by Karen Alpert
Once upon a time there was this woman who stabbed someone to death and then the police were after her, so she grabbed her kids, hot-wired a car, and took off for Mexico, and as soon as they crossed the border she pulled over for a pee break and before they got back in the car she said, “Say cheese,” and she took an adorable picture of them on the beach and then posted it to Facebook with the caption “Beautiful sunset tonight!!” and everyone who saw it just assumed they were having the most wonderful vacation in Mexico.
See, Facebook lies.
But all you did on your birthday was slide out my hooha
SO LET ME GET THIS straight. I pushed an eight-pound bowling ball out my hooha and who gets to celebrate every year on that date? The F’ing bowling ball??? Yeahhh, that makes sense. Not.
There are some moms who are practically jizzing in their pants, they’re so F’ing excited to plan their kid’s birthday. They’re like, “Eeeeks, I only have three hundred sixty-four days to plan little Poopiebottom’s birthday party!! Must go to Pinterest NOWWW.” Which is the complete opposite of me. I’m like, “Seriously? Seeeriously? We are going to drop how many hundreds of dollars on a party that’s going to last one-and-three-quarter hours and literally be forgotten the next day?” For moms like me who are busy and lazy and not rich, there is nothing more torturous on this planet than planning a birthday party. Maybe waterboarding. Nahh, I’m gonna say it’s a tie.
Anyways, every year I DREAD the conversation. I mean when Zoey was little, I got to pick where we were doing it.
Age 1: Backyard
Age 2: Skipped this year because the last thing you want to celebrate is your kid turning two
Age 3: This cute gerbil tube place where the kids are locked inside clear tubes so the moms can sit and chat without interruption
Age 4: I can’t remember
Age 5: The bounce house place (the first year she got to choose it herself)
So about six months before her sixth birthday (because that’s how early you have to book shit), I had the dreaded conversation.
ME: Hey, Zoey, what kind of birthday party do you want this year?
ZOEY: A bounce house party.
ME: Or what about a princess party? Or a pirate party? Or a cooking party? Or a yoga party? Or a mini-golf party? Or an ice-skating party? Or a roller-skating party? Or a costume party? Or a Lego party? Or a painting party? Or a Build-A-Bear party? Or a nature place party? Or a cake decorating party? Or a pizza party? Or a superhero party? Or pretty much any other party you can think of in the whole entire world because I don’t want to have ANOTHER F’ing bounce house party like we had last year?
ZOEY: No, I want a bounce house party.
Really? SERIOUSLY?!! I mean (a) it’s expensive as shit, and (b) I have a heart attack every five seconds while I watch kids almost break their necks and stomp on each other’s heads and WTF am I going to say to little Timmy’s mom when she comes to pick him up?
ME: Thanks for coming, Timmy!! Don’t forget to grab a party favor from the table and your brains from the bounce house where that big kid jumped on your head.
Anyways, I say no to my kids alllllll the time. Like seriously, one day I counted to see how many times I say no in a day and I lost count after 147. I wish I were kidding. But birthdays are like super important to kids, so I pretty much never say no.
ZOEY: Can I get my nails painted on my birthday?
ME: Sure.
ZOEY: Can I go to McDonald’s on my birthday?
ME: We can do that.
ZOEY: Can I get a dog on my birthday?
ME: A stuffed one.
ZOEY: Can you call me Princess Zoey on my birthday?
ME: If that’s what you want.
ZOEY: I want that.
ME: Sure thing, Your Highness.
So when it comes to her choosing the birthday party location, I always say yes. Correction: So far I’ve always said yes. Maybe not this year. Because last year she asked for the bounce house place and here’s how it went down.
ZOEY: We’re here, we’re here!! It’s my birthday party!!!
BOUNCE HOUSE LADY: Okay, Mom, just sign this waiver form and we can get started.
Hmmm, lemme read it first:
Please sign this to indicate that there is absolutely no way you can ever sue our asses, no matter WTF happens. Because here’s some of the shit that might happen here: Your kid might get bruised, break a limb, break a neck, get smothered in a bounce house that deflates, or someone might jump on her head and her head might pop open like a Cadbury Creme Egg and all the filling might pour out. Oh yeah, and she might die.
ME: So lemme get this straight before I sign this waiver. If you guys pour baby oil all over the bounce houses and a kid slips and falls and dies, I can’t sue you?
HER: (super smiley) That’s right. Just sign it.
ME: Wait, what if you guys don’t pay your electric bill and the lights go out and all the kids are trapped inside the collapsing bounce houses—
HER: (perma-grin) You can’t do a thing. Just sign it.
ME: But what if—
HER: (through a gritted smile) Sign the motherfucking document, lady.
ME: Well, that seems fair. Do you have a pen?
And then one by one the parents all show up and sign their kids’ lives away and drop them off so they can escape as quickly as possible to go run some random errand because there’s not enough time to run to the grocery store because it’s too long to leave your cold shit in the car but too short to go to the store you really need to go to because these bounce house places are always located in these weird industrial parks. Grrrrr.
