Injuries my children have sustained as a direct result of my idiocy (alternate title: “I’m a terrible parent; don’t call CPS pls”)

Listen. All children get injured every now and then, whether due to clumsiness, overestimation of one’s ability to do shit like swing from monkey bars, or just plain bad luck. It doesn’t matter if the kid is Tarzan incarnate or the meekest little rule follower known to man — blood shall be shed. I was the most cautious child on the planet and I still managed to nearly slice my finger off in an ill-fated attempt to microwave a frozen dinner¹, so trust me on this one. 

In most cases, there’s really no one to blame for these injuries. As parents, we may bear a little bit of responsibility in some cases if our lack of diligent oversight contributed to the scrape, bruise, split chin courtesy of a glass coffee table², or broken elbow caused by driving an electric scooter over a pile of slippery leaves³, but in general, we all know this shit happens with kids and it’s nothing to feel guilty about.

Unless, of course, said injury was directly caused by you not just permitting but endorsing, encouraging, and facilitating dangerous activities. In that case, you should definitely feel bad.

For instance, I felt quite bad when I let Ryan, then 6 years old and categorically not qualified for the job at hand, participate in the demolition of our fireplace during a remodel. Was he wielding a giant sledgehammer to smash heavy ceramic tiles? Yes. Was he wearing protective gear, or even, say, shoes? No, he most certainly was not, and the scar that remains visible on his arm to this day tells the tale of what happens when chunks of ceramic go flying through the air at high velocity. 

Do I get any points for making him wear googles, at least?

Then there was the time I decided I was some kind of scientist and procured some dry ice for us to experiment with, an activity I knew was potentially dangerous and thus implemented stringent safety precautions including a “no one but Mom handles the dry ice” rule. Man, I’m smart! Or I was, until I left the open bag of dry ice on the floor and Graffin had the misfortune to slip nearby it and extend his bare hand right onto it in an attempt to break his fall. Or the day I set up a fun “foam painting” activity that utilized an incredibly slippery amalgamation of shaving cream and glue, then watched and laughed heartily as the activity devolved into my children coating themselves and the garage floor with the mixture, in essence creating a filthy pseudo ice rink in which to glide around. Why was I surprised when they inevitably fell…repeatedly…and sustained a number of colorful bruises?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!

Believe it or not, these alarming manifestations of my abject ineptitude probably wouldn’t even rate a mention on a list of my most egregious offenses (sidenote: please don’t actually make a list of my failures). No, the top spots are all reserved for the myriad disasters that have occured in service of these nutcases’ most beloved pastime, Destroying Old Electronics. As the name suggests, this activity involves Destroying Old Electronics: ancient laptops, broken stereos, and obsolete cellphones are no match for my children’s insatiable desire to determine how many horrifying methods of destruction a poor innocent technological relic can withstand. COMPLETELY HARMLESS GOOD TIMES! Just kidding, it’s a disaster waiting to happen every time but they’ll spend literal hours destroying one $5 garage sale piece of junk and so it is my favorite of all of their hobbies. 

Recently, Ryan discovered the joys of eBay shopping and found that for just a few chores’ worth of handouts from ol’ Mom over here, he could afford an outdated but operable smartphone. This is the crown jewel of Shit to Destroy, as the fact that it still works means the kids can validate the effects of their destruction attempts as the melee ensues (this is all very scientific, clearly). The downside, of course, is that working phones contain a little something called a lithium ion battery — ever heard of it? Oh, you have? And I suppose if you were in my position, you totally would have acknowledged the existence of said battery, and perhaps even recalled all those news stories from a couple years back exposing smartphone batteries expanding and catching fire? And there’s NO CHANCE that would have just slipped your mind entirely and you would have signed off on letting small children hack away at said smartphone with the express intent of damaging it as much as possible, with little to no supervision whatsoever?

Get off your high horse. This could happen to anyone: 

He’s fine, guys. Everything’s fine. A couple very minor burns, some PTSD, perhaps an ecological disaster of some kind…no big deal. 

Why do I keep letting these things happen?! Is it because I’m a “Yes Mom,” stubbornly bound by some bizarre internal pledge to say yes to as many requests as humanly possible? Am I just an idiot who lacks foresight? Do I get swept up in the moment and develop selective blindness to danger, seeing only fun and excitement? Am I so desperate to occupy these people that I let all common sense fly out the window? 

Let’s not analyze it. See you in the ER!

(After I finish my dry ice White Claw.)

…………………………………

Footnotes:

¹Lean Cuisine should be sued for making their cardboard packaging so impenetrable I had to bust out a boxcutter to make any headway. 

