So, we’re at some family-neutral restaurant eating wings when Alma starts to act up.
She’s sliding around the booth like an eel, smacking her chin on the table, worming her way onto the filthy floor.
I threaten her with a “bathroom time-out.” Before she even blinks again, she’s grinning maniacally, slithering back under the table.
So, I drag her to the bathroom and go inside a stall with her. Instead of whimpering and apologizing, she’s grinning at me with hate in her eyes.
She’s in full-on batshit crazy mode.
So, I tell her I am going to leave her alone in the stall for her time-out.
I close the door, waiting for her to at least utter a half-assed ‘sorry’ when instead, she says “I don’t even want to look at your FACE right now!”
At which point, I drag her back out and my husband and I tell her she’s not going to attend her friend’s birthday party. That’s where we were heading next, so I drop off my husband and son at the party and drive Alma home.
She’s now raving like a lunatic, screaming, spit flying from her mouth, digging her hand into the back of her throat and gagging.
I put her in her room for time-out, while she continues to shriek and flap her arms wildly in my general direction.
I tell her through tears that I wanted her to go to the birthday party, but her behavior is the reason why she can’t go.
She screams louder.
She screams for an hour.
When it turns to a shuddering hiccuping, I go back in and ask her if she knows why she got time-out.
“No.”
I said, “You were not listening, sliding around in the booth and then you told me you didn’t want to look at my face during time-out. You were mean to me. Do you want to be mean to me?”
“Yes.”
I said, “If you act badly, you can’t do fun things like to go to birthday parties.”
Alma: “I’ll just go to the next one.”
Seriously?
This was me sticking to my guns.
The most epic time-out of my parental history and she doesn’t give a shit.
If she’s this vicious and ungrateful now, will we be bailing her out of jail when she’s 13?
This weekend, we took the kids to the beach, to the park, out to lunch, bought them Big Hero 6.
We cooked for them, we bathed them, we cuddled on the couch suffering through episodes of My Little Pony and Jake and the Neverland Pirates.
We do so much for them and so very, very little for ourselves.
I asked Alma if she had any fun this weekend at all.
Her response… “I didn’t go to the birthday party.”
She got another time-out at dinner for playing with her food. My husband threw her food in the trash.
I’m the mom who is secretly sneaking some leftover mac n’ cheese into the fridge, just in case she really is starving and apologizes or acts even remotely like a normal child.
I am the mom who cries as she’s tucking that tupperware into the fridge.
I am the mom who is tucking it right next to the rum I bought in order to make it to Monday.
I am the mom who is starting to feel like she’s losing as a parent.
My daughter can be so sweet, yet so evil.
So kind, yet soul-crushing.
I watched her at the park playing on the see-saw long after she was done so the other little girl could keep bouncing.
She will find a quarter in the mulch and look at me to see if she should put it back down, just in case it might be someone else’s.
She will rush to get me a band-aid if I have a hangnail.
Then, she transforms like Ed Norton in Primal Fear.
Sticking with the Norton theme, she’s Tyler Durden from Fight Club, pouring lye on our hands.
Such a sweet face.
I know the devil inside.
My husband and I are drowning.
We’re being sucked under by a tidal wave of sick kids, pummeled by a tsunami of fake tears.
It’s a rip current of bad attitudes, wave upon wave of time-outs.
There are unexplainable belly aches.
Cold weather crankiness.
Ear aches.
Rainy days trapped indoors.
Not to mention traffic jams caused by overturned trucks carrying baby formula and dogs with mysteriously enlarged spleens.
This past weekend, we tried to make the best of what is becoming a bad life situation.
We took the kids to the horse track. (Trust me, it’s not about gambling. We look at horseys and pick our favorite. Alma always chooses the one with the pink number.)
There are no pictures, because I was too busy giving my kids a perpetual verbal beat down to snap a photo.
On the way there, my son keeps dropping stuff on the floor of the car and whining for me to pick it up.
My daughter whines that she wants her window rolled down. I have those old-timey hand-cranked windows, so I tell her no.
She says, “I can do it with my foot!” I say, “No, don’t roll the window down with your foot.” Seconds later, I can feel my hair start to whip around because… she… rolled it down with her foot.
My husband says, “That’s it, Alma. Time-out whenever we get back home.”
She responds snarkily, “5 minute time-out.”
My husband, “That just earned you 10.”
At the track, she whines that she wants to sit on the benches outside instead of indoors. (Even though it looks as though it might rain.)
She whines that she wants to go in the bouncy houses. (The ones that are surrounded by a moat of mud.)
My son whines that he wants juice, not lemonade.
He whines that he wants a different hot dog. (What the hell does that even mean? All hot dogs are created equal.)
