Sometimes Being a Mother Means Lying Your Ass Off

Being a parent means that kids look up to us, at least until they turn about 12 and we become the scum of the earth who don't understand how to be cool. When they're little though, when they still believe that a refrigerator box can be a rocket ship and the best thing in the world is getting to stay up late enough to watch just ooooone more episode of Phineas and Ferb, they think that every word that we spew is gold.

Honestly, our time in this phase of adoration is limited. Gotta soak it up while we can.

Naturally, being the incredible pilar of parenting that I am, I use this power for evil.

As it turns out, I'm a complete and total liar. A fraud. A sham. I'm a seller of snake oil and a promiser of promised lands. This is something that I come by honestly (which you'll have to just take my word for as I've just announced to you that I let untruths flow like wine around these parts), but never realized how bad off I was until the most wonderful time of the year was upon us and a certain Elf on the God Damned Shelf presented me with opportunities galore to fill my children's heads with falsehoods. 

I spit out lies like a Pez dispenser

First of all, who invented this shit and why are we all doing it? It's bad enough that I have to mentally Nadia Comaneci up in here when it comes to Santa and all of the plot holes that little storyline comes with, but now we've added a toy elf that can zoom around the fucking  house in the middle of the night so long as he isn't touched by human hands into the mix?

OH, THE HUMANITY!

Not ones to save ourselves from hassle and inevitable heartache, our elf came to be part of our family last year and was dubbed Bonus Lightening McQueen by my children. No, I don't know why. Bonus resided with us rather uneventfully for his first season in our home, but this year has been a bit of a different story.

First of all, being the unmitigated jerk wad that I am, I decided that Bonus would be a great tool to use when my kids were in need of a lesson entitled, "Stop screwing with Mommy." After two days of terrible temper tantrums out of Julia and a morning in which I was awakened by them playing in the bathroom unattended (if you're confused as to why they aren't allowed to do that, you can refresh your memory here. It involves flushing things down toilets and subsequent calls to plumbers), I decided that Bonus was going back to the North Pole for a few days because the kids had been placed on the naughty list. The fact that their brat-like behavior coincided with my complete failure to move him the night before was just a happy coincidence. 

I wrote a quick note in my best, most loopy and elfish looking handwriting, snuck it up next to him on the mantel and then made a big show of finding said letter when the kids abandoned their posts at the snowman soap dispenser that they were systematically emptying on the bathroom counter so I could read it to them as a means of explaining why the elf was in the same spot he'd been in the day before. The letter read as follows:

Dear Patrick and Julia, 

Your behavior over the last few days has made me very sad, so I've decided I have to go back to the North Pole. The way you've spoken to your mommy and daddy was very mean and I can't be around if you're going to make such naughty choices. Refusing to listen, throwing tantrums and playing in the bathroom aren't allowed, so right now, the two of you are on the naughty list. If you start behaving again, I can come back. I really hope you do, because I would hate to have to go live with another family.

Sincerely, 

Bonus Lightening McQueen

I wish I could say I'd invented this idea myself, but it was actually the genius of my friend Genevieve. I saw it on her Facebook page and knew I was going to need to keep that one in my back pocket, especially because it had seemed to really resonate with her kids. I mean, screw parents being disappointed in you. Nothing can cut as deeply as a doofy looking elf thinking you're a dick, amirite?

Well, two things happened as a result of this treachery. Thing one is, my son was bereft that the elf bugged out, which was a bummer because his behavior wasn't nearly as douchey as his sister's and thing two was his sister isn't stupid. Even, like, at all. 

Once her brother was out of ear shot, she turned to me and said, "The elf didn't move last night."

I replied, "Nope, he was over your behavior."

Her eyes narrowed. "But, if he didn't move last night, how did he know we were going to break the rules in the bathroom this morning?"

I could have come up with a complicated answer to the kid who questioned Santa's ability to enter our home without the aid of a chimney when she was three-years-old, but instead I yelled, "I DON'T KNOW HIS LIFE!" and then ambled away so she couldn't see the fear in my eyes. 

Her smile says, "I'm sweet and innocent," but her eyes say, "I'm onto you, beotch."

Which brings me to the second bit of deception involving this doll. After two days, the children were returned to the "nice list" and the elf resumed his hijinks around our house.

He's crashed his helicopter into the fan, proving once and for all that elves should not be issued pilot's licenses.

That is, until two nights ago when I, again, forgot to hide the little bastard. Robert had been sick as a dog and slept on the couch, so I'd gone to bed without thinking about the elf for a second. Around five in the morning, I realized that he was still clinging to the top of the surfboard in our family room where he'd been chillaxing the day before and did that quiet run that parents have all perfected. 

You know, the one were you kind of run on the tips of your toes down the hallway in order to move with ninja-like silence because you don't want anyone to hear that you're up yet and bust in on you having 4 minutes of coffee time to yourself? Or using the bathroom without their company? Or hiding a stuffed doll around your house like a schizophrenic so they'll believe in the magic of freaking Christmas? 

So, I do the silent run, yank the elf off the top of the surf board and turn around to find a suitable place to stash him only to be met with the confused and mildly stunned eyes of my four-year-old son. I froze like Anna at the end of, well, Frozen. I was completely busted. 

This. This is the look I had on my face.

He'd realized at some point that my husband was sleeping on the couch and had come out to sleep with him. Now, at 5am, with a week and half to go before Christmas, I found myself in a standoff with my child as I clutched his "magical" friend in my hand, a friend that humans are forbidden to touch, with a look of terror on my face. My mind screamed at me. 

"You've just completely ruined his entire childhood! You have GOT to fix this, his entire ability to enjoy the wonderment of Christmas and Santa and all of this crap is contingent on you fixing this! Do something!! DO IT NOW!"

With the Christmas tree sparkling and twinkling behind him, my son's voice broke through my mental anguish. "Mommy, why are you touching Bonus?"

A memory sparked of a story I'd heard long ago of my friend sprinkling cinnamon on her elf when her son tried to choke the poor thing out as a means of "restoring his magic," and I donned my most relieved facial expression. 

"Oh Patrick, thank goodness you're out here! Bonus has daddy's cold and I need your help to fix him! Can you get me a towel out of the laundry room? We need to make him a bed!"

I'd like to thank the Academy for recognizing my ability to lie like a sociopath...

