Some Pig

Snow Foolin'

I am the only teacher in captivity who hates snow days.

Don't get me wrong; I love the idea of snow days.  When your day starts at 5:45 every blinkin' a. of m., who doesn't love getting a call that says don't bother getting up right now, and by the way, that shower you were thinking of taking?  Purely optional now! Back in my singleton and then pre-child days, snow days were a welcome reprieve from the hurly burly world.  I'd sleep for the better part of the morning, then shuffle around in my pj's, consuming enough coffee to set off caffeine-based seizures until, oh, noontime, before donning my most slovenly sweats and mmmaaaaayyyyyyyyyybe correcting a class set of papers or two.  If I'd timed my grocery runs wisely enough, I'd cook a delicious dinner to be consumed right in front of the TV before turning in for the night with a book to read and a cat or three for warmth.

Now that I've had kids, that's not so much the program anymore.  First, as soon as the kids hear the robocall, they wake up with the dawn and IMMEDIATELY start talking and talking and TALKING.  "What are we going to do today, Mommy?  Mommy?  Do we have school today, Mommy?  Is school locked, Mommy?  If we went to school, could we get in the door, Mommy, or would we have to go home?  Where is my teacher, Mommy?  Mommy, what does Denise do during snow days?"  And so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.  Then, if that's not bad enough, Warren's got to stick his oar in, usually by announcing in his most sprightly and wide-awake voice, "Mommy, you should take the girls sledding today at the golf course!"  This immediately triggers another round of chirpiness in the offspring, this time to the theme of, "Mommy, are we going sledding, Mommy?  Is Allyson going sledding?  When are we going sledding, Mommy?  I don't want to go on the golf course, Mommy, I want to go next to our house.  Will you sled with me, Mommy?"

And then I want to kill that rat bastard of a husband of mine 'til he falls down dead.

Logical Fallacy

Celeste (showing me a map she's drawn of her little world):

"Dis is my house, and dis is where I am when I get lost!"

Ummm... correct me if I'm wrong, but if you can find your location on a map, doesn't that mean you're NOT lost?

I Didn't Realize I Had Competition

"You're my favoritest mommy," Celeste says contentedly as she pads up the stairs in front of me.  "I'm glad to hear it," I reply, acting on autopilot because I am lugging the cat carrier, the cat, my purse, several lunch boxes, and about ten other bulky objects that require being lugged at the end of the day before I can turn my attention to the seven or eight other crises that await.

A few minutes later, I am struck by the thought that, hey!  Whaddya mean, 'favoritest'?  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I'm at the top of the heap, but where are all these auxiliary mothers when I could use a hand?  Like when someone pees in her pants and needs cleaning up (not naming names, but I'm looking at you, Celeste).  Or when I have to assemble dinner, which is what I should be doing right now?  If one or two of the B-list moms would put their Devil Dogs down and get off their reality-TV-watching duffs for a few minutes once in awhile, maybe things would run a leetle more smoothly chez Pig.  Really, it seems like being awarded the title of "favoritest mommy" just means I get to continue doing all the work I'm already doing, instead of getting a two-week all-expenses-paid vacation to someplace exotic, like Cancun.  Or Manchester.  Either the British version or the local one, doesn't matter.  Sheesh.  So much for extrinsic motivation.

Irrational Fears

Celeste is standing in the entranceway to the church.  I have to pull her aside and use bribes, threats, and cajolery to get her to use the potty before she walks down the aisle.  At the reception, I continually pass by her chair and discreetly sniff the air to make sure there isn't a little "present" in her crinolines.

India is fired from her job for denying she did something that the security tape shows she did, in fact, do.

Both girls are instant pariahs with their college roommates because they never put anything away and as a result the room is a pit.  The reality TV show Hoarders is invited into their dorm rooms for filming.

Ceecee gets up from the table at a White House state dinner without saying "excuse me" or wiping her face.

India never learns to read on her own.  I have to read every text to her from elementary school on.  In graduate school, she decides to specialize in Russian literature and I have to read Anna Karenina out loud.  In Russian.  Multiple times.

