Mother’s Day Recap

I wish every day could be Mother’s Day so my kids would behave and give me cute drawings that tell me they love me all day long. They were literally bursting at the seams to FINALLY be able to give me their “All About Mom” books they’d made for me in school. The first page was a portrait of me that, while sweet, left me a little disappointed at just how unattractive I apparently look to them. Check out my ORANGE bedhead hair and freakishly short legs in my daughter’s drawing. Supposedly, I’m the chick in the purple “tank top”:

And then there’s my son’s drawing of me in which he proclaimed that I have blond hair (it’s actually brown) and blue eyes (also brown). It seems I also have snowman arms and a REALLY long torso. He was thorough enough to include a height chart to show that I’m “about five feet tall“:

I also received love “coupons,” good for things like “a hug” and “a kiss,” and I even accidentally got another kid’s coupon from my daughter’s class that’s good for a “window cleaning,” which I’m totally planning on cashing in. I mean, I’m sure her mom won’t mind, right? My favorite thing I learned yesterday by far was that my son said his mom loves him because “she gives me a quarter if I eat my whole sandwich“. Yep, I wrote the book on parenting, alright.

Helpless

     I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — cancer is a son of a bitch. Far too many people are affected by this monster of a beast.  The number of victims that fall prey to this asshole of a disease seems to grow larger by the day.  If I had a magic sword, I’d drive it right through the center of its soul-less heart and kill it once and for all. 

     I’ve had to sit idly by and watch from a ridiculously far distance while my dad endures day after day of agony trying to fight his cancer.  My heart breaks into a thousand tiny pieces each time I hear my mom describe yet another new horrible side effect from all the radiation treatments he’s forced to undergo five grueling days a week. The process for beating this thing is nothing short of inhumane. They do everything but throw you into a pack of starving wolves to rid your body of the cancer cells.  It’s a wonder anybody can even survive the damn treatments, let alone the cancer.

     And I cannot even begin to put into words how guilty I feel for not being there to help my mom as she tries to hold everything all together. She puts up a strong front, but I can’t help but think she’s close to cracking.  She’s running on absolutely no sleep, which is physically exhausting, and she’s worried sick about my dad every second of the day, which is mentally exhausting.  I can’t imagine how excruciating it would be to watch your spouse have his ass kicked all over the place day in and day out, knowing that there’s nothing you can do about it.  

     I’m flying down there today for the weekend, and even though I know there’s not a whole lot I can actually do, I can at the very least give them a hug.  And even though I doubt that I can hug the stress out of my mom’s worried body, and I’m not likely to hug the cancer out of my dad’s worn out body, I CAN finally put my arms around them and tell them that I love them.  I know it’s not much, but it’s all that I’ve got.

Hot For Teacher

     

     I’m not sure how many of you know this, but pre-kids, I used to be a teacher.  More specifically, I used to be a junior high teacher. So, if you think back for a couple of minutes to how much of a little punk ass you probably were at that age, you can probably understand how I got REALLY burnt out on this career REALLY fast.  Nevertheless, though, I held my own for a solid six years with those hormonal little bastards, and truth be told, I actually have a lot of fond memories from my time with them.  Sure, it’s a super tough age to teach, but it’s also a very important stage to try to make a connection and hopefully steer them on the right path towards something good.  I was WAY younger than a lot of the other teachers at the school, and I think that the kids really felt like they could relate to me a little more. Sometimes, however, I think they felt a little too comfortable and close to me.    

     Most eighth grade boys are all about seeing how big of an idiot they can make of themselves in order to draw any little bit of attention that they possibly can.  They all think they’re the next freaking Jim Carrey and try their very damnedest to put on a one-man show, never mind if it just so happens to be right in the middle of a lesson on prepositions. And let me just tell you, this type of behavior just completely fueled my fire. I may be petite, but I was known as being a hard ass and not putting up with a whole lot of shit in my classroom.