He starts whacking his auditorium seat up and down, then standing on it.
She knocks over my water.
Huck gets angry at me for telling me he’s also getting time-out and smacks my arm.
This is when I threaten to smack him in the face. Loud enough for other people to hear. That is also when I start to cry silently.
I mean, I’m never gonna smack my kid in the face. I’ve never even popped him on the bum.
I am humiliated.
I feel ashamed.
I feel guilty.
I feel like the world’s worst parent and… I feel like drinking A LOT. (Which would ALSO make me feel like a bad parent.)
We ended up cutting the whole thing short and going home angry.
Both kids got time-outs so epic, they both took naps.
I took a nap too.
They woke up feeling rejuvenated.
I woke up feeling ill-prepared to handle another 4 hours with them before bedtime.
That evening proved to be everything I anticipated and MORE.
Frankie is on medication for his chunky spleen or injured spine or whatever they charged us $1,000 for and it causes excessive urination. So, it wasn’t a huge surprise when Alma pointed out the slow-moving puddle of dog piss in the kitchen. I was surprised by the sheer enormity of said puddle. It had to be about a gallon.
I was nearly done sopping it up when I ran out of paper towels.
It’s around the same time that Alma slips and falls while chasing her brother.
She’s scream-crying, her absolute favorite.
I tell them to stop running around.
I’m mopping up the rest of the dog pee with Santa Clause napkins when Huck slips and falls flat on his face. He has a bloody nose and is shrieking. I cradle him on my lap as he yells into my face.
At some point, it almost sounds like he’s trying to make words, but I can’t understand him through the screaming.
It turns out he was saying, “I have to go potty.”
It was too late.
He peed on my lap.
It made it to my undies.
There’s no way in hell I’m cooking after that. So, I rush to Target to get some Chicken nuggets and potato fries.
Huck takes one bite of one nugget and says, “I’m done.” (par for the course) He spends the rest of dinner smashing his food and getting intermittent time-outs.
Clearly, time-out is not working.
We have also removed almost all toys from their rooms. Next would be, what? Furniture? In a month, my kids will be living like orphans in the suburbs.
This is why it takes a village.
Mommy and Daddy are going to lose their ability to cope if they don’t get a goddamned date night.
But, my mom lives far away. His mom is recovering from surgery. My dad and his wife were booked this past weekend visiting my brother. (And frankly, they’re probably overwhelmed by the crush of grandchildren at this point.)
I had a friend invite us to hang out this past weekend with him, his daughter and his wife, even with our kids in tow.
How do I explain that it’s not possible because my children will suck every drop of fun out of whatever we do?
And how do I do that while still conveying just how much I adore my children?
I love them so much, so much that weekends like this past one just break my heart. Feel me?
The real story behind the sweet pictures of our Sunday trip to the zoo.
(Worth noting: My son was sick the night before and we were up with him every hour until he woke up for good at 4 a.m.)
Things started off remarkably well.
The first animal we saw was some kind of warty hog that had buried himself under a pile of hay with only his rotund rump exposed. Despite this, my daughter shouted with glee, “This place is fun!”
We dodged dive bombing parrots inside the aviary.
We saw white rhinos, including the enormous lumbering bull that my daughter was determined to call the “mommy rhino” despite some obvious danglage of dude parts.
Both kids were amped inside the exhibit I call “Snakes and bugs and stuff.”
We made our way through the shrimpy funk at the stingray tank and got splashed by mungy water during a feeding.
Then, Alma made her first demand for a toy.
Here we go.
I tell her she has enough toys at home.
She says she wants a different toy.
I say she should start to learn to enjoy the experience of being somewhere fun without taking home a token toy.
Her attitude shifts and the next thing I know she takes a swat at my husband with her bunny.
I take her bunny away and tell her she has to apologize for hitting him with it and she bursts into tears.
She’s crying hysterically while we walk past the flamingos and coy pond.
People are staring, but I am not backing down.
Eventually, she apologizes and we recover on the carousel.
Afterward, Huck wants to go on the tiger train rollercoaster and we’re pumped when we see that he’s over the required height.
Alma and I stand by to take pictures while the boys wait in line and then I see them come back out of the line.
Huck is crying.
They’ve told him he has to be 3. My husband told them he turns 3 next month and they still turned him away.
We try to appease Huck with a watermelon icee and he’s NOT HAVING IT. He’s grunting like a gorilla and swatting the air.
“Do you want to go to the petting zoo?” “Do you want to see more animals?” “Are you hungry?” “Do you need medicine?”
With every question, he does an angry Michael Jackson moonwalk away from me.