Ceecee decides that I meant it when I said that one of these days she could choose for herself if her hair was going to get washed or not.  Dreadlocks ensue.

India is such a bossyboots that she never finds a life partner.  Celeste is such a mama's girl that she never finds a life partner.  They spend their adulthood hanging around the house, blaming me for their lovelorn states, and waiting for me to die so they can argue over the estate.

My girls inherit my lack of athletic interest and ability and wind up being fat and picked on.  My girls inherit their father's athletic interest and ability and wind up realizing their mother was a loser in middle school, thus losing all respect or standing I once had in their eyes.

They marry Republicans.  Who follow Ann Coulter.  And Fox News.

They marry vegans.  

Celeste never learns to identify colors or numbers.

The girls' highest aspiration is to appear on Rock of Love 72.  One of them gushes on camera, "Uhmahgawd, I've loved Bret Michaels since, like, before I was even born.  Uhmahgawd, he's so hawt!  I was, like, dancing onstage at the club when I heard they were starting auditions and I totally walked right off the stage to call the show!  And I was all, 'I am Bret Michaels' rock of love!  You have to pick me!'  And uhmahgawd, here I am!"

India will grow to adulthood on a diet consisting solely of starches, cheese, desserts, hot dogs and carrots.

The girl's will put apostrophe's where no apostrophes' belong's.  They also confuse when to use plural and singular.

I get free tickets and airfare to the Dr. Phil show for an episode on appreciating your mother, or so I am led to believe.  I arrive to find my two girls sitting onstage, arms crossed, glaring at me, while the screen behind them reads "Good Girls, Bad Mothers".

So... what keeps YOU up at night?

It Ain't No Party Here, I'll Tell You UPDATED

India and I are in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight, replete with commands to "Go to your room, young lady, and don't come out again until you can behave!"  Followed by, "Fine! I want to go to my room anyway!  And don't come in!"  Punctuated by slamming doors and thumping feet.

Want to know what triggered this donnybrook?  A birthday party.  Not only that, but this birthday party hasn't even happened yet.

Here's the backstory:  Celeste got her first invitation to a birthday party sans older sister, and India is ragingly jealous.  My rather avaricious elder daughter is having a hard time accepting the concept that her sister is going to have fun she isn't going to have, and is going to get something she isn't getting, and it's killing her.  So India issued an edict that "Ceecee HAS to share her goody bag with me!"  Well, no, she doesn't.  I will spare you the play-by-play, but the argument on my side boiled down to, we don't make you share your goody bag toys with Celeste, so she doesn't need to share them with you.  The argument on India's side boiled down to, that's not fair, "not fair" being interpreted in this situation as, "any situation I don't like".

There are two facets to this issue, one being that India is just experiencing the first inklings of the fact that her sister is, in fact, a completely separate human being who is not always going to trail around in Big Sister's shadow.  I have pointed out, in a total and complete waste of breath, that India has had a three-year head start on birthday parties, friendships, goodie bag procurement, parental attention, etc. etc., and it is only natural that Celeste is going to enjoy some of the same as she gets older.  The other facet is the completely and totally ridiculous symbol of suburban overconsumption and overachievement, that being the birthday party goody bag.

I have made no secret of the fact that I hate goody bags and the stuff that comes in them.  When I was attending kid parties, back when the earth was cooling and party invitations were painted on cave walls, there was no such thing as a goody bag.  You were just psyched to get cake and ice cream in your young years, along with pizza, soda, chips and candy in the tween phase.  Sometimes the host gave out little prizes for winning party games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, or my current favorite game, Let's See Who Can Leave Mommy Alone the Longest, but that was it.  Somewhere in the three-plus decades between my last kid party and my childrens' first, the idea that the party itself was treat enough for the attendees fell out of favor (no one thought to inform me of that fact, because I certainly wouldn't have approved).  Living as we now do in the land of hypercompetitive parenting, the whole goody bag scenario has taken on the nature of the nuclear arms race of the 80's.  Here's an illustration:  At India's fifth birthday, I decided that I'd have the kids decorate paper lunch bags, thus turning the goody bag into an activity as well as a favor.  Then the kids could use their goody bags to carry the pinata candy home.  (I also gave out packets of flower seeds that I got at a discount store which refused to sprout, so I guess I did contribute to the birthday-party waste stream, but I tried to keep it to a minimum.)  After the pinata was beaten into submission, one of India's little pals wandered up to me and asked, "What's going in the goody bags?  Where are the favors?"

