by Karen Alpert
ME: I promise we’ll change them first thing tomorrow.
HOLDEN: I’m going to pee on them tonight.
ME: Well then you’ll be cold and wet until TOMORROW WHEN I CHANGE THEM!!!
Let the 3 a.m. standoff begin. You’re F’ing with the wrong mommy, kiddo.
Reasons my kid wakes me up and what I say back, sometimes out loud and sometimes in my head
“I need water.” (Why, so you can pee in your bed?)
“My legs hurt.” (I hurt everywhere. Quit being a pussy.)
“The closet door is open a crack.” (Because the monster is watching you to make sure you go to sleep.)
“I want my door open.” (So you can hear The Walking Dead or me and Daddy doin’ the nasty? Umm, no.)
“I need more stuffed animals in my bed.” (You sleep in a claw machine.)
“I didn’t want this in my bed.” (Step 1: Throw it out. Step 2: Get brain checked for stupidity.)
“Look at this booger.” (Look at this middle finger.)
“My finger smells.” (Stop scratching your butt.)
“I forgot to brush my teeth.” (The sooner the tooth fairy will come.)
“The cat is in here.” (Lucky you, a real live stuffed animal!)
“I need to pee.” (Welcome to my world.)
“I need to poop.” (How is that possible? You didn’t even eat today.)
“My covers fell off.” (Then you’ll be cold until you put them back on, won’t you?)
“My belly hurts.” (Do you have to toot?)
“My belly still hurts.” (Do you have to poop?)
“I tooted.” (I’ll call the press.)
“I want my socks off.” (How on earth will we ever solve this problem?)
“I want my socks on.” (Sure, I can help you do that. Tomorrow morning.)
“I want my socks on my hands.” (Things nutjobs say for 400, Alex.)
“I had a nightmare.” (Amazing, since you weren’t even sleeping yet.)
“What’s that shadow?” (It’s a shadow.)
“I heard a sound.” (Did it sound like a toddler being a whiny bitch? ’Cause that’s what I hear.)
“I want to sleep with you.” (You sound like your father.)
“I want you to sleep with me.” (You’re gonna say that to a lot of girls throughout the years and they’re going to say no. Consider this practice.)
“I want my Thomas pajamas.” (I want my old boobs back.)
“Hi.” (Good-bye.)
“I love you.” (If you did, you wouldn’t be doing this.)
“I’m tired.” (FU.)
Seriously, kid? You need like three books, nine songs, four sips of water, and to be tucked in perfectly with your stuffed animals all around you before you’ll go to bed at night, but you can fall asleep sitting up at the table? WTF? I give up.
ME: Okay, kiddo, here are your choices. You can totally drop your nap now and never give me a break all day until I literally go insane and kill myself and then you won’t have a mommy for the rest of your life, OR you can keep napping until you’re in kindergarten and then you get to keep having a mommy. It’s up to you. Mommy or no Mommy?
How the F to Entertain
Your Rugrats When You Have
NOTHING TO DO
DO YOU KNOW WHO INVENTED TELEVISION? NO, neither do I. Which is probably a good thing, because if I knew I would tackle him and hug him to death when I run into him in heaven one day. Just kidding, I know they’re not letting me in those Pearly Gates and really Satan has a blender full of margaritas waiting for me. But I digress. Anyways, back to our discussion about the most important thing on earth: television. Here’s the thing. Even though I’m constantly wondering how much screen time is a good amount for my kiddos, zero hours has never been an option. Like when I’m flying with them on an airplane, I’m like holy shit, I can’t believe parents used to do this without iPads. Or when I’m playing a riveting game of Barbies with my daughter and I’m surfing on my phone at the same time, sometimes I stop and wonder whether parents literally died of boredom before there were smartphones. Screen time helps me be a better mom and not kill myself. So thank you for saving my life, screen time. Me love you long time.
Dear Sesame Street, I LOVVVVVVE you
Dear Sesame Street,
Hi! How are you? So I’ve been meaning to write you for a long time, but my to-do list is always like nine miles long, and I’m finally just getting a chance to sit down and do it. I just wanted to say thank you. Hmm, that doesn’t quite do it justice. What I mean is THANK YOUUUU!!!!!!!! You are single-handedly responsible for sooooo much awesome shit in my life. (Shit, did I just curse to Sesame Street? That can’t be right.)
Anyways, here goes. Thank you so much for letting me shower like a million times. Well, not a million, but at least once every three days for the past five years. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve plopped my kids in front of a good episode of Sesame Street so that I can stand under the hot water knowing they probably won’t barge in to ask me for something annoying or to point at my tush and laugh or to build a log cabin out of my tampons (wrapped UNused ones, in case you have the wrong image in your head). I thank you and so do all the people who sit within a ten-foot radius of me at Starbucks.
Also thank you so much for teaching my kids their numbers. Before I had kiddos, I always thought I’d be one of those moms who’d sit at the kitchen table (actually, I always pictured a giant granite island in a big fancy mansion, but that didn’t happen) with my rugrats and we’d do math and reading and flash cards together, but alas, I am not that mom. I mean once I bought this big kindergarten workbook at Costco, but the spine has yet to be cracked. But thanks to the Count and Feist’s counting song on Sesame Street, my kids weren’t total idiots when they started school.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of THS (Television Homeschooling), thank you for teaching my kiddos some awesome vocab words. Words like camouflage, absorb, and identical. If it weren’t for Word on the Street, all my kids would know are bad four-letter words that aren’t gonna do jack shit for them on the SATs. Although come to think of it, I actually did say the F word quite a bit when I was taking the SATs.
Oh yeah, here’s another thing I need to thank you for. Thank you SOOOO much for keeping me somewhat up to date on Hollywood. Because here’s the thing. When you’ve got little kiddos, you don’t see movies anymore, so you have no F’ing clue who the big celebs are. I mean, I open up People magazine these days and I’m like, “Don’t know her,” “Who the hell is that?” and “I can’t believe they don’t have a single picture of Shannen Doherty in this issue.” And then I turn on Sesame Street for my rugrats and I’m like, “Ohhhhh, that’s who Anna Kendrick is.” Someone was talking about her the other day and I was like, who? The next time I’ll actually be able to say something and not stand there looking like a mute codfish.
Oh, and Ses? Can I call you that? Thank you so much for NOT being a cartoon. There are wayyyy too many cartoons these days and I know it’s just my opinion but cartoons pretty much suck ass. Like here are some of the cartoons that are out there: Caillou, the Whiniest Douchenugget on earth; Bubble Guppies, whose name alone grates on my every nerve; and Dora the Explorer, who sounds like a broken record and who speaks with giant . . . . . . . . . annoying . . . . . . . . . pauses. I mean yeah, that little Abby Crap-dabby stuff is in there, but she’ll always play second fiddle to Elmo. La la la, this is my song, I love Elmooo.
Anyways, that’s it. You F’ing rock, Sesame Street. I’d kiss you but kissing a TV set is kinda weird and yeah, I’m a little wacky but I’m not a total wackjob.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo,
A mom who couldn’t do it without you
HOLDEN: I want more milk.
ME: What’s the magic word?
HOLDEN: Meeska mooska Mickey Mouse.
It’s up to you: die of boredom or die of Ebola
THIS IS ME IN AUGUST:
Okay, so Holden has soccer on Monday
s, school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, gymnastics on Fridays, and I think I’m just gonna leave Wednesdays open so we have some free time to do some nice stuff together. I mean it’s not like he’s gonna be little forever and I want to have some special mommy-son time.