He sprang into action like a paratrooper dropping into Baghdad, grabbing a towel and running it into the kitchen for me where I constructed a little bed for the elf and commenced dumping cinnamon on his face and pretending to dribble vanilla extract into his mouth as a means of curing his elf cold. He looked on with the concern of a loving parent as he watched me dote on his friend and a realization hit me. 

We're not lying to them because we're playing a long game with their emotions that will only end in disappointment. We're going through all of this rigamarole in letting them believe that Santa can come in through the doggy door when there's no chimney and that elves can move through the house at night and that bunnies bring eggs to your yard every Easter and that there are fairies who pay good money for your teeth like those dudes on Pawn Stars because the world is scary, we all grow up too fast and for just a few years it should be okay to believe in shit. For just a little while, it should be alright to think that the world is wonderful and magical and fun and great. 

I mean, c'mon, isn't being a kid all about thinking everything is pretty neat-o?

As I watched him look at his now recuperating elf, perfect trust in his eyes at the lie I'd just forcefully extracted from my butt, I felt zero guilt about everything I'd fabricated to this kid. He's going to figure out soon enough that the only real magic in this world is that which we make for ourselves and, doesn't building an entire Christmas fantasy about a a friendly elf named Bonus fall pretty squarely into that box? The awesomeness of being a kid doesn't have to end just because we got older and "wiser." It lives on in our kids and it'll live on in theirs too.

Seriously, look at his face and tell me that letting him believe in magic isn't pretty magical in and of itself.

Until, of course, your five-year-old gets up and starts questioning the medicinal properties of cinnamon and then asks why the elf is still smiling if he's so sick, at which point you'll have to again remind her that you don't know his fucking life. 

So god damned skeptical.

Happy Holidays all. May your days be merry and bright!

The Boy is 3. Don't Sing To Him.

The other night I put my son down to bed for the last time as a 2-year-old. As I lay down next to him to stroke his hair, the sentimentality of the moment coursing through me, I kissed him lovingly on the forehead and said, "It's your birthday tomorrow buddy. I can't believe you're going to be three."

To which he replied, "No I'm not. I don't love you."

The next day we set out for bagels at our favorite bagel place to kick off the birthday fun-tivites. Though he assured us that he didn't want a birthday, he wanted to eat at home, he didn't want us to sing and he didn't like any of us, we know that meant, "I love you guys so much! Please take me to Back East Bagel!" and so off we went. His attitude sweetened a bit once we started eating, aided immensely by the fact that we got him a chocolate chip bagel with strawberry cream cheese and all seemed right with the world. 

Until he started screaming for his fork and spoon to the top of his lungs. 

This wouldn't seem like a big deal on paper, as you aren't able to hear that my son pronounces the word "fork" exactly as one would pronounce the word "fuck". When screamed, the words "fork" followed by the word "and" blended together until it sounded like he was screaming "WHERE'S MY FUCKIN' SPOON?! I WANT MY FUCKIN' SPOON!" 

The people at the adjoining tables all turned to stare in horror as we gazed upon him with panic in our throats and did the only thing that any rational person would do. We screamed back at him, leading the conversation to go something like this.

Him: WHERE'S MY FUCKIN' SPOON?!

Us (in unison): YOU WANT YOUR FORK AND SPOON?! YOU'RE LOOKING FOR YOUR FORK AND SPOON?!

Him: GIMME MY FUCKIN' SPOON!

Other people:

We left shortly thereafter.

With a birthday party planned for the evening, I naturally saved all cleaning and decorating to the last fucking possible minute and spent the rest of the afternoon running around like a crazy person on four hours of sleep. You may ask yourself, "Why didn't you do any prep the night before if you stayed up so late? What were you doing?"

Like a genius, I chose to use all of the hours of kid free time the night before as they slept not to clean or organize efficiently but listening to Howard Stern and drawing a Pin The Tool on Handy Manny game. I won't stand for ANYONE saying that I don't know how to prioritize. 

I regret nothing

The birthday boy really pitched in during the pre-party chaos too.

Actually, this was more helpful than most anything else he could've done.

The party began and I gotta say, I was struck all day by the absolutely intrinsic differences between boys and girls. Julia woke up on her birthday and ran around in delight all day, relishing the birthday songs and attention, ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the decorations and begging for the party to start. Patrick could NOT have cared less. In fact, he seemed almost annoyed any time we tried to give him attention for it and insisted all day long that it wasn't his birthday. Some dudes are made. Others are born. He is an example of the latter. 

That's not to say he wasn't excited about certain things. The cake coaxed a little smile out of him.

Oreos and frosting and candy, oh my!

As did the fruit salad dump truck.

My shirt looked like I'd murdered someone after carving this.

His smile was quickly dashed, however, when we had the audacity to sit him at the table in front of his cake and sing Happy Birthday to him.

How is he pissed about this? How??

He became immediately annoyed at the opening strains of the birthday song and started to bury his face in my side. I moved around behind him, which prompted him to cover his eye and start angrily "shush-ing" everyone for the entire duration of the tune. Really dude? You have a chocolate cake that looks like a construction zone in front of you with Oreo crumbles making up the 3, all while a candle you get to blow out burns brightly as everyone you love in the whole world sings to you and this sucks for you? This is an inconvenience? 

Honestly, I couldn't stop laughing. The similarities between he and his dad are so incredibly apparent, even at this age, that i'ts absolutely mind boggling. Even if he IS angry that you kissed him good morning. He's a surly little shit. They both are. But they're my surly little shits and I wouldn't change a damn thing about either of them.

 

Happy 3rd Birthday, you salty goofball.

Visions Of Dinner Plates Dancing Through The Air

People always say, "Ugh. The terrible twos are the worst!" It's become so ubiquitous in our collective psyche that we take it as a foregone conclusion. If you have a child, when they reach the age of two they will become the spawn of hell. The people that assert this ever pervasive factoid are incorrect, however.

In fact, I think they are dirty liars.

Two is a cake walk. Two is a spring stroll through a park that fronts a small lake during a strawberry festival where the breeze wafts the heavenly scents of berries and funnel cake and the lilting music of children's laughter as they go around in a tightly controlled circle on a docile pony ride while their parents take pictures and smile contentedly up into the perfect blue sky while butterflies dance in the perfumed air. Two is fucking great.

"Terrible" twos my ass. This is amaze-balls!

