Always and forever, I am blown away by the seemingly trivial things my kids remember about their lives. The stuff that apparently pools and coagulates in the corners of their minds, having made some sort of lasting impression upon them for whatever reason—good or bad.
“…like the time I was sick and stayed home from school and you hurt your knee chasing Jack (aka: the dang dog) around and around the living room. Remember, Mom?! He had CAT POOP in his mouth and he wouldn’t let you take it! We laughed and laughed so hard!”
“…like the time I ran really fast down our front hill, tripped over the curb and got pebbles stuck in my hand. Remember, Mom?!” (Read: the time I wanted to hurl because of the sickening thud your body made when it hit the pavement, never mind the torrent of queasiness that washed over me when I realized those were ROCKS embedded in your hand!)
“…and how ‘bout the time Daddy tried to drown me in the shower at the Adirondacks?” (i.e. a date which will live in infamy during which he slathered said child’s filthy face with soap, mistakenly assuming she’d have enough SENSE to rinse it off, as opposed to inhaling voluminous quantities of water).
What’s more, I am completely fogged by the way my charges can recite verbatim the vat of horribleness I’ve delivered on more than one occasion (most of which have involved orange juice spillages and missed school buses). More specifically, the shameful string of words that pour unremittingly from my stupid mouth despite KNOWING how infinitely wrong and hurtful they are (i.e. the parenting tirades from hell during which the wheels fly off and Mommie Dearest rears her ugly head).
Likewise, I am baffled by the intimacy my brood shares with their beloved rocks—oh, my hell, the rocks! The ones that adorn their dressers and windowsills. The ones that spill from my Jeep’s nooks and crannies. The ones now housed in my garage (forever and ever, amen). The ones for which a special affinity has grown to a frightening degree. That said, my heathens know from whence each stone came and, perhaps, more disturbingly, why each particular nugget of earthy wonderfulness was harvested and hauled home in the first place, “…because my friend gave it to me and said I should keep it forever,” “…because it spoke to me and I just had to add it to my collection. Each rock is a memory, you know. Why do you always want to take my memories away, Mommy?”
As if that blurbage wasn’t enough to ensure that I will, in fact, die a slow, horrible guilt-induced death, I recently learned of another cardinal sin for which I will pay dearly.
Child: “I ate a napkin once, Mommy.”
Me: “You ate a what?! A NAPKIN?!”
Child: “Yep. A napkin. I sort of nibbled and nibbled it till it was gone.” (Touches fingertips to lips, pretending to gently gnaw imaginary napkin so that I might better understand).
Me: “You ATE AN ENTIRE NAPKIN?! When, where and why on earth would you do such a crazy thing?! People don’t eat napkins (for Crissakes)!” (Hands on hips, appalled by the notion).
Child: “Well I did. Back in kindergarten. At snack time. Besides, my friend ate a tag right off her shirt one time ‘cause it was bothering her. I saw her do it. People DO eat paper-ish stuff sometimes, Mom.”
Me: DEAD SILENCE coupled with a look that likely suggested I had gone off the deep end (shock does this to people I’m told).
Child: CONTINUES WATCHING SPONGE BOB, entirely engrossed in said ocean-inspired idiocy, unaffected by my horrified expression.
Me: “But WHY?! What possessed you to do such a thing?!” (Thinking, of course, this HAD to have been the result of some kind of twisted dare that five-year-olds routinely engage in).
Child: “I was hungry,” she said plainly.
Me: “You were hungry?!” (Clutches heart, gasps).
Child: “Yep. You didn’t pack enough Goldfish in my snack and I was still hungry; so I ate my napkin,” she stated simply, as if telling me I had forgotten to fill her squirt gun, so she commissioned some other schmuck to do it.
At this, of course, I cringed—deeply ashamed of the atrocity I had unknowingly committed, wanting ever so desperately to crawl beneath a rock and die…a slow, horrible guilt-induced sort of death. One entirely befitting of Mommie Dearest (i.e. she-who-would-deny-her-child-adequate-Goldfishy-sustenance).
Planet Mom: It’s where I live (with an abundance of tasty napkins and an unbearable burden of guilt). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.
Copyright 2009 Melinda L. Wentzel
Against all logic and understanding, I tolerated the most hideous-looking carpet known to man for what seemed like an eternity. It stretched an expanse measuring more than 600 square feet from living room to dining room—a wall-to-wall nightmare that everyone knew was pink. Not salmon. Coupled with the abundance of brass and ugly-as-sin wallpaper we found throughout the house on move-in day 1997, it was as if the eighties had lifted the roof and vomited every bit of horrible décor that had ever been imagined.
My husband has never heard of Marie Kondo. Nor does he subscribe to her renowned KonMari Method of keeping only the possessions in one’s life that “spark joy.” It’s a wonder I convinced him to park a ginormous dumpster in our driveway for the better part of a month, hoping against hope that we’d somehow find the will to purge our home of the crap we’ve accumulated as a family for over 22 years.
As love affairs with cell phones go, the one I am about to describe is epic. Not that I’m the only person ever to become enamored with his or her smartphone—because I’m not. Plenty of idiots like me cling to their dear Droids and BlackBerries, inextricably fused to the deliciousness of those handheld wonders and to the epitome of shameless egocentrism. It’s just that I have trouble wrapping my head around the hideous nature of my fixation.
There are great multitudes of things my husband refuses to do based on what I assume are a warped set of principles. To name a few: He won’t put up a Christmas tree on or before Thanksgiving, he won’t arrange the bills in his wallet in any semblance of order and he won’t pull up to a drive-thru window to save himself. I can identify somewhat with the first refusal, since it doesn’t make much sense to celebrate more than one holiday at a time. Although, judging by the profusion of Yuletide merchandise jammed on store shelves shortly after Labor Day, it would seem as though a good portion of society thinks that’s perfectly fine. Not me, however. I just can’t bring myself to haul a wreath or anything Christmas-y out of the attic before I’ve even boxed up the Halloween bats.
Planet Mom 