Supernanny

Bet She'll Flip Out.

Can we have cookies?

I just threw a kitten in the garbage.

Thanks SPCA.

While I full heartedly support your mission of taking care of animals and finding them wonderful homes, I hate you.

Because you play on the sympathy of dummies like me, who get sentimental when they see pictures of sad baby animals.

"Oh that poor, cute little puppy. He's so fluffy and sad. I wish I had extra money to help them out each month.... Maybe if I talked to Jude, we could donate $20 or something, anything to try to help out a little and do our part...."

Then the sane part of my brain kicks in, remembering that it's a marketing ploy.

Yes, the money would support animals and go to something wonderful. But the truth is, we just don't have anything to give right now. So I decide to just toss it in the garbage and move on with my day and this is what I see.

It literally looks like I threw out a kitten.

There is a giant motherfuckin' kitten, looking up at me with sad eyes all like, "Why did you throw me out?", from my garbage can.

Damn you, SPCA, for toying with my emotions. I literally just heard Sarah Mclachlan singing in my head and I feel dirty.

Pay Back.

How to install a child's car seat.

Grumpy Diaper Changes.

How kids end up making you late.

You probably shouldn't call mom a whore.

Fuck you, Monday. Fuck you right in the ass

Mondays.

 Sigh.

I should have known when I hadn't gone to bed yet and my Monday was already shitty.

I had some laundry that I absolutely had to do so that Jude didn't start looking like the office homeless person (Who smells like pee?), so I went down to the laundry room late last night. And forgot until like 11pm that I had yet to put the laundry in the dryer.

Fuck.

So I told Jude that I would go and put his clothes in the dryer, but that he owed me a nice lengthy, not fucking around (what is this two finger shit?) 40 minute back rub upon my return.

But during my journey, a giant-mutant-raccoon decided that it was going to pop out from the bushes three inches from my feet, look at me long enough to make me almost piss my pants and then run away. So now he owed me an hour.

So I waited and waited and waited... And ended up not falling asleep until after 1am (Thanks for the two minute half-assery, wherein you told me that you would rub my back tomorrow. It's on like Donkey Kong tonight, motherfucker). So needless to say, I did not get enough sleep and I have been just a little grumpy since Jude tapped my shoulder, lovingly and I bit his fucking head off at 7am.

I got up and did all my usual morning ridiculousness. I staggered through the doorway of the kitchen, made us both Barista worthy Cappuccinos, made breakfast for five, changed diapers, went down and retrieved the laundry, etc, etc...

And finally when Jude had left for work, I sat down to drink my cold, two hour old coffee.

Deciding fuck that, I put on another pot of coffee. Only we don't have a regular coffee machine, we have an espresso pot and a cup to steam milk and you put them both on the stove. So I filled up the cup with milk, put the espresso pot on and looked over at a notice.

Fuck! I have to call the State of New Jersey because our tax return got fucked up and despite mailing it months ago, it's still not sorted out.

So I dial the number and of course they tell me that it's gonna be a while. Not wanting to go to prison Wesley Snipes style, I decide that I need to bite the bullet and just wait. And listen.... to the world's shittiest music... that no one would ever voluntarily listen to if not on hold or with a gun to their head (just shoot already, I hate Kenny G).

So I lean over, still on hold and start rinsing out my giant coffee cup out from this morning. The kids start whining for a snack, so I start to tap my feet to the smooth jams (fuck, why do I like this now?), cut them up some fruit and head back into the kitchen.....FFFFUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!

The milk pot started boiling all over the stove!!! And the coffee started shooting out all over the burner. Then my burner bursts into flames. FUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK FIRE!!! Then, "Hello, this is ___________... How can I help you?" So I said, "Oh my God, can you wait a minute?" and took the coffee and milk off the burner. Thinking quickly, I put a pot lid down on top of the flame, extinguishing it. Oh. My. God.

"Hello? Are you there? Hello?!? Hello?!?" I screamed into the phone.

Bitch, I waited fifteen minutes while you probably filed your nails and you can't wait out a kitchen fire for 10 fucking seconds?!?

Fuck me. I guess I will need to call them back.

At least there's coffee.

I clunk down my giant coffee mug onto the counter, spoon in the sugar, pour in some steamed milk, whipped up some cream for the top...

Oh, I forgot, I need just a little sprinkle of cinnamon for the top. So I open the cabinet above my mug for the cinnamon and PLUNK! Red pepper shaker. Straight into my beautiful coffee cup.

I'm going back to bed.
Wake me when it's Tuesday.

Real World: Pacifica

My children have a death wish today.

Either I, or them, but not both will survive the day.