The time for fear, my friends, is not two. At two a child has not had the time to level up enough in the game of life in order to unleash their full evil onto the world. They try, I will give them that. They cross their arms defiantly over their chests with a pouty look on their face and shout "No!" if they don't want to eat yogurt for a snack. If they're extremely afronted they may even add in a good foot stomp to punctuate their ire. But they're two. They're small and still kinda pudgy and their lips are all puckered in an attempt to scowl and their heads smell like the bath that they've just gotten. Frankly, try as they might, their baby anger is unimpressive at two and it's really kinda cute.

I'm like, "Are you effectively capturing how pissed off he is?"

And then they turn three.

Three takes the foot stomping, "No!" shouting and arm crossing to another level. Three adds in fun phrases like, "I don't want yogurt and I don't love you anymore!" Three adds the throwing of the yogurt container on the ground or into the sink along with the foot stomp and three adds a screaming melt down that lasts for twenty minutes to the ensuing time out they earned for the attitude problem and violent yogurt chucking you just endured.

I want to say I'm being a nurturing mother here, but I think I'm just counting to ten so I don't lose my shit.

My daughter was born with a strong personality and so all through the last year I've written stories that centered largely around her and the types of shennanigans she pulled along with my clueless and fairly ridiculous responses to them. I haven't been perfect at dealing with her. Far from it. However, as she neared four and began to show glimmers of self control and higher communication skills, the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel began to barely spark to life.

The days of screaming at me in malls are lessening...until she hits 15 and it ramps up again.

For several months, things were fairly quiet. We could go places and they would sit and eat their food.

Corn dogs and hats make for a great afternoon.

We became the freaking poster family for normalcy.

I mean, c'mon, we're like that stock photo family that comes in the frame when you buy it.

And then that which we'd already survived reared its head again and my son began to near three. My husband and I had tried to comfort ourselves during the worst of it with my daughter by asserting that Patrick's threes wouldn't be as bad. Their personalities are very different and we just couldn't imagine that he would reach the levels of hysteria, stubbornness and outright psychosis that Julia did.

We were right that his threes would be different. Our theory that they would be better was shot down to a million pieces.

I don't even know where to begin. First off, he has developed a love affair with the toilet. It started with his overwhelming compulsion to place entire rolls of toilet paper in them.

Really?

To my knowledge he has flushed toilet paper, hair bands, pieces of foam from the memory foam mattress cover that now covers my bed in a piecemeal fashion, dog food, fruit snacks, change and small toys. That's only what I know about. Oh, and he also flushed two toothbrushes down there. I know about those because the toilet was hopelessly clogged for two days until we could get a plumber out to snake it for $85. Most expensive Spiderman and Strawberry Shortcake toothbrushes in the country.

He also has a hair trigger when he wakes up now.

Between the two of them, even though Julia's behavior has markedly improved, I find myself on the verge of hysteria at least 50% of the time. After an ill fated trip to Whole Foods, the refusal of both kids to clean up the Mega Blocks strewn across the house like land mines and fight after fight over who had the cape made out of the Curious George material first I found myself on the brink of insanity this evening. I had stayed calm, I had used my words, I had employed better strategies and if I could just get their pizza on plates and finish up my pasta we'd be home free.

I brought their meals to the table and turned to finish preparing mine when I heard behind me, "Patrick has the penguin plate! I want the penguin plate!"

I turned slowly and pinned her with my eyes. "I gave you the Minnie Mouse plate. You love that one."

She was undeterred and, reaching for her brother's plate, continued her furious protestations. "I hate the Minnie plate! I want the penguin plllllaaaaaatttttteeeeee!"

Ladies and gentlemen, behold our next exhibit! This one is a truly grotesque and terrifying oddity! I give you, the certifiably insane, Plate Throwing Mom!

I stormed over to the cabinet, yanked a second penguin plate out and marched back over to the table where I dumped her pizza in an unceremonious heap into the center of it before I stomped over to the back door.

"You hate the Minnie plate? You never have to deal with it again then!"

And with that, I threw the Minnie Mouse plate (it is plastic. I'm not homicidal, I'm merely an asshole) like a frisbee during a rousing game on a sunny beach toward the back alley. It sailed majestically from my back door, over my yard and then just bounced off of the cinder block wall with enough force to cause several shards to break free and scatter in different directions like a melamine fireworks display before disappearing from sight. It was like being at a fabulous Greek restaurant for a birthday party only the party is really angry and irrational. And in an alley.

I can't take the whining about this plate! Oopah!

At this point my son is screaming at me and my daughter is demanding that I go out into the alley and bring the plate back. I sat down to the table with my dinner and calmly ate like Nero watching Rome burn. They slowly realized that I was not going to be retrieving the plate any time soon and settled into eating their pizza. Dinner was on the quiet side.

I think it's going to be another interesting year.

I Want Daddy

Over the weekend I was living it up with a basket of laundry to fold and a particularly rousing episode of Jeopardy! on the tube when I heard a weird noise coming from my daughter’s room. To the casual observer it would have just been a little cough. To mom ears, it was the death knell.

please don't let it be barf, please don't let it be barf, please don't let it be barf

We had barf.

Nothing works me into a neurotic lather like vomit. I can handle pretty much any illness without batting an eye, but when vomit is involved, I immediately become Woody Allen on the inside. I’m terrified I’m going to get it, I don’t want to touch it, I don’t want to look at it long enough to clean it, I don’t want to smell it and I don’t want to interact with it.  You know that friend in college that would hold your hair back while you were puking up grape flavored Bartles and Jaymes in the front yard of that dude’s house that you guys met at the ASU game? I’m not that friend. I’m not even the friend who is pointing and laughing. I’m the friend who’s running back into the house with her fingers in her ears while going “La la la la” to block out all the noise you’re making and now all the noise I’m making with my theatrical gagging . Yes, your terrible misfortune and inability to hold down cloyingly sweet chick liquor will make me the bitchy friend. This aversion runs so deep that it led to my husband and I agreeing before we had kids that all poop related mishaps would fall squarely on my shoulders while all situations involving vomit would be left solely to him.

I'm not in this picture because I peaced right on out of there.

Of course fate is a spiteful whore and with the exception of one episode, I’ve been the sole parental unit available each and every time a kid in this house has lost their lunch.