I finally get him to calm down enough to take a spoonful of the melted icee and he promptly gets brain freeze and spews it across the ground outside the penguin exhibit and starts screaming.
Moments later, Alma starts choking on her icee. This is just SO MUCH FUN.
Later, we’re standing in line waiting for the “train” (hoping to make Huck feel better) that takes you around the zoo for a brief and underwhelming tour. The kids are eating Doritos, which means mostly just dumping them along the walkway and stomping them into tiny pieces.
Of course while we’re waiting in line, they notify us one of the trams is shut down so it’s a longer wait than usual. (Now, 20 minutes) Then, the speaker system breaks on the working tram while we’re in line and it’s another 20 minutes.
Alma yells, “Mommy, Huck pushed me!” Huck says, “I said I was sorry.” Then he hugs her.
I overhear people standing nearby saying, “Awww” and “There’s still good parents out there.”
There it is. The balance between cracking the whip and showing the kids a good time.
“Here’s a fantastic day where you don’t have to do anything but have a good time. We provide the snacks, juice, icees, rides and carry your crap around. We wipe your bums, bring changes of clothes and spend a gazillion dollars all so you can have a blast.”
They behave badly and we give time outs, take their stuff away and trouble shoot.
People see them throwing a massive temper tantrum and probably think, “crappy parents.”
People see them hugging and apologizing and think, “good parents.
The fact is, we’re good parents BECAUSE we don’t buy into their temper tantrums.
Alma never got a toy. She got to keep the zoo map.
We did not try to smuggle Huck onto the kiddie rollercoaster. (Although it was tempting) He got the tram ride where he kept saying, “There’s no animals. There’s trees.” (An astute observation)
We’re trying so hard, but it’s a battle and one that doesn’t usually end with pleasant memories and grateful children.
As we walk back to the car, Alma is pouting because she didn’t get a toy.
Huck whines, “Where’s MY map?”
Then he crashes, drooling on the car seat.
We were hoping to go out to lunch. Instead, it’s McD’s and buying groceries and consoling Huck when he wakes up and tossing out the kids uneaten peas and watching Batman and breaking up fights over legos and “Don’t hit your sister!” and “Stop crying over everything!” and yes, that’s moonshine in my Coke.
There were good moments at the zoo: Alma in heaven on her horse, Huck mesmerized by otters, the moment when Alma randomly started patting Huck sweetly on the head.
Was it worth it?
Ask me when the kids are in their 20’s and we find out if they even remember this stuff.
Lately, I can be seen shuffling around like a homeless schizophrenic, mumbling to myself over and over, “It’s just a phase. It’s just a phase.”
For the past few weeks, my daughter has transformed into the kind of girl nobody wants to hang out with.
She has pretty much ruined every holiday event or special occasion.
There was Christmas where I watched in horror as she shredded open gift after gift barely pausing between to assess the present. When she finished she whined, “I want more presents to unwrap.”
I tried to convince myself it was just some kind of OCD obsession with the thrill of unwrapping.
She practically cried when I offered her Cinnamon Buns for breakfast, then downed two of them within minutes, sending her off on a sugary high, shrieking and bouncing around the house like a crackhead kangaroo.
She spent hours in separate “time outs.”
I asked her what her favorite gift from Santa was. (Santa, you know, the “guy” who bought all the presents, wrapped all the presents, decorated the tree and stealthily stuffed stockings when “he’d” rather have been sleeping.) Her response: “The kitty, I guess, but it was the wrong color and I didn’t get the doll carriage I wanted.”
This sent me off on a tear-filled, mimosa-fueled afternoon followed by a splitting headache and sweaty nap.
On New Year’s Eve, we used the Netflix fakeout countdown for the kids during which my daughter whined that she wanted to watch Batman instead.
Afterward, we partook in the Cuban traditions.
We were each eating our 12 grapes when Alma proceeded to drop 2 of them, 1 of which was never located. A slimy grape is currently curled up in our carpet maliciously awaiting a middle of the night barefoot run for a glass of water.
She refused to put pants and shoes on with her pajamas, despite the fact that it was super cold outside, because she wanted to “be Tinkerbell.”
We walked around the house with our suitcases in order to ensure a 2015 filled with travel. Of course, our neighbor walks out in a vest and tie on his way to celebrate New Year’s the way normal adults do. I can only imagine how ridiculous we looked traipsing through wet grass and dog shit with our luggage, wearing pajamas.
We get back to the front door and Alma starts fake-crying because she was under the false impression we would be walking around the whole neighborhood.
We go to dump our bucket of water out the front door to wash away all the crap that’s happened in 2014. Alma is throwing a fit because she wants to do it herself even though the Popcorn bowl is so heavy, she would end up on the sidewalk in the puddle.
