Tag Archives: humor

August 9, 2011 · 10:38 pm

Sometimes the Sidelines Are Best

Two years ago my kids swam like stones. Stones both dense and unwieldy in nature. Stones destined for the bottoms of lakes and ponds and pools. And yet, there was an uncanny barnacle-ness about them as well (i.e. they desperately clung to whatever floatation device or seemingly tallish torso that happened to be handy—namely my husband’s or mine). Said buoyancy-challenged individuals were largely comfortable in swimming pools, so long as we stayed in the shallow end and refrained from making any sort of unreasonable requests—like suggesting they loosen their death grip around our necks. Heaven forbid I tuck my hand beneath their bellies and let them kick and flop around in the water like everyone else on the planet with a penchant for becoming guppified.

That said, I’m not entirely sure my kids even wanted to learn to swim—like guppies or anything else equipped with fins and gills. Life was perfectly perfect coiled inextricably around someone’s head, neck and shoulders, their smallish bodies submerged just enough to enjoy a taste of refreshing coolness, while a goodly portion remained above the water’s surface, safe and sound from the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad abyss that surely sought to harm them.

For a time (read: an obscenely large chunk of their lives), we allowed such an idiotic practice to continue, doing our level best to enable our children and to accept the Island of Dependency we had inadvertently become. Of course, we fully expected a miracle to befall us. A miracle that would effectively save us from ourselves. Out of the blue, our charges would suddenly abandon their fears and start swimming like fish or, more correctly, like porpoises, plunging headlong into the murky depths in search of silvery prizes and whatever else they felt inclined to fetch from the deck of the Titanic. Through osmosis, our aquatic wonders would absorb every speck of knowledge and skill I had acquired as a lifeguard, and then some. They’d even be strangely adept at twirling whistles around their fingers and hauling greased watermelons across vast stretches of open water—talents that smack of impressiveness but have yet to be deemed useful.

But it was not to be. Eventually my husband and I faced the cold, hard truth. Hopes and dreams didn’t make good swimmers. Lessons did. Lessons involving a lot of hard work, a boatload of skilled instructors from whom praise flowed endlessly and a vat of courage—mostly of the parental variety. That said, it takes superhuman strength and nerves of steel to sit back idly and watch one’s beloved progeny flap and flounder as he or she goes about the important business of learning how to swim. It’s true: Kids panic. Kids swallow a disturbing amount of water. Kids stare at you from the deep end with horrified expressions of “How COULD you?!” and “Are you really my mother?!”

Not surprisingly, parents twist and turn uncomfortably in their seats, wearing nervous smiles and attempting to chat casually. Yet deep inside—awash with guilt and filled with doubt—they harbor pure and unadulterated torment. Or maybe that was just me, squirming in my lawn chair in a futile attempt to silence the voices in my head that relentlessly screamed, “Your child is DROWNING for Crissakes! And all you can do is swat flies and admire your tanned toes?! What kind of parent are you anyway?! You font of wickedness!” More than anything I felt helpless—almost beside myself with the idea of being on the sidelines.

And yet, that was where I needed to be. The place where I was, in fact, most effective. I needed to have faith in the process. Faith in the instructors. Faith in my children’s ability to succeed—in spite of the dearth of achievement I had witnessed thus far. And succeed they did. They’ve ditched the semblance of stones and barnacles for good and have since transformed into more guppy-ish creatures, completely thrilled with their newfound ability to swim, “…even in the deep end, Mom!”

Aside from seeing actual results in the pool, I know this much is true because we’ve progressed from comments like, “I hope you know this is PURE TORTURE, Mom!” to “Can’t you just LEAVE ME HERE so I could swim ALL DAY, EVERYDAY?!”

Yep. Sometimes the sidelines are best.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (mostly on the sidelines). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under "G" is for Guilt, Endless Summer

Tagged as children, humor, kids, parenting, swim lessons, swimming

August 1, 2011 · 5:00 am

The Rogue Backpack

It was an interminable shopping excursion—a brutally exhausting back-to-school event that involved far too many fitting rooms with the suggestion of ventilation and, as one might expect, legions upon legions of petulant children, ones who were clearly more interested in setting off a medley of motion detectors and in being swallowed up by great forests of clothing racks than in trying on the armloads of garmentage that spoke to their parents unremittingly. Oddly enough, my dear progeny, a soon-to-be fifth grader completely thrilled with the prospect of buying that-which-is-tight-and-trendy, was uncharacteristically well-mannered throughout the entire ordeal. Go figure.