²Graffin

³Ryan

Yes Mom

I was on a first date with a dude last year¹ and we were doing the stereotypical “here’s a brief rundown of my life (except for the shitty parts)” song and dance, and when I mentioned something about my kids he said, “wow, it must be really hard to handle everything!”

His reaction surprised me, although I guess it probably shouldn’t have — being a single mom (or a parent at all) is a lot of work, objectively speaking. But as I told this gorgeous tattooed childless gentleman that night, my kids are the easiest and best part of my life. Is my life in general a shitshow? Do I have serious personal issues to wade through? Am I frequently on the edge of existential despair? Possibly. But don’t get it twisted: there is absolutely nothing about my kids or about being a mom that I resent or consider a burden. Not the endless lunch-making², not the fighting over video games, not the interminable baseball games played in the blistering heat at which White Claws are inexplicably not considered acceptable hydration for parents in the stands, not the laundry or the midnight bad dreams or the ceaseless avalanche of toys that cover every square inch of my house and make it nigh on impossible to sweep or mop³, nothing. My kids bring me joy, and I am the kind of sick individual that derives pleasure from things like budgeting and checking items off of a to-do list, so even all of the logistical business of mothering is really right up my alley.

If this all sounds like a bunch of holier-than-thou bragging about how amazing I am for not letting the harder aspects of motherhood drag me down, don’t fret: I’m about to let you in on the secret behind this serenity, and it should bring your opinion of me and my parenting acumen back down where it belongs (i.e. very, very low):

I just say yes to virtually everything they want. 

Like…to truly ridiculous requests, all the damn time. Eat dinner in my bed? Sure, why not. Go to the 99 Cent Store to buy hundreds of balloons for the sole purpose of trying to pop them with various implements found around the house? Absolutely. Melt a bunch of perfectly good crayons into a brick so we can smash it up? Sounds like a perfectly sane thing to do! Basically, if there’s no risk of injury (and honestly, I’m pretty flexible on that) and it doesn’t cost a ton of money, it’s gonna be a yes every time.

Now, obviously I don’t have anything to compare to since I have operated in this fashion for the duration of my mothering career, but I believe that my yes-slingin’ lifestyle has eliminated a considerable chunk of the day-to-day conflicts that arise from having to tell children “no” all the time, not to mention the innumerable hours I’ve saved by not having to personally entertain these children. Do I really want to clean up tiny bits of crushed chalk from every crack and crevice of my garage after some bizarre art/destruction activity? No, not particularly. But do you know what else I don’t want to do? Come up with shit for them to do myself, and they spent all fucking day creating that chalk nightmare and I didn’t have to do a damn thing. 

I believe wholeheartedly that this strategy is the key to me remaining (relatively) sane and am completely committed to saying yes as much as humanly possible, to the point that it has become a defining facet of my personality in my children’s eyes. Ryan once told me, apropos of absolutely nothing, “You know what the best thing is about you? You’re a Yes Mom. Because you say yes to most things…and sometimes even when you say no, you think about it and then you say yes after all!”

And therein lies the problem, of course. I have created monsters who believe that if they ask their mother to buy $40 worth of duct tape so they can make a wall out of it and then destroy said wall with sharp objects, said mother will say yes…and they are right. She will not only say yes, she will say yes again when they want to try another kind of tape, and she will in fact do this four goddamn times in a single month.

(This is sadly not a joke; in related news, for any of you with hot DIY plans in the works, Gorilla Tape is superior to T-Rex Tape and both beat regular duct tape by a mile.)

Worse, they are now old enough to understand that I only deny their requests when there’s a really good reason, which sounds like it would be a good thing but instead just means that I have to have conversations like this whenever I drop a rare “no”:

Ryan, 30 seconds before bed: “Can I sleep in the office?”

Me, simply not in the mood to alter our already protracted bedtime routine : “no, we’re not doing that tonight.”

Ryan, so very sweetly, and genuinely curious: “But Mom…what difference does it make to you where I sleep?”

He was right, it doesn’t make a difference at all. 

He slept in the office.

Wish me luck when they’re teenagers, because I am, as I believe professionals would describe it, fucked.

…………………………………

Footnotes:

¹Yes, this is a thing I have to do now and it’s as horrifying as it sounds.

²Remember sending kids to school? Ah, good times. 

³Can you tell that I secretly appreciate that I have an excuse not to clean?

How Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible etc etc Bad Day Confirmed I’m Doing OK

Alternate title: Alexander the Cranky Brat and his Negligent, Cold-Hearted Mother

Now that we live in suburbia and have access to a delightfully clean, well-stocked and 99% hobo-free library, one of my first orders of business was to get Bubba hooked up with his very own library card so he could start enjoying the excitement of a constant rotation of new reading material. (Also, they have kickin’ air conditioning in there and it’s a fabulous way to kill an hour on a hot afternoon.) After spending a few minutes knocking down every block in the children’s area and likely annoying everyone in the entire building, Bubba turned his attention to the books and made some selections. Based on the cover illustration alone — he was intrigued by that upside-down skateboard on Alexander’s filthy floor — the first book he chose for his foray into library patronage was the 1970’s-era monstrosity Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Have you read this thing? Somehow I missed it in my own childhood (the grumpy scowl on that punk’s face would have precluded me from ever so much as touching this book, I assure you), but after reading it with my son no fewer than six bajillion times in the past five days (conservative estimate), I can safely say I was not missing out on anything. This innocent-looking tale is riddled with terrible behavior from the titular Alexander, and the treatment he receives from his virtually absentee mother raises some alarming red flags.

The plot of the book is simple: Alexander spends the entire book sulking about everyday irritations that should not, under normal circumstances, be cause for more than a passing complaint, much less be cited as ruining your entire freakin’ day: tripping on a skateboard, having to eat lima beans, and being relegated to the middle seat during car pool. I’ll give him a pass on his friend being mean to him and the dentist discovering a cavity; either of those can certainly put a damper on your day — but the rest of his complaints are just plain over the top.

Even Bubba was baffled by Alexander’s attitude. For starters, the dear lad couldn’t quite wrap his head around the concept of a “bad day” in general. “But why he not cheer up, Mama?” He asked, quite reasonably. “He gonna be happy a little bit later!”

And, like me, he found Alexander’s level of upset to be disproportionate to his problems. There’s a scene where Alexander bemoans the lack of treats in his lunchbox whilst his pals devour chocolate and cupcakes (and really, Albert’s mom? TWO cupcakes in your kid’s lunchbox? Good luck with that diabetes diagnosis next year), and while Bubba was somewhat sympathetic to Alexander in this particular instance (who wouldn’t want a little dessert?), he was also quick to point out that Alexander was leaving the rest of his perfectly good lunch un-touched. “It’s OK, Alexander,” he said consolingly, speaking directly to the book. “Don’t forget about your sammich! And you gots some milk over there!!”

Seriously, Alexander: a freakin’ toddler is telling you to take a chill pill. Simmer down, drama queen.

Even worse than Alexander’s bitching and moaning, though, is his mother’s reaction — or shall I say, her non-reaction — to Alexander’s plight. Sure, Alexander is undoubtedly overreacting to 99% of his “bad day,” but he is just a kid, and we all know that kids can be kind of emotionally stupid at times. So where are the hugs? The kind words? The encouragement? NOWHERE TO BE FOUND, that’s where. Never ONCE does this woman so much as cast a kind look in her poor kid’s direction, much less lay a tender hand upon his disheveled little head! The closest we get to seeing some compassion from this monster is on the penultimate page, when Alexander remarks that his mom says “some days are like that.” Gee, thanks, Mom. I totally feel better now.

And I swear I’m not just overanalyzing things — Bubba noticed her absence, too! “Why his mama not help him?” he inquired when Alexander complained about his bath being too hot. “Why his mama be mad at him with da mud?” he demanded after Alexander got into a muddy tussle with his brother. Most touchingly (and saddest of all for Alexander), Bubba took note of the lack of space for Alexander’s mother in Alexander’s bed (we do a lot cuddling around these parts, and Bubba’s bed contains one pillow for him and one for me to use when I’m in there with him). “There’s no space for his mama!” He cried. “Where’s her pillow?! How they gonna do some hugs?”

Yes, Alexander’s mother, explain yourself: HOW YOU GONNA DO SOME HUGS?

While I’m thoroughly annoyed with this book at this point (and we still have two more weeks before we have to return it! HELP), I am glad we borrowed it, as it has done wonders for my confidence as a mother. The fact that even at his young age, Bubba is wise enough to recognize the need to keep things in perspective instead of flipping out over a lack of dessert in your lunch seems like a pretty good accomplishment…and while I’m not sure what I did to make him think like that, I’ll go ahead and take credit for his maturity since I’m his mom and thus it must be related to my awesome parenting. This is not a kid who’s going to let a little muddy puddle ruin his day:

“MOM I FOUND SOME PINECONES AND GUESS WHAT THESE TWO AIN’T EVEN THE HALF OF IT, THERE ARE LIKE A HUNDRED MORE DOWN THERE COME ON LET ME SHOW YOU LET’S GO LET’S GO!!!!”

But when a bad day does eventually rear its ugly head, Bubba knows he should be able to rely on me for comfort and encouragement — and that feels like an even bigger accomplishment. Keep that space in bed ready for me, Bud.