about it, first you have to know about what goes with it. The person to explain it you is goop’s chief revenue officer. I’m going to go out on my sustainable, reforested limb and say that this is someone who is very very very rich. The kind of person who, when you tell her that you’re tired because you haven’t taken a holiday in seven years, will give you—and I stole this from my dearest friends in the world—the Just Be Rich Solution. “Oh,” she’ll say, “I have my live in childcare do that.” And then she’ll go on to explain how she takes her live in childcare with her on her very expensive holiday every year so that she can have the rest that you so obviously need. Anyway, here is how goop’s chief revenue person copes with the exhausting demands of her life.

Bryan has been pulling the weight all afternoon, coaching soccer, and making it all happen, so when I get home, I’m on. From 6:30 to 8:30, it’s me running the ship.

6:30 p.m.: Right when I get home, I have a glass of Harmless Harvest Coconut water and start up my Vitruvi diffuser with some essential oils—it sets a great mood and chills us all out.

Oh the dreaded two hour evening wind down. You might be crash landing at the end of your day, digging through children’s backpacks, scrubbing cat sick off the floor, keeping before your desperate eyes a late night little glass of eggnog, or a massive vat of red wine, or, I don’t know, probably some more work that includes things like making the dinner that doesn’t magically make itself just because you work full time. But instead of that, try some coconut water. That sounds…well, I don’t really feel like trying it because I hate coconut. But you know what, maybe my kids, who behave perfectly and are very very very very photogenic, will love it. It’s literally the first thing all of us would want to drink together if we’ve been busy in our own separate worlds for a whole day.

Ok, what’s next. Literally whole minutes are going by. Gotta keep on schedule.

6:40 p.m.: I’m usually exhausted, and so are the kids, so bath time is just a great moment for all of us. I use mostly Seventh Generation stuff for them—I love the goop Martini bath for myself, but I think it would be too much for them!

Yeah, I’m always exhausted by 6:40. Deathly tired usually. And you know what else…hungry! What an ideal time to, oh never mind. Get in the tub kids, for your super special bath. Wait, wait wait wait wait. Who is doing the bath? How are you both taking a bath and making children take a bath? HOW? Is it the live in childcare? Or Do They Magically Bathe Themselves? I ask because we’ve gotta keep moving. Twenty whole minutes have gone by and it’s

7 p.m.: After the tub, I do a quick dry-brush and then take a shower to wash the day off. My favorite thing in the shower is the goop body scrub. It feels so clean, smells so good—I just love it. I keep it pretty simple in the shower beyond that: Seventh Generation body wash and the goop Instant Facial once a week.”

Boy that is a lot of water. I suppose you weren’t standing over your kids, yelling at them to Turn Off The Water. Certainly not because you had a bath first and then a shower yourself. Did you wash your face? Girl, did you? Anyway, it’s

7:10 p.m.: My nighttime skin-care routine is easy: I wash my face with the Oat cleanser from Naturopathica, then do a little vitamin C serum, plus moisturizers from my facialist (Vanessa Hernandez in Brentwood—she’s amazing).

I know, I know, you’re upset that we haven’t gotten to the mattress. Chill. Drink some more coconut water. That’s probably what the children are meekly doing after their perfectly appointed twenty minute bath administered to them by…sorry, sorry, I’ll try not to be so bitter. Let’s see, what’s next?

7:15 p.m.: Sometime between 7 and 8, the kids and I pile into bed to read a book together.

Oh, I see, these times are not exact. There are minutes in there for flexibility. I wonder what are they going to read. Let’s find out.

Our favorites right now are Love You Forever and The Giving Tree.

I’m sorry. There is no way on Gaia’s green earth that you are reading those books. Those are terrible terrible books. Nobody wants to read those books. Tell us what you’re really reading. Is it even worse than that? Are you Not Even reading? Like, maybe you’re lying there on your mattress—Which We Will Get To—on your face while your irate, coconut water filled children beat you over the head with a bunch of terrible terrible Disney books that you don’t have the will to say no to but you’re too humiliated to even deal. You lie there and try to read your phone out of the corner of your eye while they scream and bash you. But it’s fine, it’s ‘your turn.’ Poor ‘Brian’ was with them all day and you have to spend meaningful time with your children. You Have To. You have it all, dammit. You Are Living The Dream. Anyway, where were we.

In what is just the best moment of my day, we all snuggle together—our new mattress from Avocado Green Mattress is so incredibly comfortable. We got it just a month ago, and we got them for the kids, too. Everything the company makes is totally nontoxic—such a big deal for us, considering all the off-gassing and other problems you can have with many mattresses—and they’re sustainable, so it was a really easy decision. It’s vegan: made of natural latex rubber and certified organic cotton, with no polyurethane foams or toxic fire retardants. We even got the pillow toppers and the sheets.

Ok, so I went to the website. Super disappointing. These mattresses are not made out of avocado. They are made out of latex. Take a moment to scroll through the internet while I retreat into a baffled and aggrieved silence……..

Well. But at least they’re vegan. Boy, vegan sure sounds nicer and greener than latex, doesn’t it? You know what’s really humiliating? When I came back to America after being in France for a year and went into a very intimidating bagel shop in Ithaca, NY—one of those ones where you have to stand with your neck stretched back, wildly, anxiously, frantically reading the wall of words, the seemingly thousands of bagel descriptions, plus everything you could possibly have on the bagel once you cram down your trauma and actually choose it. The line piled up behind me and in a panic I blurted, “I’ll just have a Ve-j-an bagel if it’s not too much trouble.” The tattooed cash register person looked down her nose and hissed, “It’s Veee-ggg-an.”

Anyway, times a-wasting. There’s only so many times you can ‘read’ The Giving Tree before life becomes irrevocably meaningless. It is now

8 p.m.: While Bryan’s having his downtime with TV, the kids and I put the books away, set out backpacks and stuff for school, and brush teeth, and I get them into bed, which they’re pretty good about. They always start out in their own beds, but it’s the cutest thing: By morning, they’re always curled up together in one bed.

Oh honey, cute is definitely some kind of word for it. Nothing cuter than having your perfectly curated vegan coconut infused sleep disrupted by large children who have their own perfect mattresses and pillow toppers and all the fixings. That’s My Favorite.

You know what else is my favorite? Keeping my money and using it to buy a lot of delicious food—like bacon, and butter, and all the stuff to make wassail. Incidentally, I also like being with my kids longer than a few minutes of the Giving Tree. But not when they’re in the bath and not when they’re in my bed. Someone get those poor children a sandwich, and one for ‘Brian.’

Previous Post

December 17, 2018

God Dreams in my Heart Podcast and Links

Next Post

December 19, 2018 Use ‘Joyance’ in a Sentence

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Hosanna" mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Hurry Rejoice Praise Save us

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »