The thing I wished for didn't really make me happy. Now I kind of feel bad for the kid

The last time my mother babysat, she left this little present for Junior:



I’ve written before about my disdain for Caillou, the sickly looking character on PBS Kids. Junior loves him; I feel nauseous whenever I see him. The life depicted on the TV show is sickeningly sweet. Yes, it’s a kid’s show but do people really giggle incessantly over nothing? Does the family ever have a bad day?

Apparently, yes. Caillou and his family do have crappy days—in their print lives. “Caillou Hurry Up!” features a leaner and meaner Mommy and Daddy. In fact a more apt title for “Caillou Hurry Up!” might be “Mommy and Daddy Resent You, Caillou, Because We are Tired and Overworked.”

Without boring you, a quick synopsis: Mommy and Daddy oversleep. Mom tells Caillou to eat breakfast. The damn cat knocks over a plant. Dad yells at Caillou to get dressed then shoves the cat outside.



On the way to get dressed, Mom screams at Caillou for not eating breakfast. Then, tragedy strikes: younger sister Rosie is sick. Mom has to drag her to grandma’s so she can go to work. Caillou tries to liberate the cat. Daddy loses his shit on Caillou for not eating or getting dressed and—horrors—wanting to go to grandma’s too.



Caillou cries. Daddy apologizes and says he’s tired, blah, blah, blah. Mom pours her Screwdriver into her travel mug and whisks Caillou off to daycare. The end.

With each page turn, I grew more depressed. Where were the giggles and hearts I so despised but Junior so craved?

Save the whales!

I felt I needed to give Junior a post-story recap.

“Look,” I told him, “it’s not Caillou’s fault his parents woke up in pissy moods because they can’t properly set their alarm clock. And it’s perfectly reasonable he’d want to protect the poor cat and go to his grandmother’s. He’s four. Everything about his behavior is normal for a child. The morning’s derailment is Caillou’s parents’ fault, not Caillou’s.”

Junior said he understood, but when he wasn’t looking I hid the book under the couch cushion.

I tried to understand why I was so bothered. Why did I care so much about a creepy, hairless kid? Then it hit me. The story reminds me of what I hear in grocery store parking lots and on playgrounds and at daycare and pre-school drop-offs every day, which is: WE ARE IN A HURRY. MOVE IT. COME ON! GET IN THE CAR. GET OUT OF THE CAR. HURRY UP. I SAID NOW.

Just yesterday I watched a mother slap her son for shouting good-bye to his friend from his carseat because “We have to get going, Bradley!” This morning, as Junior and I walked into pre-school, a mother threatened to leave her crying daughter in the parking lot because “I’m going to be late for work, Cassandra! HURRY UP.”

This hurry-up-or-else mentality is kind of horrible, and it’s kind of prevalent.

I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we slowed down for a minute and really looked at what our children are asking of us while we’re doing all this yelling. That little boy in the carseat was excited to say good-bye to his friend. That little girl just wanted to spend more time with her mother. Stupid Caillou just wanted to save his fugly cat.

Now I don’t know, maybe Bradley yells from his carseat 24-7, and his mom has had it. Or maybe Cassandra cries and dawdles in the parking lot every morning, and her mother has had it. I’ve certainly lost my patience because Junior is taking F-O-R-E-V-E-R to walk to the car. And I’m certainly not suggesting we put life on hold to meet our children’s every whim...

...But it seems that there are a lot of people who are perpetually pissed off at their kids because they’re a hindrance to their busy schedules, and the bottom line is that it’s not the kid’s fault.

(Did I mention I really hated "Caillou Hurry Up!"?)

I’m making a conscious effort to hurry Junior less. I really am. If you’d hurry up and comment, DAMMIT, I’d know how you feel, too. I MEAN NOW. YOU'RE MAKING US LATE.

Random Tuesday Thoughts: Honey, you forgot to mow the kitchen counter

If you need evidence that the human race has hit rock bottom, look no further. Snookie is publishing a romance novel. If you don’t know who Snookie is, I’m jealous. I wouldn’t say I’m addicted to Jersey Shore, but I do watch it sometimes. I can’t help it. Any day now, one of the cast is going to catch such a bad case of herpes or gonorrhea that their limbs fall off, and I want to be there to see it.

Thank God someone invented a cure for unsightly dish racks. Fake grass on your counter looks so much better.



But where is the watering can coffee maker? And the coiled garden hose toaster? If someone’s going to suggest that regular kitchen apparatuses are aesthetically unacceptable, there needs to be more follow through, dammit. I need cohesion. How can we be asked to settle for just grass when we deserve so much more? How?