     Throughout my teaching years, I certainly had my fair share of show-boaters who tried to pull their crap while under my wing.  I recall this one boy, in particular, who drove the absolute bat crazies out of me.  This kid was interested in anything and everything that didn’t relate in any way, shape or form to a single thing that was EVER going on in my class.  I swear you would’ve thought there were talent scouts for Funny Bones sitting in the back of my classroom with the way this kid would perform on a daily basis.  I slapped this kid with about a zillion detentions, but none of them seemed to ever deter him from coming back and pulling the same old stunts day after day.

     I was so excited by the time eighth grade graduation rolled around so that I could finally be rid of this little troublemaker.  I had absolutely no doubt that he would have considered me his very least favorite part of the whole eighth grade experience.  So, you can see then why I about fell over in shock when this very same unruly kid approached me in peace at the big eighth grade dance.  My husband and I had agreed to be chaperones and were standing around chatting when young junior came up and asked me to dance.  I practically choked on my punch and just stood there completely stunned at the very thought of it.  After a couple of seconds of very awkward silence, my husband leaned over and whispered that I HAD to dance with this poor kid if he had the guts to ask me in front of ALL his friends who were standing there gawking.  Trust me, the last thing on earth I wanted to do was to dance with this little thug, but I swallowed my pride and let him guide me out onto the gym floor.  It was by far the most uncomfortable slow dance I’ve ever had in my entire life, but my husband later tried to explain to me that it was probably the highlight of this kid’s whole year.  He said that boys at that age have no idea how to show their feelings for girls, and they often end up being complete a-holes to them instead.  So, I suppose then, that under this theory, I was the object of this moron’s affection or something.

     Actually, if you think about it, the whole eighth grade boy mentality is not really all that different from most grown men.  Don’t they typically all have trouble expressing their feelings and act like complete jackasses when they see something that they want?  And the hormones?  The hormones NEVER EVER stop raging!  Ok, so, maybe the old boners don’t happen all twenty-four hours of the day, but I’d bet my left eyeball that they’re saluting at least a good fifteen to twenty hours a day.  So, it’s no wonder then that my husband practically pushed me into the arms of this little classroom terror.  I think he was secretly fulfilling some “hot for teacher” fantasy that he never quite fulfilled as a fourteen year old boy.  Whatever, though — no harm, no foul.  As long as I didn’t have to take anything to the drycleaners over someone else’s “overly excited reaction”, it’s all good, right?

The Bumpit, The Snuggies & A Crazy Little Thing Called Love

The following story is a collaboration betweenhttp://www.whyisdaddycrying.com and me.  He is a hilarious writer, proud papa, and fellow Chicagoan that I’ve come to know through Twitter.  He makes me laugh multiple times every single day by the insanely witty things that pop out of his imagination.  His blog is all about fatherhood and all the other funny things that life throws his way.  We were encouraged by some other fellow Twitter friends to join forces and write a story together, so we put our whacked-out brains together and came up with the following crazy tale. The blue lines are written by him, and the pink ones are written by me.  Buckle your seat belts cause you’re in for one wild ride! 

 

THE BUMPIT, THE SNUGGIES & A CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE

Every time I smell the scent of butter frying in a pan, I can’t help but think of the scent of her neck, the way hair grew on only the knuckles of her feet, and how she could beat me in thumb-wrestling with her pinky.

 I always found solitude in the unibrow that framed her over-sized googly eyes, and her summer-toothed smile (some were here, some were there) that just melted my heart into a thousand tiny pieces.

Those were the thoughts twirling in my head as I finished shaving the hair off the back of my last customer of the day where I work at Max’s Back & Bikini Wax.

As I swept up the last of Big Bertha’s pubes and Captain Carl’s back fuzz, I knew that I needed to get in touch with the woman who showed me what love was all about. 

Slowly I slid my pants back on, being careful not to catch them on the 12-inch knife cut she gave me just a month ago….the last time I saw her. 

 She had been raging mad because I’d accidentally thrown away her most prized possession, her Bumpit.

 I mean, how the hell was I supposed to know it was her girl toupee when it looked like Uncle Ned had come by our trailer again and left behind one of his fetish dolls?

That fight was the last I saw of her, and word on the street was that she was dancing for dollars at the Pink Puttycat Parlor down in the back woods of Alabama.

But “word on the street” wasn’t gonna stop me from giving it one last shot – so I called her number, 1-900-HOTT-ASS.