Wheeeeeeee!!! They’re bouncing!!!!! And their faces are getting super red and sweaty and they’re running around like maniacs and, awwww shit, here comes another party. I totally forgot we might not be the only people in here. Yup, there’s another birthday party going on at the same time, and these kids are older and they’re all boys and they look like they’re sumo wrestlers and they’re mowing down our kids like giant John Deere tractors. Like there’s this one man-child who looks like the dude who does a cannonball into a pool and literally all the water splashes out. Only in this scenario, the pool is a bounce house and the water is the kids from our party and when he jumps into the house all our kids fly out and land on their heads and break their necks and pretty much die. Wheeee, this is fun!!!
ZOEY: Mommmmmmmm!!!!!!
I see Zoey running toward me and she has a look of terror on her face and I wonder if someone has died and, holy shit, is that blood dripping from her hair? OMG yes, something red is dripping from her hair. OMG OMG OMG.
ME: (totally panicked and not cool and collected like I should be) Zoey, what happened?!!!
ZOEY: Jasmine threw up in the bounce house!!!
And yup, now I can see that it is not in fact blood, it is red vomit and it is all in her hair and on her shirt and there are kids running around with red vomit all over them now. Because even if YOU don’t serve the cake until after the bouncing part, that doesn’t mean someone else in your kid’s class didn’t have a party earlier that day and serve cake with red frosting and pizza with red sauce like an hour before this party. Awesome. And I stand there wondering WTF to do and then I come up with a brilliant plan.
ME: TIME FOR CAKKKKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And it looks like someone just fired the starter pistol at the marathon and kids of all sizes come running toward me at full speed, including all the sumo wrestlers, so I try to fix my mistake.
ME: Only for Zoey’s party!!!!!!
Which is the stupidest thing I could yell because then all the sumo wrestlers do a one-eighty and start running in the other direction back to the bounce houses against the flow of traffic and there are collisions everywhere.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!!!!
EVERY KID IN THE PLACE: Wahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
And it looks like a scene after a bomb went off because people are lying all over the ground crying with red stains all over them
.
Fifteen minutes later, the kids from Zoey’s party are all sitting in complete silence wolfing down cake and you would never know anything bad just happened except for the pungent smell of puke that fills the room.
So this year, when Zoey asks me to have another bounce house party, I’m a total a-hole and I say no this time.
ME: No.
ZOEY: Please.
ME: No.
ZOEY: Pleeeeease.
ME: Nooooo. Ask again and you won’t get a party at all.
ZOEY: (silence)
ME: How about a nice tea party?
ZOEY: Fiiiine.
End of story.
Oooooh, I just spent like 9,000 minutes on Pinterest looking at allllllll the adorable goodie bags I can do for my kid’s birthday party!! And at the end of it, all I could think was that if I had just gone to the Dollar Store in the first place, this would be done by now.
You Want to Watch My Child?
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Oh Wait, You’re Serious
YOU KNOW THOSE TOTALLY KICKASS MOMS WHO homeschool (no F’ing idea if that’s one word or two) their kiddos and love being with them 25 hours a day? Yeah, I’m basically the opposite of that. Like right now while I’m writing this, my rugrats are at home because school was canceled after a blizzard last night and while they’re shouting, “YAYYYYYYY, SCHOOL IS CANCELED!!!!!,” I’m shouting a bunch of four-letter words into my pillow. Why? Because yes, I love being a mom, but I also lovvvvve being a mom who gets away from her kids sometimes. And by sometimes I mean for many hours every day when the kids are at school or camp or with their grandparents, a babysitter, or some random stranger who looks nice enough. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. And makes me not want to pop a little yellow pill or down a whole bottle of pills and check myself into the loony bin.
A letter to my kids’ teachers
Dear Mr. or Ms. Badass,
Yeah, I know that’s not really your name, but I’m calling you that. Because you, my friend, are amazing. Wait, that doesn’t do your amazingness justice. You are SOOO F’ING AMAAAAAZINGGGGGG!!!!!!
Yeah, I know I probably shouldn’t curse to my kids’ teachers, so give me a detention or suspend me or whatever you want to do about it, but I’m done pussyfooting around. I mean I run into you at school or in the carpool line and I’m all tongue-tied like a lovestruck pubescent boy and you probably think I don’t have vocal cords or something, but I actually do. I’m just a mom who is speechless with gratitude.
I mean let’s just talk about what you do for a minute. You watch other people’s crotchfruit allllllll day long. Yeah, like WE had sex, WE got knocked up, and WE brought some little a-holes into this world, but YOU take care of them for more hours in the day than WE do. Seriously, I just did the math. Unless you’re Michelle Duggar, taking care of TWENTY little kids all day is pretty much akin to Chinese water torture, only instead of drops of water dripping on your face over and over again until your forehead looks like a donut, you’re bombarded with snot and boogers and lice and drool and annoying questions, and if their fingers aren’t up their nose to the second knuckle, then their hands are up their shorts doing God knows what to some other orifice. And even after all that, you still love the little boogersnots and take care of them better than their own parents do half the time.