"You already got it," I pointed out.  "It's for your candy."

Her little face fell.  "That's it?"  she said, in tones that conveyed equal amounts of disbelief, amazement, and contempt.  Apparently a party that includes a bounce house, sprinkler play, arts and crafts, bubble blowing, a pinata, a hotdog lunch and cake and ice cream is a washout unless it includes a bag filled to overflowing with crappy plastic doodads manufactured in unsafe working conditions by people whose daily pay is outstripped by the cost of the goody bag's contents.  Furthermore, the whole philosophy behind giving out the goody bags irks me.  Somewhere along the line, someone decided that being a middle-class kid from a nice family meant that your kid should never experience any unpleasantness or discomfort.  Does your kid cry because the birthday boy is getting all kinds of swag and she's not?  Instead of telling her that that's the way life is sometimes, you'll have a birthday one day and no one else will get presents, you get to point out, look! there's a goody bag!  And, since you're trying to keep up with the Joneses next door, YOUR goody bags have to be bigger and better than the goody bags at THEIR kid's party were.

I swear, the next birthday party in our house is going to have a Tibetan Buddhist theme.  We're going to renounce worldly goods and drink yak-butter tea before volunteering in a leper colony.  The face masks and antibacterial hand gel can count as the party favors.

EDITED TO ADD:  Here are some comments my Facebook friends made that are worth adding:

Sue:  I wholeheartedly agree!! (surprise surprise) Goody bags rank right up there with giving the siblings presents on birthdays so they don't feel left out.

Joanne:  I think goody-bags should be given out at meetings -- and the longer the meeting, the better the swag. (And no, H1N1 prevention brochures do NOT count as swag.)

Me: See? Goody bags should be reserved for making unpleasant occasions more bearable. A birthday party is supposed to be fun in and of itself. I shouldn't have to bribe kids to want to be there with a buncha junk.

It's Worth The Trip*

Today at the playground, Celeste invented a role-playing game.  Under her direction, I would "drive" up to the imaginary take-out window where she would ask me, "Do you want coffee and Munchkins, Mommy?"  Then she would hand me my order and say, "There you go!" after which I would "drive" away, before starting the whole routine over again.

This brings several thoughts to mind:
1) What does this say about my parenting?
2) What does this say about Ceecee's future career aspirations?

I'm going to gloss over the other role-playing game, where we "drove" to the grocery store to buy dinner, which consisted of macaroni and cheese and hotdogs, and nothing else.

* Extra credit to those of you who get the reference

Lies I've Told My Children

Sorry, honey, there's no more pie left. 

I think your father's suggestion of going for a hike on a hot summer day is a great idea.

Santa's workshop is open all year long and if you don't stop it right this instant I'm going to call him and tell him to put you on the naughty list!

Of course you want to play with your sister!  Mommy and Auntie Sarah always liked to play together.

I said please and thank you without being told when I was a little girl.

Mommy was listening, honey, go on with your story.

That tooth sure looks wiggly to me!

I can't imagine how that Rainbow Fairy story ends, why don't you tell me?

Mommy loooooooves trying new vegetables, mm, mm!

They stopped making that show.

Our TV doesn't get the Disney channel except when the babysitter's here.

We always pick up our things and put them back where they belong, ladies, even Mommy.

I'm not going to say this again.

I just have this one thing to do on the computer and then I'll be happy to play with you.

I don't know where your special magic rocks are, India.  Maybe the fairies came last night and put them back outside?

Of course I like [name of miscreant here], we just don't have time to go over and play with her right now, that's all.

In A Nutshell

India:  I'm going to marry Andrew!

Me:  How does he feel about that?

India:  He's not so excited.  But I don't care!

And there you have several millenia of gender relationships, distilled to their essence.

Theology According to St. India

India is singing a song she learned at Vacation Bible School, which leads to an early-morning discussion about religion (and I haven't even had a chance to finish a whole cup of coffee, mind you). 

