I hate The Man

It's officially summer! The kids are finally out of school and we spent this morning eating pancakes, and making our weekly schedule and list of field trips. One of the things we have been planning to do is hold a bake sale to benefit Share Our Strength, a charity that focuses on childhood hunger. Our plan was to hold it during the morning commute at our local train station, selling breakfast items like muffins and scones, thinking the site of adorable children up at the ass-crack of dawn, all to benefit charity, would persuade the locals, most of them parents themselves, into donating. It would be like shooting fish in a coffee-cake-flavored barrel!

And then I called town hall.

I wanted to be sure we didn't need some kind of permit, before I spent a week baking and loaded my three kids and several cartons of baked goods in to the van at 6:00am. Turns out we don't. We can't do it AT ALL. The town does not allow any kind of fundraising on its property. The good news, I got from the poor woman I was interrogating, was that the town does not own the train station and I'd have to call New Jersey Transit. How bad could that go? I mean, why the hell would they care about some little Podunk train station out in the suburbs?

Turns out they don't. They care about being sued by some idiot who claims to have had an allergic reaction to something we made. We can do the bake sale if we write a letter of intent and only sell packaged goods from manufacturers. My kids were going to make breakfast breads and muffins! Homemade goodness! A Fiber One muffin I bought at Stop & Shop could never compete with a Mollorca sweet bread from Starbucks down the block (and what the hell is that anyway? I smell bullshit. More like Jersey City sweet bread).

I am enraged, dear readers. This fear of litigation is sucking all of the fun out of our society and our kids' childhoods. I am not asking to sell wine coolers, or crack. I would assume any reasonable adult with food allergies would be able to read the sign "contains nuts" and stay away from the banana nut bread, and if not, would be too embarrassed to sue. Or, at least, that should be the case. Why must we be protected from ourselves? All common sense seems to have gone out the window. We live in a society where our coffee cups need to warn us of their hot contents. Is this all really necessary? Aren't we messing with some kind of natural selection here?

So I have two choices. I can hold the World's Lamest Bake Sale, or I can sell our poisonous fare outside the local grocery store, since that's private property and they allow that sort of thing. I refuse to sell that packaged crap, so it looks like the latter, which I am thinking , will be way less successful. Now we'll have to try and sell baked goods to harried mothers and geriatrics, both of who often (infuriatingly) pay for their groceries with checks instead of guilt-ridden, over-worked parents who have a few quarters leftover after buying their morning joe. I plan on bending the law though. The town technically owns the sidewalk, so we would be restricted to the parking lot of the store, but a lot of people walk by that store on their way to the train. Whatevs po-po, I ain't on your sidewalk, I'm just at the very edge of this asphalt selling my wares, keep it movin'.

H, make sure you keep your cell on that day. And cash for bail.

Oh, Carnival Fish, why won't you die?

OK, OK, I know. It’s the end of the school year with all the attendant performances and random gifts that need to be purchased, so, please, no more, where-the-hell-are-you-mail. I’m barely hangin’ on here.

So, yes, that is a picture* of the goddamn carnival fish from last year. No, I’m not kidding. This fish is still alive. Not just alive, but thriving. Not much has changed in Harold’s small, boring world. He’s still only got the purple rocks, fake plant and pirate treasure chest to keep him company, and he’s still swimming in a bowl full of unfiltered tap water that usually includes a high percentage of fecal matter, but this fish behaves as if he’s in the rare tropical fish exhibit at Sea World.

I suppose part of what’s keeping him alive is his change in location. As I wrote last year, Harold had taken up residence in the girls’ room, which I decided was the best way to expedite his demise, knowing H’s care of pets has a distinct as-needed aspect – the dog has to literally be doing laps around H, scraping his asshole on the rug, ala Toby from the Stanley Steamer commercials**, in order for him to contemplate possibly taking him to the vet to have his annal glands squeezed*** - so it was less than likely he’d remember to change Harold’s shitty water.