Maybe it was born of the fact that I was the only one around and HAD to take charge or maybe there is something to the adage that things coming out of your kids seem less vile to you than if they’d come out of someone else’s cake hole but my whole reaction to barf has changed.  Don’t get me wrong, if you hork in front of me you’re still on your own, but my kids just don’t elicit that reaction. I jump into action, cleaning them up and administering Gatorade like a pro with nary a gag to be heard. As a person, I've grown.

Which brings me to the coughing sound that rang out in the night right in the middle of Double Jeopardy! last Friday. I walked into Julia’s room to see that she had in fact become sick, not just all over herself and her bed but the wall beside her bed too. I cleaned her up, changed her sheets, Lysol-ed the wall, put on Frozen and made a little nest for myself on her floor next to the trash can I’d commandeered from the bathroom. We’d get through this together, for I was Super Mom.

Oh yeah, this is me.

    

 The process was repeated again 10 minutes later when it was deemed more comfortable to toss her cookies a second time on her fresh sheets and pillow instead of the trash can. I changed everything again, all while being as comforting as I could be. The poor kid looked pathetic and I really did feel horrible for her. With a lot of “Mommy’s here” and “Mommy will take care of you”, I dragged her mattress out to the family room and plopped down on the couch (Laying on her floor for 10 minutes was enough. I’m not 21 anymore and nothing proves that more than lying on a floor for any duration of time. Even Super Mom has her joints to consider.)

Poor kid

Back rubbing, hair holding, soothing words and calming singing abounded as I held the trash can under her head and willed her to get everything up so she could feel better. By 2:30am I was bleary eyed and worried, having done everything in my power to make her feel as comfortable as possible. As the dry heaves racked her body once more and I rubbed her back, whispering softly to her that it would be alright, that mommy was here, she said:

“I <gak> want <gak> Daddy.”

Really? I mean, seriously? I’m the one who just hosed you down, rinsed your mouth out, wiped up the Kandinsky painting you tried to replicate on your wall, wrestled your mattress down the hall and into the family room and did two loads of laundry in the middle of the night, all while taking shifts holding your hair back and cooing to you while you chundered up so much that I’m pretty sure a license plate came out of you and you want daddy?

The best mothers will say that they understand, that they don’t expect recognition for all that they do. They’d say that it’s a normal reaction, that 4-year-old girls are attached to their daddy’s and it’s natural for them to want his comfort.

Well, I've never claimed to be the best mother and I’m here to tell you that shit sucked.

All I wanted to do was make her feel better, to be the soothing presence that people think of when they think about their mama. Her words made me feel like I’d failed, like if I’d been doing a good enough job taking care of her she wouldn't feel as though she needed daddy to step in. I wasn't merely not good enough, I wasn't even enough period.

The better animal, in this instance, being Daddy.

I realize, with my head, that my thinking was highly over dramatic and that her desire to have daddy near was in no way intended as a rejection of me, but I still sat sullenly on the couch as she finally fell into a fitful sleep, my eyes burning with exhaustion and my hair stinking of hospital grade disinfectant. Why was I chopped liver? Was my position as the primary care giver causing a case of overexposure? Was a feeling of ambivalence, or worse, resentment resulting from my constant directives to clean rooms, put on shoes, finish homework, eat two more bites, take fingers out of noses, put the toys away, try to go potty before we leave, go to time out, stop licking the dog bowl, don’t throw that inside, that isn’t food, my phone isn’t a football, wipe that up, drink some more milk, keep your diaper on, don’t unbuckle yourself on the freeway, no we can’t listen to Let It Go again, don’t sit on your brother’s face, and stop punching your sandwich?

The worst of it seemed to pass and around 4 in the morning I gingerly attempted to roll off of the couch to go to the bathroom without waking her.

“Don’t leave me, Mommy.”

Her small, whispered voice stopped my heart.  I kissed her forehead and promised I was just going to the bathroom, a certain clarity settling into my thoughts. She didn’t love me or need me less than she did Daddy. The fact was, she loved and needed both of us. The nature of his job required him to be out of the house for longer durations than me, which meant that she was far more likely to ask for him in times of stress. You don’t ask for stuff that you already have, so my being the ever present thorn in her side just meant that she took for granted that I’d be there. She hadn’t been asking for Daddy instead, she’d been asking for Daddy too.

I felt like a petty little moron for getting so butt hurt over it, but as I watched her sleep while clutching her blankie I was a happy, petty little moron. It was clear that the assumption was I’d be there to take care of things when everything went to hell in a hand basket. She felt confident that I would be there for her. I fell asleep myself, knowing that at least in this, I’d done something exactly right.

The Great Fart in a Bag Incident

The past few weeks (or months) have been devoid of blog updates due to the chaos and turmoil commonly known as moving. After 10 years my husband and I made the decision to sell our house, the house we became a family in, to the person willing to throw the most money at us. I'm sure as I turn to leave for the last time, our boxes loaded into the U-Haul and the rooms scoured of our very existence I will shed a tear but at this moment with the memory of paint fumes still dancing in my nostrils and caulk still clinging to odd and surprising surfaces that I have no recollection of affixing it to I can say that I will not miss this bitch.

It took us a month. One month to pack up any item that personalized the place, to paint everything a grey-beige that popular redecorating sites are now cleverly calling "greige", to caulk all possible surfaces that join any other surfaces and to clean the place in a manner that would say to the average home buyer, "Hey you! We are very clean people! We commonly and with great frequency climb chairs to dust off the top of this refrigerator and make it a point to remove all spices and canned goods from the lazy susan on a weekly basis to divest its shelves of even a trace of dust. Do not be fooled! There has NEVER been a cobweb so impressive dancing from this bathroom light fixture that these here homeowners left it there just to see how long it could get and these window sills have ALWAYS been this immaculate. They were in no way deemed a "lost cause" and painted over in haste due to the impressive level of grime that had permanently marred their surfaces. Come and live here! This is the house where dirt fears to tread!"

(I'm aware that I quote Poltergeist too much. It's a sickness.)

The children were very confused. Questions ranged from, "Why are you cleaning my bathtub with a toothbrush?" to "Can I bring my princess cup to our new house?" My favorite question came one night, however, as I leaned across my daughter's toddler bed while I tucked her in. She was very concerned about the move. The conversation unfolded like this:

Julia: Well, can I take my bed with me to a new house?

Me: Of course baby. We can take all of our stuff, we just put it in a truck and take it somewhere else.