Last night, I managed to sneak out of work early because we had short newscasts on New Year’s Day. On the drive home, I am cheerful despite writing about sons decapitating their mothers and boyfriends nearly strangling their girlfriends to death. There is no traffic, it’s not too hot and I am arriving home before the sun sets.
So, we decide to take the kids out for pizza. After the 30 minute drive, we discover the restaurant is closed. Alma commences whining about how all she will eat is pizza, so we end up at chain Italian restaurant that shall remain unnamed.
I always planned to be the kind of parent that would NEVER let their children play on computers at the dinner table… until I ended up the kind of parent with kids that jostle me perpetually, ask “why” repeatedly and don’t allow me to eat a single bite of food without arguing with me about something.
So, I let Alma play with her Leapad. Instead of enjoying herself quietly, she’s demanding that I watch what she’s doing, take part in what she’s doing and talking over the Comicon, Dungeons and Dragons playing waitress who is trying to take our order.
Halfway through our overpriced, undercooked pasta, the little boy in the booth behind me stands up and projectile vomits spaghetti all over the floor.
The C-team staff starts to mop it up and then leaves little wet spaghetti pieces on the floor right next to me and the stinking mop and bucket right behind my husband.
My main resolution this year was just to detox, not for the entire year, but long enough to avoid feeling pickled post holidays.
January 1st and I’m making a Moscow Mule so I can suffer through putting my daughter to bed.
We’re coloring together and she’s wide-eyed and crazed, intentionally coloring hard and outside the lines.
She stays up too late on her computer. I take it away and tell her to sleep.
When it’s finally time for me and the husband to go to bed, he turns off the hallway light and I heard Alma yell, “MOM! MOM! Turn on the light! I can’t see!!!”
She says it like we’ve offended her sensibilities by turning out HER light when SHE is trying to stay up until midnight the day AFTER New Year’s Eve.
I cry myself to sleep while browsing Facebook, looking at people wearing their fun New Year’s Eve hats, drinking champagne, their children grinning and still joyously and gratefully playing with their Christmas loot.
It’s just a phase. It’s just a phase. Until… it’s not.
1. Catharsis
I’ve been writing in a journal since I was able to write. I’ve been shoving stacks of my innermost, private thoughts inside cardboard boxes for decades.
They now accumulate dust, cowering in shame, paranoid about the possibility of being discovered.
My mind is always racing and when I don’t harness my thoughts, they turn black and ugly. Writing them down gives them wings, they fly off giving me peace.
I sleep better.
To write without sharing feels empty.
I am not an author. Probably never will be. So, for those who aren’t talented enough to publish their thoughts, sharing them online is the best alternative.
2. Solidarity
There’s no way I am the only woman who struggles with the daily travails of being a working mother.
I don’t belong to a support group.
My busy schedule and time trapped in traffic preclude me from spending quality time with other moms.
Not to mention that every spare second I have is spent with my husband and children.
I don’t have friends I chat with on the phone.
I don’t do “girls night out.”
My conversations with my mother are limited to several minutes a night while I’m stuck in traffic and she’s cramming to post news online at work.
It’s all too easy to feel painfully alone in my world.
When I share my struggles, I feel connected to people all over the world who are muddling through motherhood. Whether they comment or not, like a post or not, they’re out there and now they know I’m out there too.
Oh, how I wish I was not so alone.
Bam. Now, I’m not.
3. Anonymity
Despite having a public blog, I’m still a relatively private person.
My following is not huge.
I am no Baby Sideburns.
My children can’t read, so there’s no risk of doing damage to their psyches. Even if this blog were to remain “in the cloud” forever, I am guessing they won’t be enraged that I’ve outed them on struggling through potty training or temper tantrums. In fact, I wish my mother had captured those moments from my childhood so I would’ve had a better idea of what to expect as a new mom.
Honestly, I don’t plan on writing the blog forever. I certainly wouldn’t be doing it if my kids were at an age where they were perusing blogs online.
4. Humor
I’m trying to put a humorous spin on the frustrating, the annoying, the disgusting and unbearable aspects of parenting toddlers.
I hope I’ve been able to make it clear with my style of writing that I absolutely adore my children.
I don’t think they’re monsters.
They’re not exceptionally evil, stupid or gross. In fact, I think my children are exceptionally smart, good-natured, kind, talented, creative and beautiful.
I just think that along with all of that AWESOME, there’s a whole lot of AWFUL. It’s worth a chuckle and that’s the point.
I’m not a fat, drunk.
I just enjoy hyperbole.
If that’s unclear, I am an even worse writer than I imagined.
