Mommy, why is Santa in a pit in the basement?

Since I’ve had kids, I love Christmas more than ever….on December 25^th. But on June 26^th, I hate it with a passion that I normally reserve for automated phone systems and Matt Lauer.

Now before I start a virtual riot, I don’t mean the Jesus part (which should be the whole thing, but let’s face it, if you’re able to keep half-focused on the savior’s birth while grappling with some razor-elbowed wench for the last Hickory Farms cheese brick, then you’re really doing something). No, I’m referring to the Santa/presents/material gluttony part, which apparently is an infection that can flare up at any time of the year. And they don’t make a Valtrex for the I wants.

Since mid-April, Suttie has periodically suckered me into a game of yuletide 20 questions, which always follows the same sequence: How long is it going to be until Christmas? Is six months a long time? Do you think Santa is gonna bring me the Angry Birds Mega Fling game? Are Buddy and Holly still wearing their special clothes?

Now all of that should have made sense to you, except the last one if you weren’t privy to the tragedy of our shelf-dwelling elves last December. Long story short, I hid our elves on top of the kitchen chandelier, my unwitting husband turned on the lights, and the elves got toasted asses. Instead of scarring our son with the reality that his magical elf was really filled with charred rolls of cardboard, I added insult to injury by hot-gluing fabric to the burned spots and calling it “Special Scout Elf Trimming” (basically, our version of an elf’s Purple Heart). He bought it because kids are stupid, and now Buddy and Holly’s flannel patches are a permanent part of our holiday ethos.

Buddy's "special" trimming

Back to Christmas in June. I suppose that my biggest mistake was digging out Buddy and Holly and having them deliver Suttie’s replacement trampoline a couple of months ago (trampoline 1.0 ended up 200 feet in a wheat field after a storm). I saw photos on Facebook posted by other parents who had lovingly set up their off-season elves with signs that read, “Happy Easter, Cannon!” or “Santa let us visit because you’ve been such a good boy.”

Here at the O’Neal estate, Buddy and Holly’s note went a little something like this: “Suttie, here’s your trampoline. Quit talking so much in school and pay attention to your teacher. Santa is always watching…” followed by a collage of peering eyes that I cut out from outdated magazines. Listen, we bought those dead-eyed imps for a reason, people, and I’m not one to waste an opportunity for a little behavioral manipula…I mean, guidance.

But, jumping on the elf-powered bandwagon backfired because, immediately after that, Suttie took to singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” during his more productive potty breaks (he gets bored, and I won’t let him take the iPad like his dad does). Now, two months later, I’m one mid-summer reading of It’s Christmas, David! away from printing a fake newspaper with the headline, “Santa Killed in Rabid Reindeer Stampede…The Heat Miser Suspected of Foul Play.”

Which brings me to my final point (if we pretend that the above muddle was actually leading somewhere). To the network execs at Nickelodeon and Disney XD, why can’t you copy every other station and advertise diabetes testing supplies and life alert bracelets during the daytime hours? Instead, you run ads for every cheaply made, As Seen on TV gimmick under the sun, each of which my child now believes is part of what makes life worth living. This is only adding to his Christmas mania and my rapidly shrinking Grinch heart.

Every time he sees a commercial for Stompeez or Stuffies or those God forsaken Dreamlites, he says, “I like to stuff things or I love stomping; I’m gonna put that on my Christmas list for Santa to bring.” And I’m gonna tell you right now, if Santa even thinks about bringing a Slushy Magic into this house, ours will be the last non-existent chimney he ever jiggles his figgy pudding down.

So, heads up…if you continue to aggravate my child’s Christmas fever with plugs for a bunch of made-in-China parental torture devices that are gonna do nothing but take up space in my trash can come February, then we’ll be forced to switch over to PBS full time. And if you’ve ever seen an episode of LazyTown (aka, the world’s creepiest kids show) you know, if that happens, neither of us wins.

…..seriously though, why are half of the LazyTown characters prosthetic humans and the other half animated mannequins? It doesn’t make any damn sense, and it’s just one more Suttie question that I have to answer after “Why’s Rudolph’s nose so red?” (Because, son, he’s on that wacky dust, the billie hoke, Bernie’s gold dust, the Big C. His entire paycheck goes straight up his snout. Drugs are bad, Mmmkay).