Julia: Can I bring the dogs?

Me: Yes, the dogs will come with us.

Julia: And can I bring Patrick?

Me: Yeah, Patrick is part of the package bud. He comes too.

Julia: (looking over my shoulder into the darkened room behind me) And can I bring him?

Me:(looks nonchalantly over my shoulder into the void of her opened closet and then back at her)...who baby?

Julia: (empatically gestures with her chin back over my shoulder) Him! I want him to come with us too!

Me: (All the hair on my body standing at military attention) Yeah baby. You can bring him too.

If you haven't read previous posts, I can only assume she is referring to Michael Taxenor. He's been established as the little boy who "lives in her room" and gets brought up an a regular basis, which serves to freak me the fuck out every single time and now he's been given the invite to imprint on us like that demon in Paranormal Activity. Neat!

It appears, however, that it may be awhile before we can actually load our earthly and unearthly possessions into a moving van for we have yet to find a house despite the fact that ours sold in two weeks. We put an offer in on the house of my dreams, it fell through and now we are fortunate enough to have sold our house to people who wanted to rent it out in the first place. Translation: we're renting our own house. It is weird to say the least, but beats the hell out of having to move twice, sign a long term lease somewhere or buy a place out of desperation. The right place will come along and in the meantime I intend to mine the rich vein of comedy gold that this situation has revealed, beginning with what I am calling either "Fart Bag-Gate" or "The Great Fart in a Bag Incident of 2013."

Almost immediately upon the house closing, I was sitting on the recliner, quietly reading a nuanced, well written and finely crafed novel about love and the human psyche while my husband caught a few afternoon z's to make up for a long night at the fire station the night before when I heard a ruckus at the front door.

(it is not well written)

Not wanting the dogs to bark and wake everyone up, thus ending a rare moment of afternoon quiet alone with a cup of coffee and a good book,

(it is not a good book)

I darted for the front door and opened it just before a pre-teen looking kid could ring my door bell. 

"Does Billy O'Shaunessy live here?"

He and the three kids standing behind him all regarded me with shit eating grins and I knew I was about to be pranked, but how? He didn't go with, "Is your refrigerator running?" or lead in with something that could be answered with "That's what she said!" so I was truly lost in figuring out where this was going. I could only surmise that this was going to terminate in such a way that involved a vague, mildly hostile epithet directed at my mother and so I pressed on, my eyes narrowing.

"Who?"

The kid's expression grew more excited and I knew he was getting ready to throw a zinger at me that I would never see coming. I was close in that, I never saw the fourth kid who'd been hiding around the corner coming as he jumped out at me and launched a foreign object at my face. It all happened so fast that I didn't have time to even freak out, I just kind of instinctively moved my head to the side so that whatever he'd just hurled at me hit the door and exploded behind my head instead of in my eyeballs. All I could think at the time was, "This is totally just like when George Bush dodged that shoe."

(Look at how perturbed the guy next to him is. Someone just hurled a shoe at the President of the United States and he's all, "Really now, must you be so childish?")

The smell hit me before I even saw it and I new it was a stink bomb. Now I was pissed. These little assholes didn't even have the creativity to set it off on a school bus with no possibility for escape or in the room with a substitute teacher when her back was turned like a civilized adolescent. Nooooo, THESE twats tried to blind a stranger and ended up dousing the front door of what has only recently become her rental property and then commenced to run down the street like a pack of giggling hyenas. If I had to paint that front door again, it was going to be with their virgin blood.

(How can you blame them? They were, like, 12.  I'm 35 and think this is hilarious.)

They tore off down my street and I calmly yelled for my husband to call the cops. I didn't really feel like this was a cop related situation, but I wanted the little shits to run home with the idea that cops were coming instead of stinking up anyone else. The idea that they might pee a little was not unwelcome either. However, when you rouse a man out of a sound sleep with the phrase, "Red, call the cops" no matter how calmly you utter it, said man is going to immediately get an adrenaline surge and leap from the couch like a ninja while yelling, "What? Why? What happened?"

Loudly enough for the punks benefit, who were still in ear shot, I exclaimed, "Some fucking kids just threw a stink bomb into our house." He tore through the house for his car as I stood out on the sidewalk watching them run for the corner. They were cackling their heads off, looking back over their shoulders periodically at the idiot chick they'd just pranked.

They started like this:

Then, upon looking back one last time to gloat only to see my pretty enormous husband run out like a serial killer and hop into his car, they were like this:

He chased them around the neighborhood a bit, obviously NEVER intending on catching them but wanting to scare the ever loving shit out of them as rightful punishment. Upon their second pass through a park to escape my husband and his big bad Sentra, a landscaper looked quizzically at the departing children and then back at their pursuer. My husband pulled over and let the guy know what was happening and the landscaper cracked up. "Mission accomplished, they're all bawling their eyes out!"


Which made me picture them like this:

If this entire story were an Aesop Fable, I believe the moral would read:

If you must revile your neighbor, make certain first that he cannot reach you...in his Nissan Sentra.

Now, you might be asking yourself, "Hey, where are the kids? Isn't this a blog about her kids and all the ways she screws up basic parenting skills?"

Do not dispare. You see, upon hearing the initial commotion at the front door, my daughter walked out of her room and was standing in the hallway during the entirety of Fart-bag-a-pa-loo-sa. She heard me tell my husband to call the cops and heard me tell him that "some fucking kids threw a stink bomb into our house." I was not aware of her presence until I walked back inside and saw her there. I didn't know how much of the entire scene she'd witnessed until she skipped through the kitchen later while singing, "Fucking, fucking, fucking!" with a big smile on her face. She's said it twice more since and we haven't heard it again. I'm sure she's saving it for ballet class.

And, as a parting gift, I leave you with a video of my son shoving me to the ground in front of the other preschool parents during my daughter's Halloween parade. I was crouching down with him on my knee in order to get a good video angle when my son spotted my daughter and became enraged that I wouldn't allow him to run over and join her in her parade. Shoving ensued. The other parents pretended that they didn't see it. I allowed them to keep up that ruse. Not a word has been spoken of it since.

Happy Friday!

Have I lost control or did I lack it in the first place?