5. Censorship
There is so much from my life that I refuse to share with the public.
There are feuds and fears and venomous hatred, private family matters and workplace-inspired outrage.
When my daughter came home from school with a humiliating story, I did not share it.
When my husband and I get in a spat, it’s between us.
Plenty is off limits and as long as I’m the one at the helm, I can be selective in a way that works for my family.
My family.
Mine.
I share, I hide and it’s my decision.
In less than a year I will become the sole member of my family to still live in my hometown.
It’s something I never could’ve predicted.
At 13 years old, I came home from school to find my father standing by the front door with a suitcase.
The year that followed the stunning revelation that my parents were getting divorced is a collection of fuzzy memories and cloudy snapshots.
My oldest brother was away in college. My other brother chose to live with my dad in our grandparent’s house.
I stayed with my mother in the house I grew up in, discovering the glorious distraction of the world wide web. Late nights with the green glow of the computer screen on my cheeks making the empty rooms disappear.
We started renting a tiny house, the color of mud, with terrazzo floors, jalousie windows and a sketchy neighbor who wore an eye-patch and mysteriously knew our names.
It wasn’t long before our dog Patches died of cancer and the only house I remember from my childhood was sold.
My mother had a job as a librarian at a school for “troubled kids.” She quickly parlayed that into a position as a “media specialist” for the world-renowned Poynter Institute. Months of watching presentations focused on the ethical dilemmas of Journalism and she landed her first gig in T.V. news as a writer at the small station in Sarasota.
This meant she worked overnight and slept during the day and was painfully absent during some of my most formative years. But, her determination earned her a position as a Producer at a Tampa station within a year. A year later, she was the Executive Producer at another station in town. By the time I left for college, she was running a 24-hour news station in Austin, Texas.
My dad was cheating the system and living in a senior living apartment complex.
I was without a “home” to call “home.”
I have always envied those college kids who were able to return home for a long weekend to their moms doing their laundry, home cooked meals and the stuffed animals from their childhood still cozying up together in their bedroom closets. I imagine them sighing with relief, enveloped by a quilt embedded with some comforting and familiar smell.
Fast forward to present day. My mother lives in South Carolina. My brother lives in Massachusetts. The other one is in Orlando. My father is about to retire and move permanently to North Carolina.
I am the last of the Fields to reside in Tampa Bay, although my last name is no longer the same.
Granted, I returned here after four years in Gainesville and four more in Miami.
But, I am HOME.
I cannot gaze dreamily at the white eyelet canopy above my childhood bed. So, instead I stare squinting at the Florida sun.
I can’t smell my dad’s barbecue chicken on the grill, the smoke filling the sky with the smells of summer.
But, I can dig my toes in the same sand I did when I wasn’t even old enough to swim.
Watching a palm tree, strained and bent by the gusting wind of a summer storm can bring me to tears.
My cheeks hurt from smiling hard while watching the “heat lightning” from my son’s bedroom window.
My Facebook friends probably find it annoying how frequently I talk about my love for this state. I post pictures of the sunset more than could be considered normal.
Florida is my home, my family, my childhood, my stability and my solace.
While I can’t be sure that I will be able to provide my children with their “childhood home” to return to some day, I am going to dry my darndest. But, they will always be coming home to my home.
My roots here run deep and my loyalty is fierce.
I think my daughter might be the “mean girl.”
Her “report card” last week included a note that suggested we speak to her about sharing and “being nice” to her friends.
She recently told me at dinner that she tries to tell her friends to chew with their mouths closed.
“Nobody listens to me. I tell them over and over and over!!”
This weekend I got to witness some of the judgmental nastiness first-hand.
We went to a birthday party for her classmate at a Jump Zone.
Alma says all the time, “I’m not afraid of anything!” She’s a liar.
She’s terrified of the car wash, haircuts and bouncy houses.
She refused to go anywhere near any of the bouncy houses, instead lurking nearby and occasionally talking smack about her classmates.
I suggested she say hello to Kendall. I figured they were besties considering Alma recently told she wished her name was “Kendall.”
Alma: “Kendall always talks like a baby.”
Kendall’s mom was standing… right… there.
Me: “Oh, well…er… remember… you’re the oldest girl in your class.” (Why did I have to give birth to her after September 1st, dangit!)
Later, she spots the birthday girl in a purple crown and says, “I want one of those purple crowns.”
Me: “Well, she is the birthday girl. The crown is just for her.”
Alma: “No, I can just get it from her.”
Me: “You can’t just take her crown, Alma.”
Alma: “No, I am going to ask her for it. She will give it to me.”