So what happens? You all know. H does not change the water, as predicted, and I wind up bring Harold down to live in the kitchen where I give him the malocchio twice a day when I feed him , despite the girls’ promises that they would be in charge of his care. I keep making jokes about flushing him, while the girls squeal, “Nooo, Mommy!”. Then Christmas morning I come down and realize Harold is not moving. He’s sort of drifting around the bottom of the bowl, completely still. His bowl is directly in front of the kitchen window that had been left open during the Christmas Eve fish-fest. The combination of cold air and watching he aquatic brethren being butchered by the pound must’ve been to much for him. “You can’t die to day you little shit!” I yell as I frantically tap the side of the bowl. And he wakes with a start. The damn fish was asleep. I realized at that moment I’d miss this tough little asshole of a fish, and from that point on things have been different between me and Harold.

I’m not going to lie and say I love having a fish now. I still sigh dramatically as I wash all the fish crap out of the bottom of his bowl, but we have found a way to pleasantly coexist. As a reward for my perceived change of heart, Harold has started acting, for lack of a better word, like a dog. If you come over to his bowl, he swims right up to you, happily wagging his tail and popping his face above the surface. He has become our own Air Jaws, jumping a little bit out of the water when I feed him. Having cocktails in the kitchen one night****, H and I were convinced the faucet was leaking as we kept hearing water. It was Harold bobbing up and down at the surface, trying to get our attention.

The girls are so excited because Harold’s “Gotcha Day” is Friday. Exactly one year ago, we brought our little piscine friend home. They are determined to have a party, which, between planning the Girl Scout moving up ceremony, doing interviews for the new pre-school director, preparing for #2’s birthday party, Father’s Day for twelve, and my sister and her wife coming into town, is not going to happen. Harold and I have reached a begrudging peace, let’s not go too far.

Watch as I’m up at eleven o’clock at night Thursday night mixing up some Duncan Hines.

*Notice the evaporation ring of tap water calcification around the top since it’s been three weeks since I changed his water.
**I felt so validated after seeing that commercial, knowing I wasn’t the only one whose dog uses the carpet as a large piece of toilet paper. But sadly, I am not running to the phone to have my rugs cleaned afterwards.
***Which I'm sure is what the vet envisioned when he dreamed of caring for animals - wrestling a hundred pound dog to the ground to squeeze nasty gunk out of his asshole.
****We used to get dressed up and go out to bars where we were served drinks and snacks, now we hide in the kitchen trying to suck down alcohol so we don’t have to provide that service.

To Tweet or not to Tweet, that is the question...

You all know I have this blog as a means of keeping my sanity and preventing my brain from being filled entirely with lyrics from Sesame Street songs and the names of The Fresh Beat Band, but over the past, almost four years, a few of you have suggested ways I market myself and Mean Mommy to gain readership and, if H had his way, some cash. H installed the ridiculous content based adds you see, and I do keep tabs on my stats occasionally, but really, even if only my immediate family were reading, I would still be doing this because I love it. I am beginning to wonder though, with all the resources out there whether or not I'm being a bit of a simpleton about this writing game and perhaps I need to enter the modern age and use some of the tools at my disposal.

A reader recently suggested in her comment, that I put a Facebook "like" button on the blog - which might not be a bad idea. Although I primarily see Facebook as a non-threatening way to see what losers you ex's turned out to be, and for everyone to try and win the My Life is the Most Fun or My Kids are the Cutest Contest, it would be a way to really drum up some readers. I'll do that as soon as I figure out how to work this flux capacitor - or wait until H gets back from his FIVE day business trip* and ask him to do it.

My neighbor also suggested I start Tweeting. This is the second person in two days, over the age of thirty (shout out Arti), I have discovered Tweets. Up until now, Tweeting, for me, fell squarely in the "Nobody Cares" category of show-off behavior. We all, myself included with this blog, are too sure that other people want to know all about us. Other than celebrities, whose every bowel movement we want to know about, who the hell cares about the minutiae of someone else's life? I've de-Friended people on Facebook for posting too often about too dull things ("Great tuna sandwich at lunch. I need a mint!"), Tweeting seems like it would be that in spades. But then my neighbor explained I could Tweet teasers about new posts, or even comments related to recent ones. The teasers seem like direct advertising, which I'm not sure I want to do. I sort of like it when people stumble upon me by word or mouth, or accidentally. I'd be too afraid of disappointing anyone I lured in myself.