Naturally, I invited said fact to the forefront of my mind throughout the day so that I might be inspired to forge ahead despite the laborious nature of the task at hand. Translation: I needed something to psyche myself up in order to gather yet another armload of gotta-have-it-or-I’ll-surely-die Hello Kitty apparel, which I would then haul to the dressing room ad nauseam.

But I would do well to remember that there were lots of things that made the experience wholly tolerable—aside from the fact that my child actually wanted to be there. Firstly, my Mom not only orchestrated every minute detail of the aforementioned marathon event (to include clipping coupons, perusing last-minute newspaper advertisements and considering the alignment of the planets so that obscene savings would, indeed, be assured), she also convinced me to take just one daughter at a time—which was a slightly brilliant move. Okay, it was pure genius.

Admittedly, I can’t even take credit for the method employed by my brood to determine who earned the privilege of shopping first. True to form, Thing One and Thing Two settled the matter in a classic rock-paper-scissors fashion, the latter having emerged victorious. I merely served as a witness and as the official hander-outer of the consolation prize—the promise of an equally interminable joyous shopping excursion to the Land of Skinny Jeans and Profoundly Sarcastic T-Shirts, followed shortly thereafter by an epic quest for Converse All-Stars. Pepto Bismol-pink, of course.

The day was memorable if nothing else. Strangely enough, it became even more memorable, punctuated by the discovery of that which rendered me unable to move or speak, except for the tiny gasp that I’m fairly certain I emitted as I stood there, perfectly transfixed by what I saw. Truth be told, my daughter initially made the horrifying discovery and felt compelled to share it with me.

“Mom! Look at THIS!” she shrieked as if a mannequin had been juggling live kittens in the shoe department—which would have been a disturbing yet fascinating sight to behold. “You have to see this! There’s a backpack here for ONE HUNDRED TWENTY BUCKS!” Of course, I made her repeat the aforementioned string of heinousness as if she had uttered an obscenity and I needed to be sure it was, in reality, as impossibly foul as I had understood it to be. And it was.

To be clear, the rogue book bag in question was on sale, but that was beside the point. I couldn’t get past the egregious nature of its original ticketed price. The beauty of shock value had, indeed, been demonstrated as I gawked at the tag in stunned silence. Given to curiosity, I then studied it up close, tugging at its kryptonite-inspired zippers, spinning its endearing little wheels and peering within a multitude of hidden pouches and expandable compartments—frantically searching for that which justified its hideous expense.

Needless to say, I didn’t find it; but I fully expected to unearth a clone of the most remarkable teacher on the planet—one who lived inside that smallish space 24/7, crawling out on command. A pint-sized instructor capable of conveying a deep understanding of the Pythagorean theorem to my dog (never mind less-than-cooperative children). An educator extraordinaire, brimming with enough enthusiasm and patience for six people (and a collapsible Smart Board with tons of pretty markers, too).

Color me delusional, yet again (but not stupid enough to pay $120 for a damn backpack).

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (thoroughly consumed by back-to-school madness). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under School Schmool, The Natives are Decidedly Restless

Tagged as back to school, children, humor, kids, parenting, shopping

July 12, 2011 · 5:00 am

It’s a Jeep Thing

The stuff over which my husband and I argue has reached an unprecedented level of absurdity in recent weeks. It used to be that such idiocy revolved primarily around domestic issues—like the cubic circumference of the vegetable chunks in our meatloaf, how one restores order (or doesn’t) to the Sunday newspaper and whether or not bed linens ought to be tucked beneath one’s mattress. Never mind becoming embroiled over small potatoes at home; evidently, we can’t even find accord within the confines of our cussed cars. More specifically, the contentious matter of windows up vs. windows down reared its ugly head for the first time in a long while—which is sort of surprising given that we own several vehicles equipped with windows and that we’ve been inclined to ride in the aforementioned vehicles together.