When she answered the phone, I could tell she was reading a script as she robotically told me just what she’d do to me and a vat of Velveeta cheese, and I got so excited at hearing that burly voice once again that I nearly pissed myself.

I quickly took a deep breath, checked to make sure I hadn’t made a wet spot on myself, and said, “Hey sugar-britches it’s your little waddly boodly boo.”

After about three minutes of dead silence, she laid into me for all the things I’d done to drive her away, like calling her brother a man-whore, using her wart cream as toothpaste, taking all the Beeno without asking, and throwing away her precious Bumpit.

Those words pushed me to my breaking point, so I angrily reminded her of the time she made me wear her Bumpit backwards while we had sex so she could comb it, and how she made me “wear” a tampon all day so I could “empathize,” and how my father had to get a restraining order against her so she’d stop breaking in his house to smell his dirty underwear.

I knew I’d gone too far when all I heard was silence on the other end, but then she blurted out my worst nightmare—she’d married that son-of-a-bitch neighbor of theirs who sold imitation Snuggies out of his trailer.

Slamming the phone down I knew I was finally going to have to pay a little visit to my safety-deposit box to retrieve and begin swift implementation of my diabolical master plan to rid trailer Snuggie sellers from the county once…….and for all!!

Gathering up my lighter fluid and matches from my highly protected treasure box, I headed on over to the White T Timbers Trailer Park to pay a visit to old Mike Hunt and his Snuggie wannabe piles of shit.

Hopping off my fire-engine red Schwinn bicycle with flesh colored truck nutz hanging off the back, I reached in my backpack for my matches and lighter fluid while hawking a loogie on the ground so that anyone watching knew that I meant business!!

With my purple pleather shit kickers, I knocked down Mike’s shower curtain front door, grabbed as many fake Snuggies as I could from his king-sized brass waterbed and lit the biggest damn bonfire that trailer park had ever seen.

Then I tossed the remainder of the Snuggies on the front basket of my Schwinn, looked around to see if anyone was watching, checked my kick-ass pleathers I nicknamed “my shit kickers,” lifted a leg to let off some “steam,” and peddled off towards Tammie’s house where I knew I could finish the deed. 

Tammie was waiting for me on a lawn chair in her front yard, and after punching me smack dab in the teeth, she grabbed me by the neck and pressed her big red lips, crusty cold sore and all, right up to mine.

“That better be a shit-ton of snuggies in your pansy-ass bike basket idiot boy or else I’m gonna make you clean Rufus’ anal glands again while me and the neighbor twins drink beer and watch ya,” she said in her super seductive smoker’s voice while stopping every 5th word to hack up a lung.

In between grabbing and groping each other’s cottage cheese asses, we managed to gather up the shit-ton of burned Snuggie bits and erect a commemorative statue of them in the side yard of Tammie’s trailer, attracting thousands of supporters of the anti-Snuggie movement to come and pay their respects.

We were partying, drinking 40s, shooting guns in the air, stripping, taking turns with the neighbor’s goat, and that’s when I noticed the most horrifying, disgustingly sexiest, f@*k-o-licious part of Tammie I’d never seen before…..she had a third nipple!

The fact that Tammie had one overgrown testicle just like me, combined with this latest revelation of a third nipple just like mine confirmed to me that stealing her from that one-legged pimp all those years ago down by the river was the smartest decision I ever made.

To this day I still don’t understand why that fur-wearing bastard only had one gold leg made instead of two, but I’m chalking it up to the thought that maybe he’s just a big fan of hopping?

At any rate, I finally had my honey schnuckimcakes back, and I figured that if I could swipe her from a no good son-of-a-bitch gimp bastard, then surely I could snitch her from Mike Hunt and his lair of fake blanket robes.

And I had just the thing, buried deep in the crotch of my pants, that was guaranteed to seal the deal and bring her to her knees begging for me to be hers for the rest of our unnaturally born, inbred lives.

I lifted my one oversized very sweaty ball and pulled out a brand new Bumpit to replace the one I’d thrown away, complete with the biggest rock of a Ring Pop I could find at the arcade.