Yes, those are my pregnancy hormones talking. They’re the same ones that yelled out my window to the woman who let her poodles poop on my front walkway. I’ve never yelled out the window at anyone. It felt kind of good—though I think it would have felt even better if I’d been holding a rocket grenade launcher and had one leg up on the window sill, like I was ready to spring.

Why think small?

Before we can move to Mulletville Lite we need to remove black mold from my father’s basement. Chuck said mold removal takes precedence over painting. “Not when you’re painting a bedroom that used to be the bedroom your parents smushed* in,” I said. It’s true: being exposed to both can cause dizziness, nausea and vomiting.

Especially vomiting.

We’re throwing my friend Jen a bachelorette party this week (she’s the one who had her identity stolen by the Russian mafia, among other things). The evening includes fondue, specialty waxing—yep, an expert is stopping by for wax jobs—and this



Because what bachelorette party is complete without a penis cake? My friend Ana is baking the masterpiece, and she looked to me for guidance. Of course.

First, there was the question of ethnicity. After some debate, we decided on an attractive shade of tan. Then, the obvious question of testicular accoutrements. Ana was full of ideas: “I was looking online and someone covered the balls with chocolate sprinkles. It looked good. But I think if I can find the black licorice strings and curl them - that that might look better/grosser...I may try to make veins to, but that may be too much for me to handle.”

How could you not love this woman?

I think I’ll stop the randomness right there so you enjoy that graphic image of a penis cake for a while. Consider it my gift to you.

No, thank you.

*If you don’t know what smushing is, I’m jealous. Essentially, it’s what the cast of Jersey Shore does 24-7. Their word, not mine.

A special note from me to Heidi Klum

I don't really like Motherhood Maternity. Nothing fits quite right, and their return policy is bullshit (no returns! Not one). Alas, their clothes are cheap and their stores plentiful so I find myself there.

(I'd still never buy this seasonal nightmare. I may be pregnant but I'm not interested in looking like a heinous red snowball, thank you.)



The last time I shopped there, I needed clothes for work. Desperately. I spent about $200. To my sheer delight, the cashier told me I qualified for a free gift from Heidi Klum.

Even though some of Klum's clothing line for Motherhood Maternity is downright fugly—I love the pregnant streetwalker look



—I was still excited. I heart me some free shit. And from Heidi Klum nonetheless. The fashionista. The woman whose maternity tunics fetch $130 a pop at Pea in the Overpriced Pod. One of the richest models ever. What delights awaited me?

I rushed home, greedily opened my bag and found this, a clear plastic "Loved" bag emblazened with ladybugs and stuffed with tissue paper.



Disappointing, yes. Hearts and ladybugs stopped being cute about the time I started menstruating. But maybe inside. Maybe there was an autographed bra she'd worn on the runway or a never-before-seen picture of her with Tim Gunn or one of Willy Wonka's golden tickets or one of Klum's skin care products or some of her queer clover-shaped jewelry (Jesus, this woman knows how to market herself) or...

...no. Inside was a dumb little ladybug compact with a funhouse mirror (I can see myself better in my bathroom faucet fixtures) and a mini notebook with a pleather cover for recording all my special thoughts.

In essence, more useless junk from China that will look lovely in my garbage can. Kind of like the plastic crap that comes with Happy Meals. You know, the stuff you wouldn't let your dog chew on? (Or poop on, it's that chintzy.)

It set me off, Ms. Klum's "generous" gift. Granted, she's never named the planet as one of her causes, but couldn't she have done a little better? Haven't we got enough plastic chotchkies in our landfills? When do we get to turn off the machines and give the planet a break?

When?

Maybe I should lighten up. I mean, I did find a use for the notebook:

Everywhere we go-o people wanna know-o

Where did your husband get those butt ugly shoes?

Yes, those are shoes. They're called Fivefingers and they're part of a new trend called "barefooting." All the cool kids are doing it.

Vibram, one of the companies that makes them (in addition to dog boots and dog toys that look a lot like their shoes), claims "Like the rest of the body, to keep our feet healthy, they need to be stimulated and exercised."

Gah! Some days I don't have time to poo, never mind worry that my damn feet are stimulated.

Chuck loves—loves—his gloved feet. Personally, I think they make him look like a cross between a monkey and robo-man. Every time I see them I start humming Mr. Roboto. And yuck, having each of my toes separated like fingers in a glove would drive me nuts. What if one of your toes is grossly enlarged? What if you step on a sharp rock? Or in a mound of snow?