That said, I prefer having the stupid windows down when it’s roughly 8,000 degrees outside—the torrid wind whipping my hair and the sun baking my skin to a fine bronze hue, warming me to the pithy core of my soul. My counterpart, on the other hand, prefers to be encapsulated within a climate controlled sanctuary (read: a tundra-like holding-cell-on-wheels) for those who, apparently, are averse to fresh air and the freedom it embodies. Needless to say, this robs me of a brief, yet delicious, pleasure—because, of course, we can’t have it both ways. I can only imagine the sort of arguments we’d have if either of our Jeeps had roofs that could be removed altogether. Oy.

All things considered, it’s likely that I’m related to my dog who, given the opportunity (and opposable thumbs), would strap himself to the hood so that he might enjoy an even BREEZIER ride. It’s also entirely likely that I was the sort of kid who would foolishly shove her head outside a school bus window come June, delirious with joy over the prospect of summer. It’s also quite possible that I like roller coasters. And scooters. And those tomb-like boxes at the mall that produce hurricane force winds. But I digress.Of course, I can’t be sure from whence my affinity for traveling alfresco came, although I’d surmise that it has something to do with my childhood and the delectable summertime hours spent riding in the back of pickup trucks and boats, as well as atop my grandfather’s tractor across his 87-acre farm. And although I understand the reasoning behind the legislature that put an end to the era of transporting children in this manner (namely by means of pickup trucks), it saddens me to think of the generations upon generations who won’t get a chance to harvest fond memories like mine. Not to mention, it may breed colonies who, like my dear husband, worship and glorify air conditioning in cars. Ugh.

Much to my chagrin, it appears that my brood already identifies to some extent with the windows up mentality described above in horrific detail. That said, Thing One is fairly convinced that Frank, her beloved armadillo, will somehow sail out the window when we reach the expressway, while Thing Two has made it known to one and all that she completely loathes how the wind “wrecks” her hair and makes her cold. Good grief.

Making converts out of them now will be a supreme challenge and I may have to resort to a fiendish plan wherein I inform our children that their father once owned a Jeep CJ-7 Renegade AND LOVED IT, or better still—one involving the arrangement of a joy ride in a certain friend’s soft-top Jeep Wrangler. Not to worry, all interested parties will have ponytails if need be, sunscreen most definitely and the assurance that no disaster will befall their dear Frank, who will be buckled safely in the seat between them.

If the plan does, indeed, come to fruition, Mister I-Prefer-Air-Conditioning-and-Being-Comfortably-Numb will either have to overcome his disdain for touring in the open-air, or perhaps forego what promises to be an unspeakably enjoyable event—a Jeep Thing, as it were.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (tooling along on the road of life with my windows down and sunroof agape). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under Road Trip, We Put the Fun in Dysfunction

Tagged as humor, marriage, relationships, road trips, summer

July 9, 2011 · 2:44 pm

Mommie Dearest

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 damn dog) around and around the living room. Remember, Mom!? He had a piece of 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. They stayed in there for FIVE WHOLE DAYS! 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 FRICKING HAND!)

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, bath tub deluges 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).

I’m also floored by my kids’ uncanny ability to remember virtually everything about the legions of stuffed animals they possess. The cushiness of this one, the plumpness of that one. How completely cuddlesome and decidedly irreplaceable the lot of them are (despite any number of deformities that may exist–to include missing eyes, gaping “wounds” and mysterious aromas).

Good God.

Further, they can readily recall specific times and circumstances under which said gotta-have-it-or-I’ll-die items were originally acquired. “Yeah, Mom. I got Mister Big Head Dog at the Dollar Store as a prize when I was seven. Doncha’ remember taking me there and I took like 15 minutes (translation: fucking forever) to decide?”

“And I won this fuzzy-eared rabbit (read: dilapidated piece of schlock) at the Fair one time when I threw some darts at balloons. Except I wasn’t very good at it, so I didn’t pop any. But the nice man (likely, the one sporting a mullet and the suggestion of teeth) gave me a bunny anyway.”

Me: (Fair? What Fair? Did I actually take you someplace where cows and pigs WERE the main attraction?!)

“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 and/or soap suds).

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 then know what a “nibble” looks like)

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 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.

