Motherhood Uncensored

Fun.

The whole "18 Summers" thing has completely wrecked my parenting. 

You know, the "you've only got them for this long until they leave the nest and you're miserable so get off your fucking phone and play with them DAMNIT" thing. 

I can't be the only one who thinks that whenever anyone says something like that.

You only have 18 summers, you know or soon they'll be driving you around or I miss when they were small and making gigantic messes with LEGOs. 

Seriously, someone actually said that to me and I wanted to make him walk through my playroom barefoot just to watch him beg me for mercy. 

See, I know I will miss it and I will be sad. I'm already that parent who knows what is coming but is still distracted on my phone sometimes when my kids are showing me the soap they carved with a butter knife at which point they make me feel like shit. 

So when I saw the whole 18 summers thing, with it's actual number that you can countdown and feel crappier every year you get closer to that magic number, I decided that we needed to have fun.

FUN!!!

And now, every single freaking action I take and decision I make all summer long must pass the fun test, which means we're having popsicles for breakfast and taking trips to Washington D.C. and eating goldfish before bed even after we brushed our teeth and then must brush them again BECAUSE MOTHEREFFING FUN. 

Now it's not that I'm not usually fun, but I'm busy a lot and I work a lot and I'm alone a lot and add that all up and you get well, orderly and organized and sometimes a little rigid and well, maybe not super fun. Dinnertimes and bedtimes and schedules because that is how sanity must be maintained. 

Side effects: Shortness and loud talking.

Which for kids is probably not fun, even though I'd argue fun is had, just not necessarily in an eat whatever you want for dinner so long as it's actual food kind of fun.

So as you might guess, my SUMMER OF FUN DAMNIT plan has completely backfired and now my kids think that I'm a pushover. Because as we parents know, fun comes with a price. 

What I think is fun, like a DC Duck Tour in the blazing heat on a weird bus that goes into the water with "Captain Talks A Lot" as my son called him, quite accurately because that's his job and all, is not really fun to them. 

The train ride is long and boring and all the walking is long and boring and the baseball game is hot and long and you guessed it BORING. 

When are we getting on the bus? When are we getting off the bus? Are we at the Metro? Can't we just take a taxi? I'm hot, thirsty, tired, hungry I NEED ALL THE THINGS RIGHT NOW MOM can you get me some cotton candy and you got me PINK I WANTED BLUE. 

And now they think they can have goldfish before bed every night. 

But then, as my daughter dosed off after a day of long boring walking, she said "Mom, you're so fun." Which can only mean one thing. She's buttering me up for the Fruit Loops she saw in the hotel lobby breakfast bar.

Or maybe, amidst all the groaning, moaning, and whining, which I'm pretty sure is part of being a kid, they're having fun after all. 

And the truth is. So am I. 

If the shoe doesn't fit, throw it.

My littlest one has never really liked wearing shoes, but lately, she's been taking them off in public. And then refusing to put them back on. 

This is fine if you're at, say, the beach. Or, a grassy knoll. 

But in the middle of a store, the library, or A PUBLIC RESTROOM, it's ridiculously annoying. Gross, even.

I go from "put your shoes on please," to counting, to forcing them on her feet at which point she screams like I'm cutting off her pinky finger and then proceeds to just toss them off again. 

I carried her out of one store like a sack of potatoes under my arm, which left a fabulous impression on all the people behind me at the quality and ingenuity of my parenting skills. 

So I decided that I would win this little game because I'M THE MOMMY DAMNIT and I took her to the shoe store to get new shoes that would stay on her feet. Give me shoes that shine, flash, glow-in-the-dark and send smoke signals to fairies so long as she keeps them on her feet.

Lucky for me, the shoe sales people were 18-year olds with no children who apparently don't understand that the ability for them to take them off on their own is NOT a good thing. 

Screw independence. Give me duct tape! 

Then they did what every nice shoe sales person is supposed to do and offered to size her which PSHAW oh please. Good luck getting her to put her tiny foot on your fancy sizer thing. 

Which she did with no argument, smiling happily. Of course. 

"Now let me go see if I have those in a 7.5," the girl said, headed to the back, home of the sale section aka "shoes for children I can actually afford in your fancy shop." 

SEVEN AND A HALF? 

Poor kid's been wearing a 6. Or at least, I've been forcing her to wear a six until she throws them at my head. 

And quite honestly, I can't really blame her.

Language arts.

I try to take the questionable language my kids sometimes use in stride. So while a fresh, sassy mouth will get you a quick send-off to the corner, a random "sucks" or "what the hell" doesn't really bother me. 

Oh I still pop right up on my soapbox with a "those are adult words" and a "we don't say these to the neighbor kids PLEASE" talk, but then get sent on their merry way. I figure that so long as they can keep it in our house, or if they're a bit more unsavory in their rooms, we're all good. 

But this brilliant let's-get-upset-about-stuff-that's-actually-really-bad parenting doesn't take into account the tiny one in the house, which I discovered when she started calling me a Dumb-ask, which she heard from her brother which he heard from, well, we won't discuss that, but let's just say now my BFF's kid is saying it. 

I think the hardest part of the whole thing is not to laugh when she uses it in completely appropriate situations, like when her brother takes her piece of banana bread. Or when her sister elbows her.

I mean, they kind of are being dumbasses. Or Dumb-asks. 

A few days ago, we were at my in-laws (hey-yo, 10 minutes away, guys!) and my little 18-month old niece was there, who Bridget has deemed her archenemy because, well, she's always been the baby. 

"She's mean!" Bridget said to me, pointing at an adorable, smiley whispy-blonde haired toddler who is a dead ringer for a baby doll. 

"Blabbieprrrrrffffftmoooooo" replied her little cousin, scampering off in all her INCREDIBLE MEANNESS. 

Whoa, watch out. That kid is a TIGER! 

They played a bit more and then ended up near me in the kitchen, where for seemingly no reason, the little cousin reached out and pinched Bridget's arm in one of those slow motion you can see it coming but can't stop it in time situations, at which point Bridget gave me an I-told-you-so look before SCREECHING at the top of her lungs. 

It was more like a I WANT TO BE THE ONLY BABY kind of screech because lord knows Bridget can dish it out and can certainly take it, so one little toddler pinch would not cause her this much strife. 

But then, while my mother-in-law was trying to explain to the baby that pinching wasn't nice, Bridget turned around, walked right up to her, and said: 

YOU'RE A DUMB-ASK. 

As she walked back to the playroom, I got up to grab her, but then, sat right back down because you know, I can't say I really blame her.

And hey, it was better than pinching her back or calling her a SHITHEAD. 

{photo via}