India:  Mommy, do you think God is alive everywhere? (it's a line from one of the songs she's singing)

Me: Honey, I'm not exactly sure I really even believe in God.

India (in a don't-be-silly tone of voice):  Of course you do!  Do you think God is alive everywhere?

Huh.  All those years of theological soul-searching, and all I had to do was ask a five-year-old.

She's not totally consumed by issues philosophical.  Her father is currently on a road trip, which has led to an interesting variant on the "are we there yet" question, namely, "What town is Daddy in now?", asked every hour on the hour.  As if I have a freakin' GPS in my head!  We called him after dinner last night to ascertain his position.

Me:  India, Daddy's in Terre Haute.

India (longingly):  I always wanted to be there.

Later I hear her talking to Warren.

India:  Daddy!  I like to shake my booty in Terre Haute!  I want to go to Terre Haute to shake my booty!

Time Is (Not) On My Side

"I have the perfect place for you to take the girls," my young friend Kristen said.  "It's a total mom squad beach."

She's right.  The park includes a gentle grassy slope with not one but two climbers, and a shallow sand beach that sees only the gentlest of waves, too mild to topple any but the most unsteady toddler.  The beach is carpeted wall-to-wall with rug rats, crumb crushers, ankle biters, and house apes of all ages and stages, and since it's midweek, most of them are there with their moms.  After a completely random visual survey of the mothers assembled there, including yours truly, I've come to a conclusion:

Motherhood is hell. 

On the human body, that is.

There were a lot of moms there - old moms, young moms, new moms, experienced moms, salt-and-pepper-haired moms, bleached-blond moms, big-blingy-ring moms, earthy-crunchy-hippie moms - and the majority of us shared more than a few, um, physical similarities.  After a couple of alien beings have punched and kicked their way into this world via your torso, there's just so much the body can recover.  Even the buff hard-core athletic mommies had their fair share of gravity-induced damage about them.  Take potbellies and well-padded hips, for starters.  Let's just say there's a reason why skirted swimsuits are so popular on a mom squad beach and leave it at that, mmmkay? 

The mom bod has been on my mind of much lately because I'm no exception.  I have a comfy tummy and a big bum and my kids like to snuggle into my midsection because it's so squishy and soft.  After a year of eating basically anything that wasn't nailed down, I've been trying to undo the damage with regular trips to the gym and fewer cookies and glasses of wine.  In the past, the regime I'm following would've already resulted in a return to fighting form.  Now?  Not so much.  I think the avoirdupois is just scoffing at the salads and sit-ups before rolling over and hunkering back down right where it is (Meanwhile a FORMER friend just informed me that he's lost 18 pounds!  Without really trying!  Why did men get the lucky break with the metabolisms, I ask you.).  I don't like the extra weight, but I'm not ready to do a Melissa Joan Hart and start subsisting on air and alfalfa sprouts.  What's a girl to do?

I'm having a hard time adjusting to this new reality.  I have difficulty reconciling the person in the mom squad bathing suit with the one who blasts If You Seek Amy  in the car and is secretly convinced she could totally dance backup for Britney.  The mirror shows a woman in a sensible cover-up who fumigates her kids with sunblock and bug spray as soon as they set one toe out the door, but I really want to be the girl walking down the beach in a bikini and a little tank top, UV rays be damned.  I'd never follow their  lead, but I'm starting to feel a certain sympathy for the women who try to bleach and tan and tone and tuck their way out of looking their age (including the formerly flat-chested classmate who turned up looking like she was smuggling honeydews across the border via her chest).  Many's the day when I've felt that the last train to Sexy is pulling out of the station, and I'm not on it.  I just want my body to look as young as my psyche feels; is that too much to ask?

PS To help shake my cougar blues, I'm compiling a list of inappropriate songs for a new mix.  If You Seek Amy is on there, along with I Kissed A Girl, You Can Leave Your Hat On and Stacy's Mom.  But four songs does not a mix make, so please submit your suggestions in the comments.  As long as I don't forget and put the new disc in the Wiggles cover, we'll be all set.