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Filed under "G" is for Guilt, "S" is for Shame, Mushy Stuff

Tagged as children, guilt, humor, kids, Mommie Dearest, parenting

July 4, 2011 · 5:00 am

A Family Affair

I’m quite sure I’ve attended plenty of social gatherings that have fueled MORE anxiety within me than the five-generation brand of reunion my husband’s family hosts each June, only I can think of none at the moment. In a word, said get-together is a behemoth-sized affair during which minutes are read, motions are made, budgetary concerns are discussed and officers are elected. Yes, elected—ostensibly, over three-bean salad and barbecued chicken. It sounds absurd. I know; especially if you hail from a small clan like mine—one that would be hard-pressed to polish off the deviled eggs and blueberry pie. Never mind come to a consensus on anything.

However my husband’s crew (to include his seven aunts and uncles and more first, second, third and fourth cousins than I can readily wrap my mind around) is a different story altogether—one that features in excess of 30 picnic tables, a monstrosity of a salad bar lined with buckets and buckets of ice and a table that houses sinful quantities of steamed foods. And let us not forget the grill that is roughly the size of a well-nourished water buffalo and the hydraulic lift called upon to hoist the beast at will. That said, his family views the whole let’s-get-together-and-have-a-picnic seriously.

As one might expect, fliers are mailed out months in advance of the occasion, urging everyone’s participation and a supply of pertinent updates so that the database (yes, the database) can accurately reflect any changes that may have taken place in a year’s time. Needless to say, the aforementioned lineage can, indeed, be graphically represented with a roots-trunk-and-branches sort of family tree—as long as it’s a sequoia.

Confession: I dread my husband’s family reunions because, of course, I am a social misfit who has great difficulty interacting with throngs of people—people I cannot remember to save myself. Nor can I recall who is related to whom, from whence they came and of what they speak. Translation: I struggle to interpret much of the convoluted speech patterns thick Pennsylvania Dutch that pervades the airspace beneath our larger-than-life-sized pavilion. Granted, the event described above smacks of a small convention in a large tree-lined field, one that is perhaps capable of unnerving many a dutiful wife with kids in tow—especially one who is fairly preoccupied with the notion of keeping her brood out of poison ivy patches and away from the cussed cornfield that is likely teeming with ticks. But I digress.

That said, I’ve learned to embrace the experience by dividing it into three basic stages, each of which lasts for an undetermined, yet finite, period of time. Initially, I clamber out of our Jeep-turned-oasis and make my way to the celebrated pavilion, mindful of the wretched plants and blood-sucking vermin that collectively seek to ruin my day. I then receive a warm welcome from swarms of people who converge upon me like a small, yet suffocating, army. I can only guess that this is what a panic-stricken amnesiac must feel like, surrounded by a sea of friendly faces, not one of which is readily recognizable. Lord only knows why they tolerate a lout like me.

My husband, being the gregarious creature that he is, immediately begins to mix and mingle with one and all, taking great pains to re-introduce me to everyone I ought to know but have sadly forgotten. I, of course, smile and nod, resisting the overwhelming desire to whip out a big, fat marker and scrawl everyone’s name on his or her brow. Heaven help me if there’s a quiz.

After the swell recedes I relax a bit, reveling in the knowledge that EXACTLY NO ONE within my husband’s entire family mistook me for the first wife. For that alone, I love them dearly. True to my less-than-gregarious/socially-inept self, I then attempt to fade into the woodwork by finding a table, filling my kids’ plates and hoping like crazy they didn’t stuff themselves silly with snacks en route to this feast to end all feasts. My charges and I then toss a Frisbee around in the field that encircles the picnic area, because it would be decidedly gauche to graze ALL damn day.

Once we’ve become thoroughly exhausted (and rightly retreat to the lemonade-infused refuge of the pavilion), that is the point at which I usually stumble across someone I actually know. Not surprisingly, I barnacle-ize myself to said buoy-like individual, refusing to let him or her leave my side until we’ve talked about practically everything from the Boston Red Sox to the brownies that were slightly addictive. Eventually, though, the crowd begins to disperse, wending their way through the grassy field—dishes and Frisbees in hand, smiles and hugs all around.

I can only hope I continue to be a part of such a wonderful (albeit, freakishly large) family—one that really knows how to host a reunion, 80 years and counting.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (hoping to guess the weight of next year’s watermelon). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.