56 more days and counting...

Remember when I was all like, “Yay! It’s summer! No more childcare! Too hot to play outside! Woohoo!” Yeah, that’s because it didn’t happen. In fact, I marked off the last school days of May with frowny faces that eventually had x’s for eyes.

Suttie and Molly hitting this air vent for fun

Truth: I have never been nor will I ever be one of those moms who gets excited about summer, but I envy the moms who are. My summer days consist of one thing: surviving ‘til naptime. The good lord did me a solid in giving me children who sleep well during the day; they will literally take a 3-4 hour afternoon nap on the daily. I think it’s his way of making up for giving me way too much crass and far too little patience.

And when naptime finally arrives and the kids are tucked haphazardly into their beds, it’s like Miami the day after Game 7 around here. I come down the stairs from their bedrooms and the toys are all cheering and waving superhero capes like they’re flags and tossing construction paper scraps like confetti…..which I’ll have to clean up later, but I don’t care…..and I’m pointing back at them, saying “No, you, Weeble village, you made it happen today. Way to go, Angry Birds, we couldn’t have gotten here without you.” Then I spray us all down with Dr. Pepper because we don’t keep fancy champagne in the house. It’s magical.

But getting to that sweet naptime hour is the real challenge. Because, apparently, kids like to do stuff.  Now, if it was me, we’d sit quietly for five hours, eat lunch, stare out a window for another hour and then off to bed. But nooooooo…they insist on being entertained and engaged and kept alive. So instead, I have to put on my cruise director hat that I stole from that cruise director that one time and plan out our days.

Each and every morning, without fail, Suttie wakes me up by asking, “Where are we going today?” And on the mornings when he’s up before six, I have to clasp my hands over my mouth to keep from responding, “The Harris Home for Children, but only one of us is coming back.”

My great plan before the summer actually started was to sign him up for two rounds of swim lessons (that’s 4 weeks total) to get us out of the house on the regular. But it came with a serious cost……..and that cost is having to put sunscreen on both children…every. single. morning. You moms know what I’m talking about – it’s awful. You have to get goopy white sunscreen all over your hands, and they’re crying because they say you got it in their eyes, and they’re probably right, but you can’t worry about it cause the little one is trying to drink SPF100. Then you forget to put any on yourself, so you get burned except for that one handprint that you made on your leg when you were trying to get in the car. That spot got covered and now waves at everyone as you walk.

In fact, the whole sunscreen ordeal has started to make me a bit delusional. The other day, we were watching Sid the Science Kid, and ole’ Sid was contemplating the invention of a machine that would apply sunscreen over one’s entire body in an instant. You step in, you get blasted, you step out and you’re UV impervious…genius, Sid! I’ve since sent letters to all of the major tech companies asking what the hell they’ve done for me lately.

Then we go to the pool, and I have to entertain (aka, feed) Molly for a straight 40 minutes or until she absolutely can’t take being in the stroller anymore, after which we play the “who can get to the edge of the pool faster: Mommy or Molly” game, sometimes followed by “Does it float: Molly edition.” The answer is no.

Last week, Suttie's preschool’s summer daycare program showed up at the pool for swim time immediately after his lesson, and I seriously thought about slipping him in with the group and leaving, just to see how long it would take the teachers to realize that it’s summer and he wasn’t supposed to be there.

I also had big summer plans to work on his sight words. We’ve gotten as far as teaching him how to spell “Power Rangers” so that he can look up videos by himself on YouTube. Now I’m looking toward the end of swim lessons, when we still have a month of summer left, but unfortunately, most of the kids’ camps and activities are already full. So I’m having to explore other avenues for keeping him occupied, including krav maga classes, a resume writing workshop, and speed dating.

So when you selfless, rock star moms are posting statuses in August that read, “So sad that school starts tomorrow [teared-up frowny face],” please don’t call me out for hopping on the comment list with “Awww, me too!” Just let me ride those good mom coattails for one brief, shining moment, and I’ll continue to write the stuff about our kids that most moms would rather not say out loud.

We've got a Stage 5 clinger...

Suttie rockin' the goggles

If you’ve ever told someone, “Tell me if she/he starts getting on your nerves,” in regard to your child overstepping some basic social boundary, you’re too late. It’s already happening.