Or have webbed feet? (Sorry, no shoes for you.)

Having said all that, there is one amazing detail to these shoes that prevents me from "misplacing" them: They are machine washable.

Goodbye, Odor Eaters. Hello, um, apemanthing.



What about you? Do you, like, barefoot?

The part of the story where I dye my hair pink and get a nose ring. Alternate title: Does anyone have $100 they can loan me?

We spent a lot of time at my father’s house—which is soon to be our house—in Mulletville Lite this weekend. Our friends, Don and Matty, drove down to help us paint. On the way, they dropped off their two kids with their grandparents. I had to ask them, “Are you sure you want to spend a free night without your kids painting?”

Without hesitating they said yes.

Chuck whispered, “Do you see what’s ahead with two kids? Our idea of fun is going to be so watered down we’ll paint just to escape.”

I looked down at my big ass bump.

“It’s a little late for forebodings, dipshit,” I whispered back. We watched them pick their brushes. “Look. They don’t even know they’re not doing something fun. They don’t know it can be better. We’ll forget, too.”

That made him feel a lot better.

While they painted, Junior and I played with matchbox cars my father had saved from when my brother, Ted, was little. My father’s 90% done moving out, but he’s left plenty of "treasures" behind. Like boxes of school papers and old dressers full of clothes and toys.

God I need a drink.

After the smash ’em crash ’em car game, Junior and I looked out the window and watched the neighbor’s daughter, Rebecca, wash her car.

“Mommy used to take the school bus with Becky,” I told Junior. “And right there is where the school bus used to pick us up. In a few years, that’s where you might get the school bus.”

At dinnertime we ordered a pizza. While the happy painters and Chuck took a break, I went to pick it up.

“Mrs. Mullet?” the cashier said.

“Yes?”

“Omigawd your face hasn’t changed!”

Omigawd, it was Cheryl Blahblahblah. I’d gone to elementary school with Cheryl 30 years ago. Her face was still shaped like the moon. At my tenth birthday party she’d told our friends that she saw my father pick his nose. I’d hated her for that. Now there she was, in a plaid smock, selling me a pepperoni pizza.

After I left, I sat in my car for a few minutes.

Life suddenly felt like Sweet Home Alabama, minus a hot Southern fiance who wanted to butter my muffin.

Mulletville Lite is rampant with memories. I’m racking my brain trying to decide if that’s a good or a bad thing. I don’t know why I have to decide. I just do. I quiz myself: Would it be better to live somewhere totally new? Or is it preferable to go back to something I know? Does that make me small-minded? Will moving to Mulletville Lite mean my life is a record stuck on the same track of “remembers whens”?

What about adventure? Exploration? The unknown?

“There is none,” Chuck said later that night. We were back home in Mulletville. Everyone was in bed, including Don and Matty, who were spending the night.

“We’re going to have two kids,” Chuck continued. “It’s all about school systems and safe neighborhoods. Reliable cars and snow tires.”

“Snow tires?” I cried. “And you’re down on people who enjoy painting?!”

“It’s just the way it is.”

I refused to believe it. I told him as much. “Life can still be exciting with kids. I bet you one hundred dollars that Don and Matty are boinking their brains out in your man room right now. I bet they’re as wild and crazy as ever!”

“Ew,” Chuck said. “Impossible.”

“One hundred dollars.”

We crept out of bed and snuck down the hallway and then—I know, gross—we put our ears to the door.

Total silence.

Well, except for Chuck snickering his way back to the bedroom.

Confessions of a middle school smut peddler

I used to love to read my step-sister Erin’s diary. Compared to the banal existence I led as an eleven-year-old, her experiences as a freshman in high school were so much cooler. She had a real boyfriend, and they were serious. She wrote about their French kissing and boob groping in great detail. It was more salacious than Judy Bloom’s Wifey (which I also read in her bedroom).

The best part—besides the fact that I had to sneak under her bed to read the latest entries while she was at cheerleading practice—was that her boyfriend had written in a bunch of “Oh, baby” comments in the margins.

It was good shit.

Then one day, there was an entry about me. Specifically, how she found me annoying and dumb. I was heartbroken. I confessed to my mother that I’d read Erin’s diary and she told Erin, who took it better than expected. We sat down and she told me how she’d written the entry out of anger because I’d borrowed her sweater without asking and how we say things we don’t mean when we’re angry.

I apologized and swore I’d never do it again (wear the sweater or read the diary).