I have to grab her by the arm and stop her from racing over to a bounce house she won’t go inside where she plans to strong-arm the poor chick with the Elsa wig out of her birthday crown.
What a jerk.
Her brother is in heaven, climbing the steps like a little diaper-clad monkey, out-bouncing middle schoolers.
Alma grabs him and asks enthusiastically, “Want to play hide and seek?”
Before even seeing if he’s game, she’s squatting near a bounce house counting. She shouts, “Here I come!” She never even considered the possibility that Huck didn’t want to play.
She ran to find him, threw angry hands on her hips and said with massive attitude, “Where did he go?”
I told her he went back to play inside a bouncy house and she yelled, “I told him to play hide and seek!”
My daughter is a bully.
How did this happen?
Sharing is like the introductory course to being a Corsa.
In our family, skipping the word “please” means you will go without.
Forgetting “thank you” means there’s a chance we will snatch back whatever they just got.
“Can I have a turn, please?” is our mantra.
I don’t even know how to begin a conversation with her about this.
“Alma, you can’t be such a bitch or everyone will hate you.”
“You’re kind of a bossy dick.”
“You’re a few mutilated animals away from becoming a serial killer.”
I don’t want to believe that she is a mean girl and I certainly don’t want to think that I’m somehow the cause of her behavior.
I would like to be the one to put a stop to it, but how do you delicately tell a toddler that she’s basically a 35-pound version of the wicked witch terrorizing the munchkins of daycare Oz?
When she’s being mean to her brother, I occasionally say, “Alma, you’re mean.” Huck always comes to her defense, “Alma’s not mean. She’s nice!”
Is he right? Am I overreacting?
It’s totally my job to keep her in line, but how do I do that when her social interaction is limited to the several hours a day I am NOT around because I’m working?
This same little girl spontaneously hugs me, kisses me, tells me she loves me and even compliments my sandals, clothes and hair… and apparently rules her school with an iron fist.
I usually try to tie these posts in a pretty bow, but there ain’t no flowery way to wrap up a post about my daughter, the Castro of the Corsa clan.
I am one awkward social situation away from becoming a bonafide recluse.
I am one lonely, drunken episode of Scandal away from throwing a house party.
I have always been conflicted when it comes to social interaction.
I suffer from debilitating social anxiety, yet I crave the company of others, in particular stimulating conversation.
People often make crappy chit chat with me while I’m heating up food in the break room at work or passing by in the hallway. They make some lame joke, half of the time without my getting the reference. I squeeze out a half-assed chuckle and think, it has to be obvious that I seriously don’t care about what they just said.
I grind my teeth into the obligatory half-smile. The second I am out of their line of sight, the corners of my mouth plummet back to a miserable scowl.
I’m like Lionel Playworld’s nightmare.
I take resting bitch face to a whole new level.
It’s not that I hate everyone, just the vast majority of people.
There was a time when it wasn’t absurd to hear me LOL to something a friend said in the newsroom.
I nearly peed my pants many a time while going over “chat time rundowns” with my old best pal, David.
I could once be heard singing and clapping along to music videos on VH1 on the overnight shift.
That’s the thing, all of the fun was with people at my PREVIOUS place of work and I’ve been at this job a LOOONG time now.
There’s nobody splitting up a pint of Stoli Raz in coffee cups from the trunk of a car before a lame station meeting after a shift.
There’s no Friday night dash to a bar where everyone can dish and bitch about all of the stressful, heinous events of the work week.
There’s no playing, “Who would you rather?” with famous politicians. (Condi Rice or Hillary Clinton?)
There’s no listing of favorite movies, songs, vending machine snack foods.
There’s no commiserating over Cuban bread.
These are all things that just don’t happen here.
So, it’s entirely possible I am a victim of my surroundings.
I once tried to institute Flashback Friday here, convincing my colleagues to take turns playing the best old school roller rink jams. Instead of developing a reputation for actually being kinda sorta fun, I just inched my way closer to getting demoted.
I now daydream equally of two things:
Vanishing to a tropical island, living off the fish I catch, falling into a coma-like sleep at night, muscles taut from a day of useful work, hard labor building huts and shit.
Throwing a massive 80’s-themed costume-required house party, the alcohol and fantastic conversation flowing, a never-ending night where everyone is guaranteed to sleep past noon the following day.
Neither one will ever be more than a fantasy.
Now that I am a mom, I wonder if my kids will suffer from a similar affliction. An aversion to frat parties and girl talk, but a burning desire for friendship and camaraderie.
My kids don’t have friends outside of daycare. I usually avoid even responding to any of the birthday party invites that get stuffed into the bottom of their backpacks.