AND THIS IS ME IN OCTOBER:
AGGGHHHHHH, what was I thinking?!!! He’s up and it’s only 6:15 a.m. and WTF are we going to do for FIVE hours until lunchtime?!!! Quick, someone give me a time machine so I can go back to August and kick my ass for being such a moron and thinking unscheduled time would be a nice thing. Because here are our choices for places we can spend our “special” time on Wednesdays and why all of them pretty much suck donkey balls.
Any Place with a Ball Pit
So once I saw this cool time-lapse video on how they clean a ball pit and they literally emptied out the pit and then picked up each ball and sprayed it with some organic cleaner fluid and wiped it down carefully and slowly refilled the pit one ball at a time. I guess it was supposed to make you feel like ball pits are totally clean as a whistle, but here’s what I took from it. Cleaning the ball pit is a HUGE pain in the ass so they pretty much only do it like once a year. And you just know like two minutes after they clean it, little Petey with the incontinence problem is gonna jump in there and take care of the cleanliness in one fell swoop. Or rather in one fell poop.
PETEY: Mommy, I went potty in the balls. (Hmm, that sounds kinda wrong.)
MOMMY: Quick, let’s get the hell out of here before anyone finds out.
And then my kid jumps in right after. “Mommy, my socks are wet!” Ewwwww.
One of Those Tree House Climby Places
Do you guys have one of these places where you live? It’s like this big giant tree house play area where the kids can run around and play while the parents basically sit on benches and watch them. In theory, it is AWESOME. But here’s what really happens.
SOME DOUCHEBAGGY NANNY: Ooooh, this is great because I can totally just yap on my cell phone for eight hours a day while that rugrat I’m supposed to watch runs around. I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this!!!
Yo Nanny McFartface, your crapmuffin just pushed my kid out of the way so he could climb UP the slide and karate chop some poor little toddler and now he’s shoving his hand so far up his nose, he’s giving himself brain surgery and then wiping his boogers on that sleeping baby over there. Get off your F’ing phone!!!! Of course, I don’t really say this to her because I’m not brave enough, so I just spend my time throwing eye daggers at her that she doesn’t ever notice.
Going for a Walk
Wahooooo, the weather is nice enough to take a walk. Let’s go to the park, kiddo!
KIDDO: Look at that dog. Look at that flower. Look at that fire hydrant. Look at that weed. Look at that crack. Look at that trash. I’m gonna pick up that trash.
ME: Nooo, don’t pick up the trash!
KIDDO: Now I’m gonna lick my gross hand. Look at that sign. Look at that blade of grass. Look at that lawn mower. Look at that dog. Are we at the park yet?
ME: Umm no, we are LITERALLY standing on the first cement square of our path and haven’t taken a step yet.
The Children’s Museum
I kinda think the entire purpose of the Children’s Museum is to see how many grimy little children can put their grubby little paws on exactly the same button or xylophone or fake banana before someone cleans it. Like seriously. What color is a banana? Yellow. What color is a banana at the Children’s Museum? Gray. So I have this little rule in my house. If we are going on a vacation in the next two weeks, we are not allowed to go to the Children’s Museum. Because within fourteen days of visiting the Children’s Museum, someone in our house has giant amounts of green snot pouring out of their nose or giant amounts of green throw-up pouring out of their mouth.
Let’s Just Stay at Home and Have Some Good Quality Playtime Together
Ennnnh, wrongo. Because you’re playing dollies or trucks or Spiderman fights Darth Vader or mermaid princess unicorns or some other boring-as-shit game and you look at your watch to see if it’s lunchtime yet and you’re like, holy crap, how is it possible that we’ve only been playing for four minutes?!! I swear my playroom is some weird kind of time warp zone where time ticks . . . by . . . more . . . slowly . . . than . . . anywhere . . . else . . . in . . . the . . . world.
Shopping at Target
Well, thank God there’s at least one place that knows my kid wakes up at the ass-crack of dawn so they open early. I LOVE YOU TARJAYYYY!!! But as much as I love Tarjay, here’s some of the shit that happens there.