And if I had the gun and bullets, I think I might just shoot myself square in the head. Sweet silence. Sweet, fiery, silence (does anyone smell smoke?)

Until summer is over, my kids have turned our home into the set of the Real World: Pacifica.

Mostly because at this point in the summer, my kids can't stand each other. THEY HATE EACH OTHER'S GUTS. All they do is fight. And whine. And scream. And break shit. And hurt themselves (and each other).

I cannot go two minutes, literally two minutes, without needing to spring into action to break up a fight, grab an ice pack or sweep up some glass. All that's missing are awkward night vision sex scenes and racial slurs. 

They have figured out that we hooked all of their cartoons up to our bedroom TV. So now, they have both my bedroom TV and the living room TVs to themselves. Which means no matter where I go in this 800 sq ft. apartment, they follow me.

And argue.

The girls are playing (FIGHTING OVER) a Toy Story video game in the living room, which I just had to shut off because they were screaming, ready to punch each other in the face. Holden keeps ordering me to turn on a cartoon in my bedroom, where I have gone to try to escape from them, and then he leaves the room, comes back and tells me to put on a different one two seconds later.

I got sick of the whining and turned off both TVs and anticipate the screaming in 3....2....1.....And all hell has broken lose, so the cartoons are back on. And of course the fighting over the cartoons has resumed.

They have also gotten to the point of boredom where I swear they are doing shit just to get a reaction.

Cora just pissed on my living room floor, despite having been potty trained for a year and just having used the bathroom. I guess she saved just enough pee in her bladder to make sure she could still soak the carpet.

Holden is trying (with a fair amount of success) to rip the closet doors off their bedroom wall.

Holden asked me for a drink of water from my cup and when I put it to his mouth, he backed away and knocked the cup onto the floor.

Cora went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet and then looked me straight in the eye as she proceeded to pick up and then touch everything in her reach with the shitty-germ-covered toilet brush.

The girls, who I sent to their room for their Toy Story rumble, are now smashing toys against the walls and screaming at each other.

Holden just pulled all of the covers off of my freshly made bed and threw them on the floor.

And now is rolling around in piss-covered dirty laundry.

And just informed me that for the fourth time today, he is poopy.

Thanks for the update, kid. Guess I gotta get that.

I AM GONNA LOSE IT. My Mantra for today has been "I am running away"...

The kids have started to take it seriously and have asked me if they can come with me when I go to Hawaii.

No offense kids, but NO. FUCKING. WAY. I know that I will never get to run away, or have that Hawaiian vacation, but no, you cannot come to my imaginary vacation. The tiny part of my brain that holds out belief that Santa Claus might be real and that maybe we DO all have untapped magical powers, like Matilda, still believes that I might possibly get a break from the kids. And I don't want to ruin that by including imaginary child passengers on my flight to paradise.

Oh the screaming. Oh God, the screaming. I have to get out of here. These kids are killing me.
Anybody have the number for a Production Company? This has to be at least as entertaining as watching guidos fist fight over a bottle of tanning oil on Jersey Shore.

Mom's Night.

In your face!!!

It is your job as a parent not to raise an asshole.

Disclaimer: I am venting because I was aggravated by several children who were not my children today. I love kids. I play with them all on the playground. Even if they aren't my kids, I will drink their pretend cup of tea and play monsters. But every once in a while, you come upon a kid that you just fucking hate. You can't describe it in words. Just the utter disdain that you have for this little shit, who has no frame of reference for any sort of discipline or consequence. That is how my day went....

We went to the Discovery Museum today (see "My Cora is a Scrapper" for details about how that went...) and I saw a bunch of parents really just not doing their jobs. You see, my kids are not always the best behaved kids on the planet, I get it. All kids have their moments. But when they are doing something I don't want them to be doing and I tell them to knock it off, you better believe they do it.

Because it's not your job to make sure it's super-happy-fucking-fun-time constantly, it's your job as a parent to not raise an ASSHOLE.

And when you always talk to your child in a pansy-assed hush voice and use only "nice words" to them, you, my overly-politically-correct friend, are cultivating an asshole.

I talk nicely to my kids. I say vapid things that I would never say to an adult like "touch your friends nicely" and "use your words". I explain things to them in a way that they can understand. I don't beat the shit out of them.

But when your child is being bad, just really god damn bad, sometimes he/she actually needs to be told to cut the shit.

Just say it. "CUT THE SHIT!"

Scream it!!!

Feels good and your child will learn something. That the world is not gonna put up with his bullshit and neither should you.

I saw one woman watching her two outrageously rambunctious boys, who were maybe 5 and 7. And they are boys, they're gonna be hyper and play rough. But it was the way that she spoke to them that made me want to pull their pants down and spank them myself.