The truth is, I don’t want to stand around awkwardly with moms who want to talk about the cost of purses, their child’s mysterious maladies or what their husbands do for a living.
I also wonder if I am training my daughter to fear solitude since every time she’s naughty she gets sent to her room alone.
“No!! Not time by myself! With all of these toys, books, and games? You have banished me to the fiery pits of hell, you sweater-clad Satan!”
If nothing else, I am probably destroying them by example.
Mommy and Daddy don’t have friends.
Mommy and Daddy believe that in general, people are selfish, rude, arrogant, insecure, manipulative, dull and basically evil.
Mommy and Daddy consider a social event to be on par with a colonoscopy without anesthesia.
I am one more fake laugh away from becoming a mute.
I am one more cabin-fever day with two toddlers away from tearing it up at the club.
My kid has a stalker.
She just turned 4 and she already has an obsessive little boy following her everywhere at daycare.
She told me his name is Andrew and that even if she is talking to someone else or playing with someone else, he is right there next to her.
She said it like it was the most annoying thing EVER.
She also told me he was the only friend from school she wanted to invite to her birthday party. (Which is just around the corner at… 10 months away.)
I told her that the next time I drop her off at school or pick her up, she should introduce me to Andrew so I can firmly explain to him that little girls don’t prefer a male shadow. A crappy drawing of a unicorn will do.
I consider this to be a more appropriate response than the ones my husband typically has.
Recently, I dropped Alma off at school at the butt-crack of dawn. The only kids there were the children of the cranky, neanderthal daycare worker, the one with the bad weave who clearly despises my children and therefore me.
Her biggest kid was sitting right by the front door and the second I opened it, he looked up at Alma and said with a sneer, “Oh, it’s her.”
He then proceeded to inform me that Alma spit on him at the playground the previous day.
I asked her if it was true and she ignored me, her facial expression instantly placid and pleased.
I shrugged at the kid and moved on.
I didn’t feel so bad considering a few moments later this Lionel Tate-sized boy knocked over a tall cubby that could’ve easily crushed a child.
When I told my husband about the “spitting accusation” he said what I was already thinking.
The kid was asking for it. The kid spit on her first or pushed her. Or she was just giving him a good-natured raspberry.
Not my kid.
Alma is batshit crazy, but only brings the vile, unacceptable assaults when provoked.
So, my husband tells Alma that if that boy ever does anything mean to her that he will go to the school, pick him up off the ground, twist his body into a pretzel and drop him on his head.
A shit-eating grin spreads across Alma’s face and she says, “Okay.”
My husband has always had a tendency to be overprotective. It’s equal parts flattering and awkward.
My old college buddy wanted me to take him to his law school dance, an entirely platonic arrangement and my husband’s response to the Facebook post was, “The only way she’s going is if my swinging cock is going along for the ride.”
I burst out laughing and then considered how to best craft an apology on his behalf to my longtime pal.
It does the beg question, when can you intervene in your child’s personal life?
At her previous daycare, when she was just a wee little thing, Alma was a biter.
She never bit us, was never aggressive toward the dogs, but every couple of days we were “called into the office” because she took a chunk out of some kid’s arm.
It didn’t take long to figure out that she was only ever biting one girl and that one girl was a bit of a klepto, sometimes trying to literally steal the shoes off Alma’s feet.
The daycare kept pressuring me to teach Alma sign language, like somehow being able to sign the word “more” or “milk” would prevent her from gnashing her teeth at crawling thieves.
They even sent me home with a sign language book.
I had a sign for them too. It only required one finger.
Fast forward a year and Alma was no longer cannibalizing kids and her favorite victim was her new bestie.
The lesson I took away from that: You don’t always need to get involved.
Kids just work shit out themselves.
Now, there’s a chronic biter in Alma’s class now and that’s just unacceptable.
He’s a walking, talking sneak attacker.
He’s probably “challenged.”
So, how do you explain that to your kid?
This was me FAILING:
“Uhhhh, I know you said he bites you all of the time, but he probably takes longer to learn than other kids about what is appropriate and what is not. He’s not as smart. He’s… uhhh… maybe not going to be in your class next year?”
Alma used to stand up at the kitchen table during dinner, bend over and drop it was like it’s hot, saying she was shaking her, “booty butt.”
It was a skill she learned from a chick at school.
Can’t call the poor kid “ghetto”, but I had to explain to my toddler that some kind of dancing is “nasty.”
I taught her “the twist” instead.
I want to like my kid’s friends.
I want them to be on their level intellectually and emotionally.
I don’t want to have to resist the urge to back-hand the little shitheels that hurt them.
I definitely don’t want my husband to go “dropping kids on their heads” as he is wont to do.
I guess all I can do is raise my own kids and hope for the best.
