I Suck
Posted by admin | Filed under Motherhood, Stay At Home Moms, Uncategorized, Womanhood, parenting
Generally speaking.
Now, before you start feeling sorry for me, realize that I say this in a perfectly even, non-emotional, matter-of-fact way. Not in a "woe is me, I plan on killing myself" sort of way, but in a "Oh well, life's a bitch" sort of way. Because I plan on doing absolutely nothing about my self-professed suckage. Other than write about it.
Why do I suck, you ask? Oh, let me count the ways. Where do I begin?
I know — I'll begin with "snack day." Nora's mommy was supposed to bring snacks to Nora's preschool class on Monday, and Nora's mommy sucks so badly she FORGOT. Yep. Fifteen 3-year-olds went snackless because I SUCK. Luckily, the teachers had an emergency snack at hand. I guarantee the next time Nora's mommy is signed up for "snack day," the teachers will be sure to have another emergency snack available. Which is good, since I'll probably forget then too. "Forget." *Snicker*
Do you think bite-size Milky Way bars count as a "snack" to these people?
On Friday, I am supposed to bring Valentines to Ava's class. I've even written it down on the back of an envelope of some junk mail I plan on tossing soon. How much do you want to bet I forget about that, too? I feel a little less worse about forgetting Valentines for a class of 18-month-olds, though, since they can't read, don't care, and will probably try to eat them anyway. And who wants their baby eating paper? Hell, I'm doing everyone a service by forgetting the fucking Valentines. Right?
I don't doubt that the staff at my girls' school thinks I am a moron who should not, under any circumstances, have been allowed to procreate. Whatever. Anyone who thinks that can go blow a goat. (Particularly if they're taking my money). I'm cool with my suckage. I've embraced it wholeheartedly. I'm at peace with it.
Bitch.
I am easily the mom who shows up to playdates without having brought a sippy cup, snacks, extra diapers, etc. for her kids. I am easily the mom who mooches off of everyone else, should I need any of the items listed above. (I consider this fair warning to anyone interested in having a so-called "playdate" with me.) On the upside, if I just so happen to have these things with me because I took my meds that morning, and it just so happens that YOU forgot, I will cheerfully give you mine. I may suck, but I am a generous soul nonetheless. I understand mommy suckiness, and embrace my fellow sucky mothers. We are one. Sucky mothers unite.
I am the "hostess" who throws goldfish in a bowl and "serves" it to her pint-sized guests, whose house is already a disaster so there are no unnecessary worries about little Suzy making more of a mess. My house is the one where you can hear muffled, creepy Christmas music playing even though it's February.
Trust me – kids have a BLAST at my house. Moms do too, so long as they don't have sticks up their asses. Ass sticks are not welcome at my house — please leave those in the car.
So yes, I suck…. Unless, of course, you think I rock. It's all relative.
Photo by TW Collins via Flickr.
Tags: hostess, playdate, snacks, snow globe, suck, suckage, Valentines
Used to be a Funhouse Part II
Posted by admin | Filed under Insane in the MOMbrane, Just plain funny, No One But Your Mom, Preschoolers, Uncategorized, parenting, toddlers
Ava has decided that Mama has not lost enough marbles.
And don't doubt for a second that she doesn't take every marble I lose and put it her mouth. My marbles, as I lose them, become choking hazards, therefore causing me to lose more marbles. Are you seeing the problem here?
Ava is at a delightfully horrific age: 18 months. Only 18 short months of life, and already she's learned, all too well, how to get what she wants. The fact that she is a second child, and a second girl to boot, well… That just adds fuel to the fire. She's got to be sassier, louder, and more obnoxious than her sister to ensure she gets noticed.
She is succeeding. I have never, ever witnessed a child throw as many public tantrums, scream as loudly, or shove as brutally. Ava does not fuck around — get out of her way, dudes, or your ass is hers. The infuriating part is how goddamned CUTE she is. Yes, I know I'm her mother and I am biased, but seriously, she's adorable (looking). She smiles a lot, and has these dimples that will suck you in like black holes. She's got these enormous blue eyes with long eyelashes, a cute little button nose, and a head of light brown curls. Trust me, meet Ava and you will not emerge unscathed — she will whip you.
So. The other day was a particularly crazy one: Playdate, three-year-olds fighting over princess dresses, toys and food everywhere, and darling Ava, who just wanted someone to notice that she was there. When she realized that smacking the older kids with their princess wands wasn't working, she took an entirely different approach. She took this snow globe that plays music (with a single push of a button) and dropped it in the toilet. While it was playing. I found her peering into the john, going "UH. OH!"