She does have a point about Tweets related to recent blogs though. There have been many, many times, something has happened right after I've posted, that I want to share with you guys, but I don't want to put up just two lines about an old post. For example, the morning after my Lightening my Load post, I discovered, after #1 asked why I still pee with the door open, that I can pee with the door closed for the first time in nine years without the fear of someone killing themselves in the ninety seconds it takes me (you want to be behind a mom in line for the bathroom at a major sporting event or concert, she will also have baby wipes when they inevitably run out of TP). If I were Tweeting, I could have Tweeted, "Just discovered that, in addition to no longer needing diapers, I can pee with the door closed!" Well, I think it's funny.

I have to mull this one over, dear readers. While I'm not exactly technologically averse, I'm just not that into new stuff until someone, usually H, clearly shows me how useful it can be, ala, my Blackberry. And since H doesn't even have a Facebook account, I'm not sure how helpful he'll be in the Twitter world. And I can't help but feel I'm too old for this. Will my signing up for Twitter akin to your grandmother Friending you on Facebook?

And speaking of Facebook, I have to figure out this "like" button thing...

*I loved being texted from another continent that it was rubbish night and after taking the kids to the school pool party from 6pm-8pm, then bathing them and putting them to bed, I got to drag seven, fifty pound contractor bags to the curb, only to notice half way up the driveway, they were all leaking a brown, primordial ooze from having sat in the garbage shed for four months.

Lightening my load...

"There's a really cute, hot pink, Kate Spade diaper bag I'm looking at. Mother's Day gift?"

This was the text I sent to H as I wandered around Buy Buy Baby, helping a friend register for her baby shower. This bag, pictured left, was so cute and so me. It was the antithesis to the camouflage diaper bag I bought in a fit of pride upon discovering my last child was male. H's reply?


"Maybe, if we still used, you know, diapers. I think what you carry now is called 'a purse'."

Huh. It really had not dawned on me that I have, in fact, moved out of the diaper, and therefore, diaper bag, phase of my life. I have, on occasion, still dragged out the camo bag for particularly long, or dirty, outings, like to the zoo, not wanting to sully my fake Tory Burch with sunscreen and juice box straw wrappers, but on a day-to-day basis, I have actually been carrying a purse. When did that happen?

Then I began to realize, without any great pomp or circumstance, I have reached a lot of parenting milestones for the last time and didn't blink an eye. The biggest one, as H mentioned, is diapers. Little Man still wears one at night to sleep, and to take a massive shit in while he lies in bed in the morning, the consummate male, too lazy to get up, lounging in his own filth, rather than use the potty two feet away from his bed or coming to get me once he has unloaded in his pants. But other than that, he is potty trained during the day. A jumbo box of diapers gets us through almost three months (and no, I won't buy Pull-Ups. Twice the price of diapers, four times as hard to get off, and ten times less absorbent, LM can do without the fancy Cars and Toy Story logo, thank you). At Target the other day, I realized I do not, for the first time, need to buy swim diapers - which are really diapers in the academic sense in that they prevent any solid waste for causing a baby Ruth situation at the town pool. Although I've seen enough brown-streaked toddler legs to make me gag. Regardless of the type of fecal containment system it is, I don't need one during the day.

The list goes on and on. Sippy cups, for example, used to come tumbling out of our over-crowded cabinets in an avalanche of character themed plastic, and now we only have four or five of them that are used in the morning at breakfast, when I really just can't handle any spills without turning into Mommy Dearest. Those adhesive plastic table liners you use to stop your kid from eating finger food directly off the filthy Friendly's table are a thing of the past, as are the need for a booster seat at restaurants. And now that LM is hell on wheels on his new Cars 2 bike, I think even my stroller days are numbered.