With a Marlboro Red cigarette hanging from her lower lip and eyes popping out of her weathered face she stood there dumbfounded and expressionless before suddenly reaching deep down into the crotch of her pants.

She, too, pulled out a Bumpit and even a comb and told me that I could do the styling during sex next time.
 

This was the moment I’d waited for my entire life and was the reason I’d worn tear-off pants and a condom every day since I was 13.

So I ripped off my pants to expose my leopard print thong that was emblazoned with the words, “For f@*k’s sakes, will you marry me or what?”

A smile crept across Tammie’s face as she ripped off her shirt to reveal a custom-made bra with three cups for her boobs and extra nipple with “You Damn Skippy” also emblazoned across it.

As we embraced in a sloppy, tonsil-hockey kiss, the whole trailer park came out to cheer us on, even Mike Hunt & the golden-legged pimp, and the two of us lived happily ever after in a van down by the river.

Ok??!!

     

     Even though I’m usually ready to scream bloody murder and pull every strand of my hair out one by freaking one at the end of the day, I really do love tucking my kids into bed at night.  Now granted, it might be in small part because I’m slap-ass happy to finally be “off duty” (notice that I’m using that term VERY lightly) for a few hours, but it’s also in large part because I get to hear my little turkeys profess their undying love for me.  Moms don’t get any overtime or paid vacations, so we rely on these sweet little moments to keep us going.  

     Typically, my kids automatically spit back an “I love you, too” as I exit their rooms and make a break for it.  I walk away feeling all warm and fuzzy and willing to stick out this job for at least one more day. But when I told my son that I loved him the other night and got a most unwanted response of “ok,” I thought that surely I must’ve heard wrong.  Maybe my exhaustion had gotten the best of me, or maybe I needed to clean the wax out of my ears.  Unfortunately, though, when I asked him to repeat himself, he admitted that he actually did say “ok.”

     Now, there is definitely other feedback that would be more acceptable for such a situation.  I’d take a “you, too” or a “me, too” or hell, even a “thank you” over an “ok” any old day.  He might as well have just knocked me right in the face with a one-two punch with that kind of line.  I personally happen to think I deserve a lot more than that.  I mean after all, I do feed him, clean him, use my sleeve for his Kleenex, read to him, wipe his ass, sing to him, catch his puke in my hands, and leap tall buildings in a single bound for him 365 days a year.  Show a girl some love, my little man!

     He has at least given me the appropriate reciprocation ever since, so hopefully, I made my point very loud and clear.  I don’t expect red carpets or sparkly crowns or anything of the royal sort.  A simple “I love you, too” goes such a long way for an extremely worn-out mama. I know that soon enough, the very sight of me will embarrass the hell out of him in front of his friends, so I’ll soak up all the motherly adulation I can muster up from him until then, thank you very kindly.

Kumbaya’s Way More Fun With Wine

     Last night, my husband and the kids and I rode our bikes over to watch a little outdoor kids’ concert on the lawn of our library. Families were encouraged to bring over a blanket and a picnic dinner to listen to some fun, interactive tunes.  I honestly had no idea what to expect and really didn’t have that high of hopes.  I mean, how good could a FREE concert at the library really be?  And, thank God I didn’t get too jazzed up about it, because it was one of those ear-screeching experiences that I couldn’t wait to end.    

     After gulping down our dinner, the kids were ready to boogy and get crazy.  Some of their friends had also shown up, which only added more fuel to their already hyper fire.  At first the singer was very lively, encouraging all the kids to join in with the hand motions to the songs and even to dance if they wanted.  There were a decent amount of people in attendance, so my kids and their buddies decided to dance their way on up to the front. They parked themselves front and center and truly had the time of their lives. They were jumping up and down and laughing and singing — all things you would think would be flattering to the performer, right? Well, not this lady.  She actually used the freaking microphone to ask them to sit down so that other kids could see!   Did I mention that this was a very informal outdoor KIDS’ CONCERT??!!  And do you recall that she did, in fact, invite the kids to join in??!!  I was thoroughly confused, as were the kids.