"I have already asked you both (seventeen times without punishment in the two minutes that I watched them) to play in a calm, quiet manner because there are little friends who are playing near you".

She whispered it.

They ignored her completely.

Did not even acknowledge her existence and just kept doing what they were doing.

"Please, I asked you to play in a way that we are not endangering our little friends...."

Then a minute later, "Boys could we think of a way that we could play calmly so we do not hurt our little friends?"

I wanted to turn around and ask her if she was fucking kidding. The entire time they were jumping around the room like all of the other children were hurdles.

And while we are on the topic of creating assholes, I know this will not be a popular opinion, but god damn it, sometimes your kid needs to be spanked.

You are the adult. They are the child. They get out of line sometimes.

And more than anything, these kids who are pandered to and spoken to like they have CPS on their iPhone (which they have because their parents are really laying it on), need a spanking more than any other kids. To restore the order and the damage that has been inflicted from the utter lack of guidance and discipline.

And I know, child whisperers, you are not spanking advocates. I can tell by the fact that your asshole is emptying your Starbucks into your purse. How's that working out for you?

Someone please come arrest my children.

So after a weekend of fun-filled house destruction, I, mommy, have deemed today, Clean Up Day.

Which means essentially that I clean one room, walk into another room, and then my kids completely decimate the room that I have just finished cleaning.

It's a frustrating process, but I have started shooing them from the rooms that I have already cleaned, leaving the Terrible Threes quarantined to the living room.

Which, of course, means my living room looks like a dungeon from a horror movie. Toys strewn all over, remnants of their lunch stuck to every flat surface, cereal from breakfast mashed into the carpet. Every shiny surface marked with their tiny peanut butter fingerprints. Pillows squashed into the floor, undoubtedly used as protection from carpet lava. My couch cushions left just laying on the floor, reeling from the abuse of having been jumped upon and then flung aside like a two dollar whore.

But I will persevere.

I cleaned my bedroom, which they were banned from the very second that I made the bed and Holden ran in and threw my blankets onto the floor.

I cleaned the kids' room, which they were banned from when Holden dumped the pail of garbage that I was collecting onto the floor and spread it all over the carpet. And then double banned from when Cora ran in and  jumped onto Holden's bed, which contained all of their freshly lysoled mattresses and pillows and promptly knocked them all to the floor like giant steel-coil filled dominos.

They got banned from the bathroom, when Holden insisted on shutting and guarding the bathroom door, blocking my only source of ventilation, save my shitty vent fan (which lets be honest, they're decorative) and I started getting a little light headed (that Holden is really an asshole today).

If I were a police officer, I would have arrested them for interfering with police business. Someone please come arrest my children. They are preventing me from making any actual progress.

My only solace so far today was the little mental vacation that I got to take from them for the five whole minutes I vacuumed their room.

I shut and locked the door.

Alone at last, no one to bother me. The smell of the Tropical Island carpet stuff that I shook onto the rug transported me to Hawaii. The loud hum of the vacuum muffling the sounds of children screaming for me at the top of their lungs and pounding on the door.

Aaaahhh. Paradise. I think I will make daddy tackle the living room, while I go make some daiquiris.....

NO COFFEE!!!! FUCK! RUN!!!!

Loud and Clear.

It's a RETRO-POST! February 2012: Don't Poke the Momma Bear.

I am starting to think that I should have a frank talk with the woman in the office at Phoenix's school.

We try to be on time, we really do, and most of the time we are, although I usually get there with seconds to spare, fruity pebble coated children and nursing the after effects of the daily stroke that it took to get us there.

"It would make my life go a helluvalot smoother if you just laminated up a permanent, willy wonka style late pass and just write our info in when you start a new sheet for the day. I mean, chances are we are gonna be late anyway, lets stop playing coy and just make this shit official. "

Either that, or start a mom fight club that meets at 830.

Fuck it, 840, but tell me 830, I would probably be late to an 830.

Then I can get out all of the morning frustration it took for me to get the first kid to school all "is that all you got?" *spits out a tooth* style and I can move on with my day.

Oh and on the fight club note, someone revved their engine while I was crossing the crosswalk with the stroller to go into the school and I turned around and said, "Are you fucking kidding me, buddy?"

Sure, the line of parents who were behind me probably didn't appreciate all the expletives (hey, we will have a car soon and you won't hear them anymore), but in my defense it's probably not the smartest idea to poke momma bear on her jog to hell in the am.

I didn't have time to eat breakfast either buddy, so I would have made a snack out of you if I wasn't already late.

And if I had my laminated late pass, I would have had time to teach him some manners, see? Free teaching. I so deserve that pass.