I mean, there was a reason why you said it, right? A reason why you thought that little Cannon’s actions might not be especially pleasing to his unsoliciting target? Now imagine that he’s not your kid and that you’re not obligated to love him unconditionally. Are you there, in the place where you can see that what he’s doing is annoying as piss? Good, ‘cause you’re late to the party.

We’ve all been there – either as the bothersome kids or their oblivious parents or the poor soul who’s forced to lie back and think of England. 

So I think it’s high time that we, as parents, make a notarized pledge to try to minimize these awkward, my-kid’s-in-your-face–but-I’m-gonna-pretend-that-you-like-it kind of moments.

And you might be wondering, “But, Kate, where is this coming from? Have you been annoyed by the unwanted presence of a stranger’s child in recent days?” And the answer is, yes, yes I frickin’ have.

It all started on Monday, the first day of Suttie’s two-week long session of swim lessons. Two-weeks…everyday, people. That’s a lot of exposure to unfamiliar moms and kids. And it’s usually great. You meet people, you chat poolside, you see them 9 months later at a tball game, and you pretend that you remember each other’s names.  But every now and again, you have an encounter that makes you want to head for the car and invest in some adult-size floaties.

Cue, Jane. Jane is an adorable two-year-old little girl from a family of 5 children, 2 dogs, and 1 cat (as confirmed by their van’s stick figure census) whose mom thinks that all of her kids, especially the littlest ones, are sent straight from the most sanctified regions of Heaven.

I get it; I love my kids, too. I just know that, before they were blessed with the O’Neal moniker, they came from some divine nursery with “Probably Gonna Make it Back Here Some Day” and crossed fingers etched on the door (and Molly was only there as a legacy).

At this point, I should establish that babies are like crack to little girls; they cannot resist them and they’re willing to do time for it. Thus, Molly’s presence was too much for little Jane to ignore, and she was glued to us from day 1.

On that first day, she introduced herself and then immediately began emptying the Minnie Mouse backpack full of snacks and toys that I’d packed for my child. One after another, she ate the raisins, the yogurt melts, and the baby mum mum crackers, which wasn’t a huge deal – I made sure that Molly had enough to maintain her composure. But what really got me was when little Jane took a bite out of one of the crackers, and then, with lightning quick speed, stuck it, bite-end first, into Molly’s open mouth. Because that’s how I want to spend the next week of my life – waiting for my daughter to show symptoms of some puke-inducing, sleep-reducing virus.

Now, at this point, you might be thinking, “Kate, where the hell was Jane’s mom in all this?” Well, guys, sitting right the eff next to me, of course, contemplating the astonishing fact that Jane didn’t like baby mum mums as a child, but now she seemed to love them.  Well, lady, I’m glad that we could provide you with the opportunity to make that completely unnecessary and trivial revelation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to remove the esophagus-sized cracker shard that your child just shoved into my daughter’s windpipe.

After she decimated our snack stash, Jane moved on to the toys and books that I’d so thoughtfully picked out…which would have been fine if she had wanted to sit quietly and play with them. But no, little Janie wanted me to read to her…and not just one book, but all of them. No, Jane, I don’t care to see my son swim during the lessons that I paid for. No, I don’t feel the need to make sure that his head is still above water. None of that is as important as discussing Elmo’s favorite colors with my daughter’s would-be murderer.

And this is when Jane’s mom said it: “Let me know if she’s bothering you.”

Okay, what the hell am I supposed to do with that, Jane’s mom? Tell you, “Now that you mention it, Jane’s kind of all up in my grill. If you could reel her in, that’d be great”? No, because that would be totally inappropriate…sort of like letting your child dig around in someone else’s bag uninvited.

So, as week 1 of swim draws to a close, we soldier on, bringing snacks for three instead of two and toys that don’t require any reading or adult interaction. I’ve also taken to putting makeup on Molly before the lessons so that maybe, just maybe, we can trick Jane into thinking that she’s not a baby at all, but a petite woman from the wrong side of the tracks looking to find inner peace and a new sense of purpose through aquatic sports. We’re still working on her back story…

Suttie, do you want water, milk, freshly squeezed juice, or can we end this charade and break out a Capri Sun?