Out to dinner with last night with avid reader, turned new pal, A, she showed me the lovely clutch she had just bought as her new everyday bag. Having preteen children, she was able to get all of her vitals into a bag the size of a large sandwich. I stared in wonder, but really, I am not that far off. Taking inventory of my own emergency supply list, I realized, the necessities come down to a bottle of water, a bag of pretzels, a spare pair of tighty-whities and shorts, and, having a son, Band-Aids. Lots and lots of Band-Aids. A small hobo** would do nicely.

In the end, the bag I wound up buying this spring was a hot pink, monogrammed, LL Bean tote. Big enough for the supply list above, but small enough to prevent me from overloading it with crap. This bag is a baby, or should I say, big-kid step, toward the new phase in my life. I'm not ready to commit to a bag not big enough to lose my phone in on a daily basis. Someday, will be able to buy an every day bag that is not machine washable, and when that day comes, the bag department at Nordstrom had better be prepared.

*And thank God I only buy fakes, since during Mother's Day brunch, #1 dropped a full glass of ice water, glass, and all, sideways into my purse.
**The style of bag, not a homeless midget

Take the hall pass...

On this beautiful, early summer day, I decided to pick #2 up for lunch and take her out. Being my middle child, she often gets short shrift in terms of alone time with me. #1 stays up later, so she and I get to watch Gilmore Girls, and Little Man is only in school mornings, so we get the afternoons to hang out. There really isn’t any time when #2 isn’t competing for attention, so every once in a while, she and I have a clandestine lunch date at a café on main street in New Town, where we get to talk about what sounds koalas make or how she wants to go to Hawaii.

In order to make time for this lunch, I ran around like a headless chicken all morning, resulting in a very full bladder once I reached the school.* Knowing I wouldn’t make it to the café without wetting myself, I ducked into netherworld that is the girl’s bathroom and was instantly transported back to my own school days.

The bathroom at school is more than just a place to take care of business. It can be a quiet refuge from the pressure of the classroom or the schoolyard. Getting a little fed up with this morning’s fractions lesson? Raise your hand and you’ve bought yourself five to eight minutes of peace – provided you haven’t abused the privilege. Never a trouble maker, my third grade teacher called my parents to see if I was suffering from any health issues when I began to asked to be excused several times a day, rather than accuse me of skipping out on lessons. My response when my parents concernedly inquired about my frequent trips to the loo? “I’m bored.”

After being in a loud, active classroom, the bathroom is eerily quiet. You can hear every breath and tinkle – a fact that contributed to my never, EVER, going #2 at school. You can stare at yourself in the shatterproof mirror, or read the scandalous graffiti left behind by 5th graders, that usually involves the word “Poop” or “Pee”, and be secretly thrilled to read the rare one that involves a real swear word. If a friend or acquaintance happens to wander in, you’ve hit the jackpot. Having a chat in the bathroom in primary school is equivalent to standing around the water cooler at the office. You can roll your eyes about the boss ranting about late homework and bitch about your co-workers hogging the purple marker.

The bathroom can also be a scary place if you happen to walk in on a gaggle of older kids solo. Hoping to escape any ribbing, you duck into a stall, hoping they’ll be gone by the time you have to wash your hands, which you will avoid doing if they are hanging out by the sink. The bathroom is Notre Dame for bad kids, “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” Teachers and the principal are rarely going to invade the bathroom to see what some kid is doing, In my day, it was just an inappropriate feeling that kept the adults out, now it’s the fear of being labeled a pedophile** which allows frustrated ne’er-do-wells to clog the sink with industrial-grade brown paper towels, that were as effective at drying hands as construction paper, and lock all the stalls from the inside.

Not wanting to ruin the one place kids can get away from adults for five friggin’ minutes, I exited quickly and made my way down the hall to #2’s classroom, chuckling to myself as remembered my own walks back to class. So today, to honor that, I walked slowly, examining the hallway billboards, stopped to get a drink at the fountain, that still tasted like a handful of nickels, and generally took my sweet time. It just didn’t feel the same without a fraction lesson waiting for me.

*The number one cause of UTIs in women ages 25-40? Raising children.
**That was me today, as I startle three 2nd graders having an in depth discussion about iCarly.