Uh-oh is right, especially considering Nora had gone in the potty and chosen not to flush the toilet. The snow globe was, miraculously, still playing, and the music was muffled and… downright fucking creepy. So I fished the urine-soaked snow globe from the toilet and threw it in the sink, where it continued to play a now very sad, very off-key, very disturbing version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." And it wouldn't stop playing. Pushing the button did nothing. And when, after a particularly macabre version of "Jingle Bells," I tried to take the batteries out of the piece of shit, I found that they were screwed in, and I'd have to whip out the toolbox to get the fucking thing to shut up. Considering I was in the middle of "hosting" (ha!) a playdate, I just decided to let it run itself down.
Seriously, no one will ever want to come over again. This may actually be a good thing, since I have no furniture and generally suck at playing hostess.
Do you know, the snow globe played for SEVERAL MORE HOURS. If my home wasn't a madhouse before, it certainly became one with the sound of screaming children and super-eerie Christmas music in the background. Background? I mean foreground. Shit.
Why isn't anything else I own built like a fucking Home Depot snow globe? I accidentally drop my car keys in a puddle of water and the remote stops working instantly. What the hell?
Ava, back before she was mobile, had an attitude, and lady-with-twenty-cats crazy hair. I never thought I would miss those days…
Tags: Ava, funhouse, madhouse, marbles, playdate, snow globe
Who ARE These People?
Posted by admin | Filed under Insane in the MOMbrane, Just plain funny, No One But Your Mom, Uncategorized, Womanhood
And why do they think they're qualified to offer advice?
I was haunting the bookstore during my child-free, babysitter time when I came across a couple books that made me chuckle with contempt. The first was this one:
Now I'm not sure who this chick is, but she clearly thinks she's famous. Not just that, she also thinks that because she married a "Count" (am I the only one who feels like she just time traveled to the the 1800's?) she's qualified to write a book on etiquette. Oh, I'm sorry, I mean CLASS. I don't know about you, but I've got class coming out of my ass.
A particularly cute passage in the book addresses play dates:
Manners For Playdates:
- Say hello to the adult in charge.
- Do not help yourself to the fridge or cupboards.
- Don't wander about into bedrooms.
- Politely ask for a drink or a snack.
- Help to clean up.
- Say good-bye and thank you.
Oh, thank GOD for your advice, Countess. Because I would have been truly fucked without it. I mean, who would have thought to say hello to the "adult in charge" of the playdate? Who, exactly, is this chick's target audience? Inbred rednecks? And why do I have the sneaking suspicion that by "adult in charge" she means "nanny"? Yes, we mustn't be rude to the nanny. That's rule Numero Uno in the quest for elegance.
What-fucking-EVER.
The other book that had me choking on my latte was this one:
Lisa Rinna is offering YOU, dear reader, the BEST LIFE EVER. Because she has one, apparently. Now no offense to Lisa, but I can't say I'm particularly envious of her or her life. Not the Days of Our Lives, or the Melrose Place, or the posing nude while pregnant thing, or the Dancing With the Stars thing. Generally speaking, Lisa Rinna falls in my "They're still around?" category of celebrities. Not to be confused with my "Why won't they go away" category (Paris Hilton) or "I would love to smack them" category (Miss California). Granted, there is plenty of overlap, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I want to slap Lisa. I'm just "eh" about her.
In her book, Lisa offers beauty, diet, and fitness advice that was written by a chimp. "Drink green tea" is an example. Another one is "order Zone meals." God, I fucking love (and by "love" I mean "hate") celebrities. And she also grants advice on – brace yourself here – how to plump up your lips. Lisa needs to start reading Dlisted, because she seems to think women WANT lips like hers. Like a swollen vagina. Oddly enough, her advice does not involve collagen. What a shocker. Oh, and folks, Lisa simply cannot stress enough how important moisturizing is. Please, people. Fucking moisturize yourselves. It's the key to the best. Life. EVER.
Okay, now that I'm done making fun of so-called celebrities, back to my web design.
Tags: advice, books, bookstore, celebrities, etiquette, Lisa Rinna, Paris Hilton, playdate, vagina
Playdate From HELL
Posted by admin | Filed under Motherhood, Womanhood, friendships
You know that mommy friend of mine that I said I stalked? I found something out about her that I do not like: HER mommy friends.
Let me preface this by saying that I can be very difficult to please in the “friend” arena. When I call someone my “friend,” I mean it – I will be loyal and never undermine our friendship with pettiness. And I expect the same in return. So I don't have any “toxic” friends – those people get ditched, and quick. Life is just too damn short.