Confession time: how many of you feed your kids Lunchables at least 3 times a week? And by 3, I mean 6. And by 6, I mean 7. Yes, my son eats a Lunchable pretty much 7 days a week. The exception is when I need a tired kid, and we hit up the McDonald’s play place.

Now, before you go all Judge Judy on me, if you’ve ever fed your kid regular ground beef instead of the lean variety or a flavored water when he could have had the real thing, you can go ahead and throw that hand up, too.

Prior to actually having any children, I was one of those people who would say, “I’m never hiding vegetables in my kids’ food. They’re just gonna have to learn to eat right and like it.” These days, my “eat right and like it” philosophy involves dramatically handing Suttie a celery stick that’s more peanut butter than celery and whispering, “It’ll make you magic.”

In these food-centric moments, I often flash back to one of the first times that Suttie was aware of the discussion topic during our church’s children’s moments. He was asked what his favorite food was, and from a few pews away, I was silently praying: “Please say apple, please say apple.” Of course, he said, “Chicken nuggets,” but I still breathed a sigh of relief because he could have just as easily said, “My twice daily dose of gummy crabby patties.”

In addition to failing to create a decently well-rounded meal plan, I’m also not one of those moms who buys organic anything. It’s not that I’m opposed to organics……my budget is. But on those special days when the organic baby food pouches are on sale and I have a valid coupon, I put those bad boys in my cart front and center. Then I talk to myself (…loudly…) about not having room for other items because of my organic stockpile: “Oh, they have fruit cups on sale. Shoot, I would buy some, but I don’t have any more room with all of this ORGANIC BABY FOOD…”

Sometimes, I’ll even engage nearby shoppers to cement my “healthy mom” status: “I sure hope I have enough pantry room for all of this organic baby food [insert showroom model arm wave]. Am I right?” Meanwhile I’m smuggling 15 Lunchables under a giant pack of 2-ply toilet paper.

To make matters worse, recently, I was somehow signed up for a Facebook group devoted to showcasing your kid’s lunches because, apparently, I was way too secure about my child-nourishing skills. The first time I got a notification from the group, it was to show me a picture of some grilled edamame and curry-roasted tofu that one boastful June Cleaver had prepared for her son. Back on earth, I applaud my reflection when I remember to give my oldest a Go-gurt.

And it’s not that I’m a bad cook. I’m just not a good cook. I can’t make concoctions on my own unless the end goal is to fill up the garbage disposal. I know how to make what I know how to make, and there are few departures from that meal wheel. But don’t feel bad for me. I have many talents (being able to spot the one thing on a list of 30 chores that my husband didn’t do or being able to watch really bad ABC Family movies more than once); gourmet cooking simply isn’t one of them.

To make matters worse, trying to fix a well-balanced, multi-coarse meal with one child asking you to watch him play Minecraft and another trying to eat the knobs off the coffee table drawers isn’t really conducive to a post-worthy supper.

So the next time you upload a picture of a squash salad and label it, “Cannon’s Favorite Meal,” expect to feel a few twinges of pain from my apron-wearing, garden-growing voodoo doll. And I’ll expect the same from your attractive, super cool, too-thin-for-her-current-jeans counterpart of me.

Disclaimer: If I ever poke fun at something you do, it’s because I’m jealous…or because what you do is weird.

My kid's bedtime is earlier than yours, I win!

Yesterday, I was reminded of just how hostile the world of competitive mommying can be. I was sitting in the waiting room of our pediatrician’s office for my daughter’s one-year checkup, and another mom with a similarly aged child was sitting a few chairs away. Her chubby-cheeked cherub was walking this way and that with steady legs and flat feet, a definite checkmark in his baby book. Meanwhile, Molly was cruising with the help of nearby chairs and would sometimes drop to her knees to grab a fumbled toy or examine an especially colorful patch of carpet. She wasn’t confident enough to walk on her own yet, but she was this close.

This fellow mom was in great shape with a neatly done coiffure and impeccable makeup, while I sat there in faded black yoga pants and an Old Navy t-shirt with my hair hastily pulled back with a plastic claw clip and a smattering of concealer under my always-tired eyes. Naturally, I hated her.