The course of the last few weeks and, more specifically, the last few days have caused me to ponder some fundamental questions about the state of affairs in my household. From the outside looking in, I see other families operating on a functional level that seems to mirror what any reasonable person would call typical. That's not to say that these families don't appear to have their own fair share of ebbs and flows in the craziness category. It just seems, in comparison to the chaos that swirls around my existence like a category 5 hurricane (sometimes even complete with debris and liquid of dubious origins) that the other families I know aren't subject to the same types of all out pandemonium that we have up in here. Which begs the question, is it me? Is it something inherent in my DNA that spurs children to act like demons? Like some kind of pheromone I'm releasing that triggers a biological response, culminating in abhorrent decision making? Is it my utter lack of leadership abilities, despite the fact that I try with all of my might to possess a shred of the intimidation factor that my mother and those of my peer group possess? Are my kids just heathens? In examining this, I decided to look at the events of the last week and assess the situation for what it is in an effort to come up with a game plan.

Incident #1

The child safety lock on my silverware drawer is broken and the children know this. Lately they have taken to retrieving every spoon in the drawer that they can carry and using them as their "tools" so that they can pretend to fix their toys. This didn't bother me until I grew tired of washing fifteen spoons per day, so when I heard my daughter clanging around in the drawer a few days ago and looked up from my email to see her walking through the house with a spoon, I had this interchange with her:

Me: Julia, can you please put that spoon back? It isn't a toy and Mommy doesn't feel like washing all of the spoons every five minutes.

Julia sighs theatrically and then saunters back over to the silverware drawer as I redirect my attention to the computer monitor. The sound of the drawer opening is followed by the clanging sound of silverware being thrown back in amongst its compatriots. 

Julia: I put it in my butt.

Me: (Looking up in alarm, hoping against hope that I had misheard).....you what?

Julia: I didn't put it all the way in my butt, but I put it a little bit in my butt.

I have no idea on which spoon the assault was committed but I can say that all spoons were scrubbed like Meryl Streep in Silkwood.

Incident #2

Taking my children to the mall on a hot Arizona day is one of the few activities I can do with them by myself. They are 3 1/2 and 2, which means that they may have the muscle ability to walk on their own but lack the emotional maturity to listen to reason (and possibly a condition in which they are physically unable to hear their mother's voice at all, not unlike when Carolann couldn't hear her father in Poltergeist). Taking them to the mall allows me to put them in the double stroller, walk them to the play area, watch them play in a contained space, take them to the Disney Store so that they can color and dance with the music on the big screen in the back, feed them Subway, spit out a few quarters for them to ride the carousel and then load them up for home. It kills a lot of time, is air conditioned and I'm normally able to pull it off with no issues. 

During better times. The frantic yells for Patrick are good foreshadow for Incident # 3

All was going well a couple of days ago until we hit the Disney Store portion of our rendezvous. Instead of an unstructured coloring time with music like they usually have, a kindly Cast Member was leading the children in a pirate activity that coincided with videos and songs from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Four kids were lined up in front of her as they pretended to fly with pixie dust, looked through imaginary telescopes and practiced their pirate vocabulary. Adorable. 

My kids were over it immediately. My son wandered over to the, now pushed aside, coloring table and began working on a picture while my daughter came over to me and held on to my legs as if something about the blonde woman cheerfully channeling Captain Hook was inherently evil. This kid is not shy, so I took it to mean that she might be running out of steam, at which point I suggested that we hit the streets and get some lunch to go. 

She lost....her fucking mind. 

She ran away from me, caught sight of a bucket of bouncy balls in her escape path, reached in and threw a gob of them up in the air in mid sprint so that they flew every direction and screamed the shrill, ear piercing scream that is only achievable with the vocal chords of a female toddler. Seriously, dogs in El Salvador heard her. I caught up with her and hoisted her up so that I could put her back in the stroller, only to have her stiffen to the point of utter straightness, still while shrieking the shriek of the maimed. It was like trying to put an angry department store mannequin into the back of a Graco double stroller. I was left with two options, I could wait out the tantrum in the middle of the Disney Store while everyone around was forced to listen to it or I could apply gentle, yet persistent, force to her solar plexus with my forearm in an attempt to get her to bend in half long enough to strap her into the stroller. I chose the latter, ignoring the burning stares of the parents whose children were now skipping with the Cast Member on a quest through the store for gold doubloons. 

I got her secured as she screamed in fury and realized I'd made a tactical error by putting her in the back as I loaded my son into the front. I'd been going for maximum containment when I placed her there, but  as I buckled my son it appeared that I'd sentenced him to a session of "How Many Times Can I Get Kicked In My Thoracic Vertebrae?"

I wasn't about to try and move her to the front seat after having to employ WWE moves to get her in the stroller the first time out so I lit out of the store, pushing them for all I was worth in an attempt to get out of the mall and to my vehicle as quickly as possible, all while trying to ignore the looks of disgust and mild empathy the kicking and screaming were eliciting in those I passed. I also tried to reassure my son that his anguish would soon be over, but I'm not sure he could hear me over the sound of the body blows. 

We'd made it to the exit just in time for her to level his seat with a kick that actually gave him whiplash and I finally lost my shit. I got down eye level with her and told her to knock it off, which she responded to by kicking her legs back into his seat and then leaving them extended so that he couldn't sit back. I tried to get her to relax her legs, but she held them firm while screaming wordless sounds of insanity.

You know how, in movies and in TV shows, they make Satan's voice really deep and guttural to go for both the intimidation factor as well as an evil and unnerving sense as well?

 I did that.

 In front of Kona Grill. 

While people were sitting on the patio enjoying a few California Rolls during their lunch hour. 

In my daughter's face. 

Put your feet down and stop kicking your brother or I will throw your blanket onto the freewaaaaaaay!

People stared. I got the kids to the car, loaded them up and burst into tears. Haven't been back to the mall since.

 Incident # 3

Our final incident occurred today. I actually got a full night sleep last night and was feeling ready to take on the world. I was turning over a new leaf in all of our lives. No more junk food. No more yelling. More reverse psychology. More positive reinforcement. I made the kids and I breakfast, got everyone dressed and we headed out to pick up lunch so we could spend some time at the fire station with their dad. I even went so far as to put a little gel in my son's hair so it would be all cute and David Beckham-esque as we went out to conquer the world. This decision will become pertinent later.