The next day, when I went to read her diary, a new one was in its place, and it was locked. I was pretty bummed. I’d been passing along the French kissing and boob grabbing juiciness to my friends and had become the unofficial smut peddler of the group. I didn’t want to lose my clout. Thankfully my step-father’s top drawer housed a cheesy collection of R-rated videos.

I have one word for you: Hardbodies. It’s a classic.

Anyway. I started my own diary/journal after Erin denied me access to hers (the nerve!). I kept at it with ridiculous religiousness, amassing about 15 journals that span ages 10-28. Yesterday, as I packed up my woman room, I found them all at the bottom of my closet. As I rifled through them, a few thoughts crossed my mind, like:

Why the fuck did I write so much?

What the hell am I going to do with all of these?

Did I have a pen stuck to my forehead for 18 years or did I actually manage to simultaneously live and write the equivalent of 50 novels?

How many observations can one person make about life in Connecticut?

For a minute I thought about burning the journals. I’ve never burned anything. I think that makes me kind of boring. Our yard is small, though, so a fire could get ugly. So could the headlines: “Woman’s past responsible for destroying her future.”

Tragic.

I thought about sitting down and reading them right then and there, but I was home with Junior—who has croup by the way, good times—so leisure reading wasn’t an option. Then I thought about making Chuck read them every night before bed so I could quiz him:

“What was I doing on July 25, 2001 at 3:52 p.m.? Dammit, Chuck! We’ve been over this! You don’t know me. How can you say you know me?”

Sigh. What does one do with 18 years of recorded fillyfoof?

Save them, my friend Sandy told me. “When our husbands die and we become roommates, we can rehash.”

Out of all the options, that one struck me as best. I don’t want to take any trips down memory lane right now, especially since the journals lack the joie de boob groping that Erin’s possessed. (Note to self: When writing journals in the future, make them steamier. Hello.) If I croak first, I’ll write it into my will that Chuck has to read them to his new wife.

Myeas. Mwahahaha. Instead of The Notebook, it’ll be Mrs. Mullet’s Many Notebooks. Starring Eva Mendes as me and Survivorman as Chuck (really, he’s Chuck’s doppleganger), Junior and Diddlydoo.

What about you? Do you have a journal(s)? When did you start? Do you fondly reread them or have they grown cobwebs? And really, does it get any better than Hardbodies*?

*Yes.

Random Tuesday thoughts: Corn and ham

Every night Junior crawls out of bed, walks into the bedroom and says, “I have to ask you something. Would you try to eat a moose?” Chuck and I say yes, and he goes back to bed.

I thought stalling toddlers were supposed to ask for water.

When Chuck and I first moved to Mulletville, Chuck was way into all things Viking. When we looked at colors for Junior’s room and Chuck saw “Viking Blue” he was S-E-T. I didn’t like the color, so I asked the woman at Home Depot if she could give me a different shade but put the “Viking Blue” label on the can. She could. She also said it happens quite frequently. (You know who you are.) I thought my little secret was safe until Chuck said he’d go to Home Depot and get another can so we could paint Junior’s new room the same color. “Um, honey...”

There are worse things to lie about.

Seriously.

I love ivillage, but I wish they hadn’t picked corn. All I can think about is how easy it would be to birth an ear of corn. I don't want to think thoughts like that. Corn is for BBQs.



People keep asking me if Chuck and I have picked out names for kid #2. This is my least favorite question. I started saying that we're thinking of the name Diddlydoo. The problem is, I’ve said it so many times that I’m actually starting to like the name Diddlydoo. How can you be in a bad mood when your kid is named Diddlydoo? On the other hand, how can you reprimand someone named Diddlydoo?

“Dammit, Diddlydoo! Did you diddle in your dinosaur pajamas?”

I’ve been having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions, so I saw the doctor yesterday. She really worked me over. Since I’d never seen that particular doctor before, I asked if she was new. “I’m sorry,” she said, pulling off her rubber gloves, “I should have introduced myself before cramming my fist in your crotch.”*

It reminded me of being labor, when random people would wander into the room to check on the progress of my woman cave. They could have been janitors (and at that point I didn't really care).

Thinking about labor reminds me of something Blossom star Mayim Bialik recently said: “There are those among us who believe that if the baby can’t survive a home labor, it is OK for it to pass peacefully. I do not subscribe to this, but I know that some feel that … if a baby cannot make it through birth, it is not favored evolutionarily.”

"Those among us"? "Some feel"? Who are these mysterious beings? And look, without modern medicine, neither Junior nor I would be here right now, and there would have been nothing peaceful about it. Shit like that really pisses me off.

*Ok, the doctor didn’t really say that. But she should have.

Do I win the ham now?