Like when Zoey comes down the stairs in the morning wearing polka-dot pants with striped legwarmers with a furry vest over a red silk kimono, here’s what goes through my head: WTF are you wearing? But here’s what you say: “Wow, look at that kid’s fierce independence.” And either you truly believe it or you’re such a good actor YOU should be giving Jack Nicholson acting lessons.
And speaking of the arts, you tell me all about this amazing picture Holden drew at the art table and how it’s so awesome and how I should definitely frame it and you are so full of praise you clearly think my kiddo is a future Picasso. And then he takes it out of his folder to show me and it’s a piece of paper with a line on it—like it looks like he accidentally hit a piece of paper with a crayon. Like you could give a starfish a crayon and he would do the same thing. But you really, truly, genuinely think it’s awesome.
And then Holden has to put the drawing back into his folder and the folder back into his backpack and you stand there watching and watching and watching like you have allllllll afternoon and he can take as much time as he needs to get it in there, while in my head I’m screaming, “Oh, for the love of Gawdddd, just shove the F’ing folder into the F’ing backpack so we can leave already!!!!” And then when he finally finishes, you’re like, “Good job, buddy. See you tomorrow.” And I’m like, “It is tomorrow. That’s how long we’ve been standing here waiting for him.” Anyways, you . . . . . . are . . . . . . so . . . . . . patient . . . . . . it . . . . . . never . . . . . . ceases . . . . . . to . . . . . . amaze . . . . . . me.
But I guess you have to be when you’re constantly waiting for twenty kids to go to the potty and wash their hands and eat their snacks and put their jackets on and put their backpacks away, etc., etc., etc. It’s a miracle you have time to teach them anything. And yet, every day they come home and they’ve learned something new about math or reading or Modigliani or ovapurous oviporus oviparous animals (I still don’t know WTF that is).
So thank you. Thank you for loving my children. Thank you for thinking they’re awesome. Thank you for dealing with the shit that comes out of their orifices, literally and figuratively. Thank you for doing it all for way too little compensation. Thank you for making them smarter. Thank you for making them smarter than me. (Than I? Shit, I don’t know which one’s right.) Thank you for knowing shit like that so you can teach it to them because if it were up to me, they’d be screwed.
Love and kisses,
A mom who worships the ground you walk on
ME: What’d you do at school today?
ZOEY: Nothing.
ME: Who’d you play with?
ZOEY: No one.
ME: Did you read any books?
ZOEY: I can’t remember.
ME: Are you F’ing kidding me?
ZOEY: I don’t know.
Halle-F’ing-lujah, both kids are finally in school
ME: Who’s excited for school?!!
HOLDEN: Me!!
ME: Who’s a big boy and going to school just like his sister?!
HOLDEN: Me!!
ME: We’re almost there. Who can’t wait?!!!
HOLDEN: Meeeee!!!!
(three minutes later)
HOLDEN: Nooooooo!!!!!! Wahhhhhh!!! Don’t leave me!!!! You’re the worst mommy everrrrr!!!!!
I desperately try to lower my screaming child to the ground, but it’s pretty much impossible because his hands are superglued around my neck and every time I try, his legs wrap around me in a vise grip and he won’t stand up and we’re basically in a mosh pit of lululemon-wearing stick figures who are smothering their kiddos with air kisses and judging me for being the shittiest mom ever.
Finally, the teacher comes out of the classroom to “help.”
TEACHER: Awwww, who’s this little guy?
ME: This is the devil’s spawn.
I don’t really say that out loud because it’s the beginning of the school year so I’m still trying to make the teachers think that I’m a nice, normal person.
ME: This is Holden.
TEACHER: Awwwww, hi Holden. Wanna come with me, sweetie?
You’re so observant. He definitely wants to come with you. NOT. Yo lady, pry his F’ing nails out of my humerus bone and drag him into your classroom because that is the only way this is gonna happen.
TEACHER: (whispers) If we need to, we can always put a chair in the room and you can transition out of there more slowly.
I’ve got three little words for you:
F that shit.
There is no way I am sitting in a chair in the classroom. Because (a) that’s like ripping the Band-Aid off slowwwwwwwwly over weeks of excruciating pain. And (b) whenever I sit in one
of those little preschool chairs, my ass spills over the sides and looks extra gigantic.
ME: Holden, stop crying and listen to me. Mommy will come back to get you in two hours. I promise.
HOLDEN: I (air suck) don’t (air suck) want (air suck) you (air suck) to leave (air suck) meeee.
TEACHER: What if Mommy stays in the building? Would that be better?