All went well as we hung out with dad and his crew at the station, so well in fact that I decided on our way to drop our library books off that the kids had earned the ability to go inside and pick a few movies instead of just dropping our books off in the drive thru like we were going to. Hoorays issued forth. We went inside the library and I grabbed the stuff I had on hold, then proceeded upstairs so the kids could play in the toddler area for a few minutes before we made our selections and headed home.

I was really congratulating myself at this point. The kids were playing quietly and looking at books while I took a gander at the Jillian Michaels selection I'd picked up. I was one of those moms! The ones whose kids just behaved and I could hang out with them without having to hover over them every second to keep them from going utterly nuts. If I'd had a Starbucks in my hand, the moment would have been complete.

Then we decided to leave. I told each kid they could pick a movie and two books, which when added to the four books I already had in my hand meant my arms were completely full by the time I'd gathered up our selections. I stood there for a second, trying to figure out the best way to accomplish getting all of our loot and my kids out at the same time and that's when all hell broke loose. 

My son saw my hesitation, saw my helplessness under the pile of books and I literally watched as the evil overtook him. If you remember from my Mother's Day post, my son is a runner and he is fast as shit even when I'm NOT bogged down with diet books and Chuggington DVDs. He broke into a giggling sprint, which proved to be irresistible to my daughter, and they headed for the stacks as a unified and now shrieking front. People on the computers looked at me with annoyance, but unlike the irritated and disapproving stares of the mall-goers, I actually felt like these jack holes could go fuck themselves. They were in the children's section of the public library, if they wanted quiet they could have gone to the reference section for god's sake. 

I walked calmly and resolutely to the end of the stacks, as that was where the sound of horribly behaved children was heading, and willed myself not to start yelling for them. I may have not felt bad for the bit of noise my kids were kicking up, but I wasn't about to add to the cacaphony. I intercepted them with my best disappointed face, which only made my son crack up and act like he was going to take off again. My disapproval is like an aphrodisiac to that kid. Thinking fast, I asked his retreating back if he wanted a movie and he was thankfully unaware that it was a movie he'd already picked. I made a big show of handing him the DVD and asking for his help in carrying it and this newfound task seemed to stop his need to escape long enough for me to herd them downstairs to the checkout kiosks. 

We got downstairs after a blistering lecture in the elevator and they stood compliantly next to me for a few seconds as I began scanning our items for check out, but soon the allure of running around the lobby area was too great and I began frantically loading books onto the scanner to finish the job before they tripped someone, knocked something over or ran again. Library employees watched the scene from the front desk with awe, which I've become used to seeing in the faces of those we encounter on outings. There are things you never want to see public employees surprised by, especially those that are exposed on a regular basis to kids and the horrid behavior of your children ranks highly. 

I had finally gotten all of the books scanned when my son figured out that the door was automatic and charged through it into the open air. I dropped everything and gave chase, getting halfway around the front of the building before I was close enough to him to reach out and grab him. Unfortunately, due to my need to make his hair all stylish and spiky, that was what my hand connected with and I yanked him to a stop by it which caused a homeless man on the bench in front of us to cock an eyebrow at me. I am not making this up. I have now been judged for my shit parenting form by a homeless dude on a library bench. 

I picked up my son, who was giggling about the entire affair mind you, and went back in to retrieve my books and purse from their discarded pile in the lobby, at which point my son decided to bite my shoulder like a gremlin in front of the check out clerk. 

I'll be taking all that crap back through the drive thru next time.

So is it me? Is it them? Is it some sort of combination of the two that has produced a perfect storm of evil spawn and terrible parenting, thusly condemning me and my family to angry stares, public meltdowns, lifetime bans from various venues and nights spent staring at the ceiling wondering how in the hell I'm going to make productive members of society out of them? Do other parents have to chase their kids down so they don't enter restaurant kitchens? Do you, dear reader, ever pause with a spoon hovering just outside of your mouth to wonder if it's been in someone's butthole?

In the face of the evidence, I can honestly say that trying to come up with a game plan seems futile at best. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong and thusly, no idea how to alter that behavior. For now, it appears, I just have to wait it out and bask in public censure.

Gall bladders, Eating Right and Zumba

There comes a time in the lives of many, be they male or female, when the reflection staring back at them in the mirror is unsatisfactory. Maybe they've put on some weight, maybe they've gone a bit soft in the middle, maybe they feel that they could use a bit of toning here or there. For some, all it takes is the realization that they aren't where they want to be in order to trigger a change. For others, a wake up call is in order before they can effect real change. For instance, someone asks when they are due and they aren't actually pregnant. This happened to me. A few times. I responded to their insinuation that I was fat by anger eating a bunch of Taco Bell mexican pizzas. That'll show 'em.

In my case it took passing out while pooping at work, passing out while pooping at a friend's house and the then hasty removal of my gall bladder to make me think that I might need to stop treating my body like a garbage dump. I am not shitting you (I did have to stop shitting myself though, apparently).

It was like this. Except at work.

I'm gonna admit, it wasn't like I really had a choice in the matter to make some changes. When you have your gall bladder out your body just doesn't process fat the way that it used to. Sure, there are people out there that go back to some semblance of normal afterwards but I didn't fall into that category. Without boring you with the gory details, let's just say a couple days of fatty eating and I was less than comfortable. You guys, seriously, I'm not going to delve any further okay? I'm a fucking lady.

Stopped up worse than LA traffic.

No one out there wants to go through life feeling horribly sick every few days, so I think I made the only choice the majority of people would make. Having said that, I also had to make a choice as a mom too. If I'm curled up into a ball and useless to the world, how am I going to take care of my kids? As it was, the only reason that my failing gall bladder went from an organ that might need some attention to a full blown emergency situation was because I simply didn't have time to be sick. I'd be passing a stone, literally on the floor and clawing at the carpet in agony while gasping for air and I was convinced it was gas. "Nothing to see here people, just  a grown woman who needs to fart. It'll be over in about an hour." How I could convince myself that gas was the cause of that level of pain can only be chalked up to the fact that my kids were 2 and 1 and my husband worked 24 hour shifts. It was simply not convenient for anything to be wrong with me.

Finally an episode of "Hey, mom is writhing on the floor again" just didn't want to end and my parents took me to the emergency room, which brings us back to what we already know. My gall bladder was full of stones, one of them was lodged in my general bile duct which was creating a blockage that put my liver enzymes through the roof and I needed surgery. Now.