ME: No, you cannot sit in the big part of the cart, you have to sit in the seat. No, you cannot stand on the back of the cart. Fine, whatever, ride under the cart. At least you’re not taking up precious cart space.
And then ten minutes later, he’s all, “I wanna ride in the seat!!” And I’m like WTF, I just put all my shit in there. Fiiiine, I’ll move it. And he sits down in the seat but after about ten minutes he’s freaking out because he wants to leave but I still haven’t picked up the one tiny thing I came for. “Just one more thing, buddy.” And before I know it, I’ve picked up twelve more things and he’s freaking out and drooling and screaming and we’ve only made it halfway through the store and we have to go check out before he spontaneously combusts.
CASHIER: Hello!! How are you today? Would you like to get a REDcard? It can save you 5%! And it benefits your child’s school! Did you find everything you need? How was your shopping experience? Oooh, have you tried this soup before? Is it tasty? Do you need any gift receipts today? What’s your son’s name? He’s a cutie.
Yes, Mr. Chippy, this is definitely a good time to chat since I’m just a wee bit occupied trying to peel my kid off the floor and pry open his clenched fingers that are wrapped around a lip balm he’s trying to steal from the impulse area. I appreciate that you are just trying to be nice, but just put the F’ing stuff in the F’ing bag so we can get the F out of here before someone dies.
And just for shits and giggles, here are a few more of my favorites
VISITING A FARM
Yes, let’s go pet animals that roll around in their own poop and then put our fingers in our mouths while our moms yell at us to “WAIT!!! I HAVE HAND SANITIZER!!!”
THE LIBRARY
Let’s go to a place where kids are supposed to be quiet (bwhahahahahaha). And how is it possible that every time I check the library calendar to see when story hour is, it was yesterday? I swear someone is spying on me and every time I think about going there, they change the day just to F with me.
BOUNCE HOUSE OR TRAMPOLINE PLACE
This is actually an AWESOME place to take your kids. As long as you have a lot of time to hang out at the ER afterward.
Annnnd the moral of this story is that annoying moms who over-schedule the crap out of their kids are actually F’ing brilliant and the only reason I make fun of them is because I’m jealous.
Yo Pinterest, check this shit out. Some kids play with iPads when they go to a restaurant, and some kids make Elsa’s cape out of panty liners. Bam!
ME: And on that farm he had a . . .
ZOEY: Squid.
ME: Pick an animal that makes a sound, Zoey. And on that farm he had a . . .
ZOEY: Octopus.
ME: One that makes a noise.
ZOEY: Turtle.
ME: Nope.
ZOEY: Deer.
ME: Can’t you think of one farm animal that makes a noise?
ZOEY: A bunny.
ME: That doesn’t make a noise.
ZOEY: Yes it does. Hop hop.
This kid is either lacking in the brain department or she’s so crazy smart, she knows exactly what to say to annoy the shit out of me.
Peeew peeew peeewww and other sounds that make me want to chop my ears off
DO YOU EVER GO SOMEWHERE, like to a recital or on an airplane, and think, holy crap, how the hell did parents handle times like this before portable electronic devices? Like
when I think about those dudes crossing the country in covered wagons moving west with their rugrats, I’m like, how the hell did you not kill yourself? The game I Spy wasn’t even invented yet. And even if it was, how many times can you spy a tree or a mountain or a dirt road? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Times like ten million. I mean being scalped by Native Americans sucks ass, but you haven’t been tortured until you try to get over the Rocky Mountains in a covered wagon full of toddlers.
So am I in favor of letting kids use electronic devices? Hells yeah.
I mean sure, I’m all for talking to each other and reading real books and shit, but when you have a four-hour plane ride with two douchenuggets who didn’t come with volume buttons and you’re surrounded by overworked flight attendants and hostile businessmen, this is not the time to bond with your rugrats. You’re lucky if you don’t tear each other apart limb by limb. You are not in Little House on the Prairie, and electronic devices are going to get you through this alive.