We'll call my friend “Bertha,” just to piss her off. (Bertha, I know you're reading this, and hopefully you're cracking up). Bertha is an amazing woman – smart, pretty, and funny. Most of my blog material comes from my interactions with her. Bertha is one of those women who gets along well with many different types of people (i.e., the polar opposite of me). Well, Bertha is friends with a group of wealthy women who are… how should I put this… Fucking insufferable. Yeah, that sounds about right. I think the popular term for them is "momzillas."
Early on in our friendship, Bertha asked me if I wanted to join her playgroup, which was meeting at her house for the first time, and I was thrilled. Here was my chance to meet other women with young children, to bond with them over the trials of motherhood. We would all be tired but happy, the kids would make a mess but enjoy each other's company, and we would all sit cross-legged on the floor and eat chicken nuggets off of paper plates. This was going to be awesome. Uh-huh. Yep.
I should have known something was wrong from the very beginning, when Bertha said she was “scrubbing her front porch” before the playdate. Or that she had to run out and pick up the quiche she was going to serve. Quiche? That's odd, I thought. Hey, I love quiche, don't get me wrong, but it sounded so… formal. Whatever. Quiche can be eaten off of paper plates while sitting cross-legged on a rug, right? No biggie.
So I show up at Bertha's front door the day of, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, wearing shorts, a t-shirt, sneakers, and not a single smudge of make-up, and a grumpy Nora tucked under my arm. The second Bertha opens the door, I realize I may be under-dressed. Seriously under-dressed. My nervousness turns into full-blown panic as I realize the house is spotless, with fresh flowers on display, and that other well-dressed women are seated in the family room. FUCK. I consider bolting back out the door, but Bertha actually looks happy to see me, so I decide that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't going to be as bad as I feared.
Truth be told, I don't remember any of these women's names, but I remember the general feeling they gave me. They were pleasant enough in the beginning (despite the once-over I got), introducing themselves and their children, until another woman showed up. The Queen Bee. That's when my presence was virtually forgotten, and these seemingly pleasant women turned into pathetic, blood-sucking parasites. Holy shit. The transformation was palpable. They became shifty-eyed, nervous, and…mean. Not to me, per se, since they'd completely forgotten I existed, but to each other. I looked at the Queen Bee (QB): she was not in any way remarkable. She wasn't even as dressed up as the others. The most remarkable thing about her was that she didn't have a kid with her. Yep, she showed up to a “playdate” without her child. Her kid was at “Mommy's Day Out.”
“I just had to come by for some quiche,” she says casually, sitting down on the couch so that – I kid you not – her back is slightly turned towards me, and I am effectively cut off from the group. This woman was showing me – someone she had yet to meet – who was boss.
You've got to be fucking kidding me.
I sit slack-jawed for the next twenty minutes or so listening to the most unreal conversation I have ever heard, wanting nothing more than to grab Nora and throw myself through the closed window behind me. Sure, the shattering glass would slice us to pieces, saying nothing of the fall, but ANYTHING, including a trip to the ER, was better than sitting here listening to this:
Super Skinny Blond: “Omygod, Bertha, I am SO jealous… you have the sink I want!” (Yes, she was talking about the kitchen sink. I looked at it. Yep, it was a sink, alright. Looked like any other sink. Maybe a bit bigger? Definitely cleaner than mine. But still just a FUCKING SINK.)
Conversation about sink continues for about 5 minutes.
Same Stupid Blond Whore, to QB: “Omygod, QB, your ring looks SO shiny! Did you just clean it?”
QB, looking disdainfully at Stupid Blond Whore: “Are you kidding? I haven't cleaned it in forever!”
Another Stupid Blond Whore: “Bertha, are you going to give us the tour now? Please?”
This request is met with excited squeals, and I wonder, Tour? Tour of what? The house? I'd been to Bertha's house many times previously, and it had never occurred to me to ask for a “tour.” Is this normal? I could just see myself giving a “tour” of my house: “Yeah, so, this is the study-slash-guestroom-slash-baby-shit-depository…And here we have the living-room-slash-baby-shit-depository…And here is our imaginary-dining-room-slash-baby-shit-depository…”
As everyone lines up at the staircase behind Bertha, QB says, “Oh, I've already had the tour. I'll stay down here and watch the kids.”
Bertha asks me if I want to come, and I decline, in part because I couldn't care less about getting a tour, but mostly because I don't want to leave Nora at the mercy of these nightmare children (one of whom, the daughter of Stupid Blond Whore #1, is terrorizing the other kids, who are all younger than her). The second the women are up the stairs and out of sight, QB starts wandering around the kitchen, not glancing at the kids (or me) once. As she picks at the quiche, she says, “So where do you live?”