     From that point on, the whole mood of the concert changed.  She started singing really dark, loud songs about whining kids and temper tantrums. It was literally almost as if she was yelling at us.  Everyone just kinda sat there and stared at her in awe.  I think I only saw one kid toward the back of the crowd who was up and dancing, and that was only because he was too little to know any better.  The singer had managed to turn the whole thing into a major buzz kill.  She must’ve eventually picked up on this, because she then went into a whole “kumbaya” theme.  Hands were swaying, and there was talk of love and peace and rainbows.  I felt like I was at Woodstock for kids and was wondering when someone was gonna start passing around pixie sticks instead of joints. Were we supposed to get naked and roll around in the mud, too?  It was all just a little too hokey for me.

     All in all, the kids ended up having a good time, because, seriously, what do they know?  Did it really even phase them one bit that they were told to sit down and be duds?  No.  Did they care that they had just sat through a shrieking medley of sappy “one love” songs by a slightly off-tune performer? No.  They’re kids, and they know how to put the fun into just about anything.  Next time, I’ll remember to put my own fun into it by bringing some “adult” beverages with me….

Mommy Trumps Daddy

     

     You would think as much as my kids are with me, that they’d pass on any extra opportunities to tag along with me.  However, it turns out to be quite the opposite.  If they ever have a choice to pick hanging out with me over hanging out with my husband, they will pick me nine times out of ten.  It makes me feel a little bad for my husband, because he doesn’t get to see them as much as me and loves to spend time with them.  They are truly mama’s babies, though, through and through.

     Just this past weekend, my husband was desperately trying to talk my daughter into going with him to run a couple of errands.  He begged and pleaded and even promised her a lollipop in exchange for her company. Although reluctantly, she finally gave in and went with him.  Later that very same day, I asked her if she wanted to come with me and didn’t even get a chance to tell her where we were going before she let out a very enthusiastic “YES!!!!”  

     It’s the same scenario with other little things like brushing my twins’ teeth at night.  For whatever reason, they ALWAYS prefer that I brush their teeth over my husband.  I don’t get it either, because my husband uses the half-ass super-quick lickity split method, whereas I take my time and make sure to get all the teeth, top AND bottom.  I would think they would feel the need, the need for speed.  But, no, they would rather argue over who gets Mommy to brush their teeth.  

     Now, don’t get me wrong — I LOVE that they LOVE being with me more than anyone in their little worlds.  I know this won’t last forever, and they’ll soon be asking me to pick them up around the corner so no one sees them with me.  I just know that it hurts their daddy sometimes when they are so eager to pick me over him.  What can I say, though…I guess they just love me — they REALLY REALLY love me!

I Need A Pause Button

Sometimes I just want to freeze time and put my kids in a bubble (of course I’m referring to the times when they are super-sweet and cuddly, not the times when they’re hell on wheels and I want to beat my head against the wall).  Just when you think you’ve had the absolute worst day ever and you want to run away and join the circus, they say something that just turns your heart into melted butter.  For example, even though my son constantly tests the little bit of patience I have left in my body, he absolutely sweeps me off my feet with his admiration of me.  He is constantly hugging me and kissing me, and whenever he forgets what it is that he’s trying to say, he’ll randomly bust out with a “Mommy, I really, really love you.”  I realize that it’s mainly just his way of pausing to regroup his thoughts, but I still adore every one of those six little words.  My daughter is equally as lovey-dovey in her own special ways. She is the first one to reach up and grab my hand whenever we’re out walking in the neighborhood or shopping at a store.  I treasure that so much and try to soak up each and every time I feel her little hand in mine, because I know that she will someday be embarrassed to even be seen in public with me.  And, just last night, when I felt pretty certain I looked like absolute crap (it was the end of a VERY long day, my hair was pulled into its usual messy lump, and the bags under my eyes were present and accounted for), my sweet little girl pulled my face toward hers and said, “Mommy, you look so pretty!”  I wanted to just scoop her up and put her in my pocket.  One of the greatest things about being a mom is that no matter how many times I may say or do something stupid, my kids are always my biggest fans.  I try to tattoo this on my brain, so that I remember this warm and cozy feeling even during those times when I want to crawl in a hole…but, then, someone does something that makes my nostrils flare, and I go back to being a nucking futs mama!