But, if I meet the stalker guy I might consider the pretzel move.
You might hate dressing up for Halloween.
You might prefer an event where your cup runneth over with booze.
You might want to spend your Saturday night cozying up with a good book.
But, you… had… children.
Now, it’s NOT ABOUT YOU.
We initially had plans to attend a neighbor’s adult Halloween party, a highly-anticipated event in our hood.
Instead, I traded Jello shots for rum and Coke Zero at my mother-in-law’s house.
I planned to be something cute for Halloween, but couldn’t squeeze into the beer girl costume, probably because of all of the beer I’ve consumed trying to cope with parenthood.
Instead, I wore an oversized Anna costume with a wig and felt like a chunky Disney princess with head lice.
Alma wore her Dolly meets Elsa wig and complained about it the entire time, but refused to take it off.
The kids consumed just enough candy to become raging assholes for bath time.
Sunday rolls around and Oktoberfest is just around the corner from our house at the horse track.
Instead we head to Cracker Barrel and a farm in the opposite direction so the kids can enjoy a DRY fall festival.
At the restaurant, a waitress named Cessie is regaling us with stories about how much children love her while mine sit and sulk, refusing to answer any of her questions. (There’s nothing more embarrassing than someone asking your child how their food is and watching them scowl and shovel pancakes into their mouth with complete disregard.)
Can I vent for a moment about the perilous journey in and out of the Cracker Barrel lobby with toddlers? You are fortunate if you make it through there without one of them demanding a toy, grabbing a toy, breaking a toy.. or worse, breaking some super fragile, expensive Christmas tchotchke.
We make it to the farm and remember why we were reticent about going.
We tried a few years ago when Alma was just a baby.
She could’ve cared less.
We spent a shitload of money in order to check out some miserable bunnies, cranky goats and comatose pigs.
We were offered a free hot-dog and soda, for which you only had to stand in line for about 45 minutes.
Upon arriving, we are greeted by sour-faced, wrinkle-tanned, apathetic volunteers in neon green tee-shirts.
They are haphazardly snatching up kids by their armpits to place them on zombie ponies. (Picture Santa’s Elves at the mall in A Christmas Story)
I overheard one little girl request a specific pony and a volunteer with rotting teeth said, “Honey, I want a Ferrari, but oh well.”
Alma rode her horse like a stunt man from Seabiscuit. I was so proud… and then depressed while calculating the cost of riding lessons.
The kids got to feed a sketchy llama who kept whipping his ears back in irritation. They probably caught the next Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Goat Flu in the petting zoo.
Ebola Sheep
I went to get on a choo choo train with the kids because I saw other parents boarding and the volunteer said snarkily, “Only one parent per train car, I thought I made myself clear.”
Awesome. You just go ahead and speed off in that unregulated vehicle with my unbuckled children as you zoom around your horse-shit ridden farm packed with miserable caged animals that don’t belong.
There were lemurs.
On a farm.
And a Zorse.
The highlight for me was plucking individual grains of food out of the dirt for the poor, neglected donkeys who they had penned just outside the petting zoo.
Hungry Ebola Donkey
Alma was obsessed with the hay stack.
Huxley got to throw balls at a pumpkin.
The kids has a great time.
I stared longingly at the city block-long line for food and drinks, even though there was no pot of beer at the end of that rainbow.
Back at home, I carved pumpkins with the kids.
All that really means is that my husband ran out for pizza while I carved pumpkins solo with the kids staring at me and repeatedly trying to grab the ridiculously sharp cutting tools.
I had to yell at my son every few minutes that he was about to amputate his own finger.
Let’s be honest, does anyone actually enjoy digging out pumpkin guts or that pumpkin fart smell that fills the room? Does anyone who doesn’t use a store bought pattern actually end up with a pumpkin they’re satisfied with?
They rode ponies, they played in hay, they watched someone else do all the hard work for Halloween and what did they get most excited about?
Daddy returning with pizza.
Then, it’s laundry, pre-cleaning for the cleaning lady and battling my daughter to get her to go to bed.
By the time it’s all over, all we want to do is watch a good scary movie on Netflix and even that is impossible.
We pick one… it’s foreign and dubbed over in English.
UNWATCHABLE.
We choose another movie, it’s got subtitles.
I am too tired to try and read while watching a movie.
We end up watching a few minutes of something I don’t even remember and go to bed.
All so I can get up at the butt crack of dawn, brave rush hour traffic, get cut off by some douche in a Mustang, fall asleep during a meeting, drink too much crappy station coffee, get jittery and write about dead people.
Well, it’s not about me anymore.
At least they’re happy.
Living The American Scream 