This fresh-faced beauty was apparently a first-time mom (nothing wrong with that; until last year, I was one, too, and knew just as little about kids as I do now).  I assumed this because she wanted to chat about our kids and their respective development; second-, third-, and fourth-time moms rarely initiate these conversations. First, we stopped writing things like “Ate mashed carrots” or “Discovered the ceiling fan” in their brag books a long time ago. Second, we’re too busy using our back-of-the-head eyes (yeah, we’ve got ‘em) to assess our other children’s whereabouts while scanning the area for possible pedophiles.

But she was me three years ago, eager to discuss her little angel’s every breakthrough with any stranger who was forced to sit within earshot. I owed it to her to listen.

After some basic chit-chat about our babies’ clothes, she casually asked how old Molly was, and when I responded with “just over a year,” that’s when things took a turn. She gave me “the look” – if you’re a mom, you know it. It’s a look of pity and superiority all wrapped into one, and in a tone that mixed smugness with syrupy consolation, she said, “Oh, well don’t worry, she’ll be walking soon. Cannon started walking at 9 months, and I was shocked that he did it so early. I thought he would be well past one year, too, but he just got up one day and walked like a pro. But my cousin’s baby didn’t walk until 18 months; I guess they’re all just on different schedules.”

Now I can’t say much about her child’s strange name. We call my oldest Suttie for God’s sake. But the ruse of consoling my assumed anxiety over Molly’s pre-walker status so that she could brag about her own child’s gross motor skills was a sticking point for me. And by sticking point, I mean, I wanted to stick her with something….something sharp.

My brain immediately went into neurological spasms trying to think of an appropriate response. I wanted to say, “You see that kid over there at the activity table, the one walking on two legs like a boss, like he’s been doing it for three years straight…yeah, he’s mine.”

Or, “I was concerned about her walking, but then she started to recite Goethe, and I figured, we can’t have it all.”

Or even, “Nobody cares, bitch!” (sorry, Mom)

However, instead of these less mature (and in one case, blatantly untrue) choices, I simply gave her a knowing smile and held up two crossed fingers. And believe me, it took all of the false sense of class that I have not to hold up a different set of fingers.

But on the ride home (when I was still over-analyzing the entire encounter: see the above paragraphs for said over-analysis), it hit me. Moms shouldn’t be competing about what their kids do because the stuff we’re bragging about is lame. Your kid knows how to walk? Great. So do about 6 billion other people in the world. He said his first word at 6 months? That’s just longer that you’re gonna have to listen to him say stupid stuff. She knows how to give kisses? It’s a slippery slope from kissing to biting, my friend.

Instead, we should focus on what we, as moms, have been able to achieve – like who managed to take a shower today? Better yet who was able to go to the bathroom…alone…without tiny hands trying to help unfurl the toilet paper? Who was able to skip multiple pages of the bedtime story without her child noticing or watch a show that was purely for you – that didn’t start with “The Adventures of…” or “Playtime with…”?

My just-for-me show is Jeopardy. It doesn’t make me cool, and it sure as hell doesn’t make me feel smart, but I love it. Because when I perform the once-a-year miracle of correctly answering the Final Jeopardy clue, I feel and act like I’ve just won a Nobel Prize for something awesome, like smart-awesome, not peace or some crap like that. And it doesn’t matter that I missed every clue until the end, and not just missed them but miserably, embarrassingly missed them to the point of pretending like the answer was on the tip of my tongue (“Oh man, it’s uhhhhhhhhh…”; “Wait, I might know this one; can you pause it so I can think…………………………………….”). Because when I give the right answer for that one, penultimate clue, I look expectantly around the room for my family’s approval and see that they are all……..playing on phones. Even Molly, she’s over there palming buttons randomly on a $3 plastic princess phone from Walmart. And that’s when I know that I’ve won, that the TV was mine for a half an hour and mine alone, and that my family is depressingly addicted to electronic devices. Everything but that last part is a real victory, people.

So I call upon you, my fellow countrywomen, to put down your milestone charts and DIBELS tests and tip your hat to the woman that you raised your eyebrows at as she struggled to put a screaming two year old into a cart at Publix. What you didn’t know is that she had a coupon for BOGO wine coolers, and today, she wins.

P.S. Later that day, Molly started walking in earnest, so before I join in the noble cause of focusing more on my own achievements and not solely on those of my kids, I must say………..suck it, Cannon’s mom!