So out it came, which took me from this:

(About a month before the surgery. Even my elbows are fat. How in the hell does one get fat elbows? Oh yeah, midnight cheese eating.)

To this:

Day after surgery. Just informed that dinner was Jell-O and broth.

So I had to change some things. I was advised that all the gunk that had aided in mucking my system up could still form in the liver and even without a gall bladder I could suffer from blockages again so I started watching what I ate and exercising, which anyone with kids knows isn't necessarily an easy task but the far preferable choice when the alternative is endoscopic surgery following an episode of agony from a blockage. Better option or no though, instituting these changes for myself wasn't going to be easy with toddlers in the mix.

First, they don't want to eat what you eat. I learned this one day when I made some tuna salad and placed it on my son's plate only to watch him gag like Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber, complete with eye watering and sound effects. Which means that there are nights when I do what I swore I would never do before I became a mother. I make two separate meals like a freaking short order cook. Mostly I try to make them at least intersect; turkey burgers with baked fries for the kids and a grilled portobello with baked fries for me, but sometimes they have nothing to do with each other. If I know for a freaking fact that they will power down some mac and cheese and I'm craving an egg white omelette then damn it, I'm gonna go ahead and pretend I'm a line cook at Denny's and make a bunch of random shit. It's not like I'm going to be eating my dinner hot anyway, who cares how long it takes me to put my portion of it together?

This was all fine and good, but finding time to exercise was the other piece. I mean, I didn't feel like carving 5 seconds out of my life to do that before I had kids, now that there were actual constraints on my time and freedom it was going to be damn near impossible. I had the obligatory  gym membership everyone gets, touts in conversation and then summarily blows off for episodes of The Biggest Loser and root beer floats. I don't know what it is about that show, but it makes me want dessert. And to not work out until I puke/cry/hurt myself. It definitely makes me not want to do that. 

I couldn't blow it off anymore, however, so I decided to load the kids up and go work out. My daughter ran toward the other kids and the play equipment in the Kid Zone as if she didn't have a care in the world while my son stood at the door and sobbed, his expression so full of "fuck you" that I felt like a selfish ass leaving him there. I made it through 12 minutes on the elliptical machine before the kindly care provider came out and assured me that I was, indeed, a selfish ass and that he hadn't stopped crying since I'd left. A second attempt at taking them with me ended after 19 minutes when my daughter decided to squeeze herself into an exersaucer designed for a child half her age and proceed to take the hugest poop she'd ever accomplished. It was becoming readily apparent that I needed to workout at home.

My solution to this, as irony would have it, was to buy ten used Biggest Loser dvds at Bookman's. I would now be doing the workouts that I watched the people on the show do while I loafed on my couch in the face of their efforts. They range from Weight Loss Yoga with Bob Harper all the way to the Last Chance Workout with Jillian Michaels. They are hard, but they are doable and I am able to slap one into the dvd player a few times a week in order to fit some exercise into my routine without having to load the kids up, take them to the care center, stop my workout every two seconds to attend to whatever they are doing, load them back up and then shower them with Purell. 

Don't get me wrong though, it still isn't a cake walk. Just because it is more convenient doesn't mean that working out in my living room yields any type of "me time" result. 

This is when they were running around me singing, "Everybody poops! Everybody poops!"

My daughter likes to alternate crawling under me during downward dog and climbing onto me during plank.

Efforts to shoo her were in vain. Also, the dog was wet from jumping into the pool and came inside to shake off  in my general direction.

With these kinds of distractions at home, I decided that it would serve me well to actually leave the kids with daddy once a week and take advantage of my gym membership alone. The problem was, I'd gotten accustomed to the ADHD quality of workout videos. The constant change up in activities, the encouraging banter from the host, the Stepford wife-like smiling of the participants now made the elliptical seem boring and since I only run when chased, it looked like I was going to have to foray into the world of workout classes. The one that fit my schedule was the 6:30pm Zumba class and so off I went.

It is here that I would like to take a moment to explain to you the utter humiliation that is Zumba. Zumba is an aerobics class that fuses several different dance styles to the pulsing rhythms of Latin music. The instructors and many of the participants are very well coordinated and posses basic talents, like the ability to quickly discern left from right and the mind boggling talent of clapping whilst moving the feet. These people typically stand in the front. 

I, however, stand...

I'm so far in the back that I'm practically taking this picture from my living room.

It's an hour of shaking your ass, throwing down some merengue and generally humiliating yourself. Seriously, you're supposed to look like this:

I am being entirely genuine when I tell you that I, in reality, look like this:

So why do I do it? Why do I subject myself to a class that, for an hour, reminds me every time I turn the wrong direction and violently accost the person next me that I have no rhythm and really no business attempting to shake hips that were clearly fused to my pelvis from birth so only a strange and awkward seizure like movement is achieved from my efforts?

Because it gets me out of the house without my kids, which makes me a better mom. I love them. I honestly do. But the other day I was in such desperate need of a shower that I put them in there with me and then attempted to shave my legs while my son built Trump Tower out of shampoo bottles and my daughter repeatedly pointed to my lady business and asked, in horror, why it was "moldy". At 3, I'm pretty sure the explanation for why mommy doesn't always have time to wax will go straight over her head so I just told her it was because I was a grown up, nicked myself on the shin with my disposable Daisy razor and then made every attempt not to shoot my son across the shower like the escargot that Julia Roberts loses in Pretty Woman as I rinsed shampoo from his hair. (I still don't know how I pulled this off, wet toddlers are about the slipperiest things on the planet.) So, I Zumba to get a break from my routine, to take time for myself.

And because, after all of the failed attempts at synchronized clapping and abysmal forays into staying on the same foot as everyone else, I look like this:

(Taken in a bathroom stall for your amusement. Don't say I never gave you anything.)

It's genuinely a hell of a workout and just distracting enough in its indignities to be over before you realize that an hour has elapsed. Don't take my word for this, go and try a class out. If you have a gym membership I guarantee you that there is a Zumba class there and if you don't, most cities have a rec center that host fitness classes for a really small drop in rate. Try it out, take some time for yourself. You'll need to keep your strength up and your sanity intact for when your daughter lays down on the floor in the Hobby Lobby to furiously kick her arms and legs in unison and refuses to get up, even as she is causing a bottleneck in the aisle, because she's "swimming in the pool."

Is that just my kid? Oh, okay.