Since she is not even looking in my general direction, it takes me a second to realize she is talking to me. Hi. Nice to meet you. What did you say your name was again? Oh, yeah, that's right, you didn't, because you're a STUPID BITCH. “Um, we live just outside the Loop, north of…” I may as well have stopped talking right then, because she'd clearly lost interest. I didn't live in HER neighborhood, therefore was not worth talking to, apparently. My conversation with myself is interrupted by Nora's cry, and I turn to find the daughter of Stupid Blond Whore #1 pulling Nora's hair.
I snap. Since no one is paying ANY attention to the kids, and QB is poking around the house nosily, I grab the little girl by the arm and say in my best Exorcist voice, “DON'T. EVER. DO. THAT. AGAIN. Got it?” She nods, her eyes huge, and I gather Nora in my arms. I'm outie. For serious.
When the “tour” is back downstairs, I corner Bertha and tell her I have to go. “Nora's about to have a meltdown,” I explain. Bertha glances at Nora, who is grinning from ear to ear. Right. So she knows I'm full of shit. But somehow, I think she understands, and I hope our friendship doesn't suffer on account of it.
It doesn't. Bertha, who is loved by everyone, seems to understand that her playgroup friends are unbearable twats. I mean, she may not think they are as unbearable as I do, but she gets that I'm different from them, and that I have no desire to be around them. The great thing is, we still hang out and our kids still adore each other. All pretenses are dropped when we're together, and I think Bertha is a rare find in that respect.
Basically, we are true support to each other – we're mothers, and we're in this together. We should be supporting each other, not participating in some bullshit high school Mean Girls competition. Otherwise, you aren't really thinking about your kids, and, quite frankly, you're too absorbed in your juvenile insecurities to be a mom.
Note to these mothers: Please stop procreating. We beg of you.
Tags: Exorcist, momzillas, playdate, playgroup, toxic friends
The “Mommy Friend” Dilemma
Posted by admin | Filed under Motherhood, Stay At Home Moms, friendships
If you're a mother, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about: Sometimes you are “friends” with a woman not because you get along famously, but because your kids do. When the kids are just babies, this is less of a problem – you just find a new mother you get along with and force your little ones to play together. But as they get older, they start having preferences, and that's when it gets annoying.
Sure, they get along – but do their moms? Photo by Kelly Sue via Flickr
Granted, as a SAHM, sometimes you're so desperate for adult interaction that you'll settle for playdates with that intolerable bitch who won't stop talking about how much she spent on her redesigned “French Country” kitchen and how her little brat (who she doesn't glance at once) got into all the elite pre-pre-schools. Or the one who has a live-in nanny and who keeps telling you how tired you look. Or the martyr mom – the one who essentially brags about how hard her life is, and how not even her 6-year-old sleeps through the night, and how she carries her baby in a sling AT ALL TIMES because she's so fucking hands-on. She makes her own organic baby food and knits her own goddamned clothes, and has she mentioned that your kids will grow up to be serial killers because you made them cry-it-out? Note: If you're having a playdate with all three of these women at once, you may actually be in for some entertainment. But otherwise, you end up wanting to hang yourself in your circa-1995 bathroom. Which, note to the snooty whores, you love – right down to its tacky floral wallpaper. And its smoky cube glass tiles.
But I digest. Unless you and your best friends from your single days had babies around the same time and live in the same place, you have to try and make new “mommy” friends. This can be agonizing, and a lot like dating. So you meet a cool chick at Gymboree whose kid seems pretty cool, and after a great conversation you wonder how to go about getting her number. You risk getting rejected, of course. But it doesn't end there. Once you've gotten the number, you have to wait the requisite 2-4 days before calling. You don't want to seem over-eager, after all. Nothing says “desperate” like calling your new friend the same afternoon and telling her you're bringing your brood over with some Kroger-fresh cookies, and oh, it's ok if your husband is home, and your house is a mess, and your kid is projectile vomiting, and you're dying of cancer, and can we come over now PLEASE?
If only I followed my own advice. The first cool mom I met, I basically stalked until she hung out with me. I didn't want to play the games with this one. When, during our very first phone conversation she said, “Look, I'm going to pee while I'm on the phone with you, I hope you're not offended,” I knew it was meant to be. And I was right – we embrace the chaos when we are together, laughing hysterically when our kids fart, talk about how messy each other's house is, and how we need to go out (sans kids) and grab a margarita. We have yet to do this, but all in good time… Our kids are still very young.
I guess my point is this: Like dating, finding a good mommy friend is difficult. You go through a lot of weirdos who have bad breath and talk for 30 minutes on their cell phone during a date before you meet a good one. But once you do, life gets infinitely better. I promise.
