Epic Mommy Fail: A Cautionary Tale…

I can remember rolling my eyes when my Mom would start her rant at the dinner table,

“EAT YOUR FOOD! There are starving children in Europe that would LOVE to have a nice dinner like this!”

I wanted to say, “Well I’ll gladly wrap this up and send it to them…” but the wounds had just healed from the last time I said it. I just sighed, put my head down and started shoveling the gruel (gruel = any food that wasn’t spaghetti). I swore to myself that I would never tell MY kids about the “starving children”. I would let them eat whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

I’ve kept good on the first part of the promise…until today.

It was one of “those” days. End of summer, cabin-fever, sick of each other, nothing is fun, whining kind of day.

“Mooooommmmyyyy! Nate won’t let me be Gil from the Bubble Guppies!”

“I want to be Gil!.  Zeke got to be Gil last time!”

“It’s time to turn off the TV, it’s time for dinner.”

“Nooooooo!!!!! I don’t waaaaaaaant toooooo…”

“Zeke, for the millionth time, please use your regular talking voice.”

“Mommy, you haven’t told me a million times…only like a hundred.”

(Heavy, deep sigh…) “Come sit down and eat, please.”

Upon seeing what’s on his plate, Zeke goes into hyper-whining…only audible to dogs and me.

“UGH! I AM SOOOOO SICK OF EATING TACOS!”

I snapped. Not “end-up-on-the-news kind of snap”,  just “Mommy-loses-her-mind-and-does-dumb-thing” kind of snap.

I mentally wrestled with myself for a nano-second before the dark-side won out.  I broke my promise to myself.

“Do you boys know that there are children all over the world that are starving? They don’t have food to eat, a place to live or toys to play with!”

I was on full vent mode, spewing analogies and “you’re-so-luckys” without even taking a breath. This had been building up for 8 years and I was truly on an old-school-parenting rant.

Then I saw it…the eye roll! Nate rolled his eyes at me! How DARE he! I invented the eye-roll. Who did he think he was dealing with, an amateur? I’m a modern Mom. I’m not my Mom, I have technology at my finger tips. I grabbed the iPad. If my words weren’t getting through to them, surely Youtube would have a video or two that would. I’ll show them one of those starving children commercials from TV and THAT will make them realize how lucky they are. THAT will show them how thankful they should be that Mommy slaved 60 seconds over the microwave to warm those beans in that taco!

Yeah, it looked real good on the game-plan board in my head.

It had the exact opposite affect on Zeke. A photo of a little girl popped up on the screen. Did Zeke see her dirty, tattered dress? Did he see her tears? Did he see the bones showing through her skin? Nope. Zeke focused in on the lollipop in her hand that the camera-man had given her.

“MAN! She’s so lucky! She has a lollipop! I want a lollipop! Can I have a lollipop if I eat all this yucky taco?”

I will admit in hind-sight, that I should have pre-screened the video I showed them. It got progressively worse. When a photo of a dying child with a vulture looming behind popped up on the screen, Nate started crying,

“Stop Mommy! Please! No more! I don’t want to see anymore!  Just please TURN IT OFF!”

I am the worst Mom EVER!

Not only did I lose my cool, break a promise to myself – Zeke now thinks the children in Africa are LUCKY because they all have lollipops. And Nate? Nate will have nightmares until I can raise enough money to get a vampire to glamour away the memories of seeing the horrific video.

Learn from my mistakes, People.

Oh, and PLEASE don’t call social services on me. I don’t want to go into hiding…again.

 

 

“Mommy, I need help…”

That statement is never followed by good stuff. “Mommy, I need help carrying this present I made you.” Or “Mommy, I need help putting away all these dishes I washed. It’s always, “Mommy, I need help putting all the water back into the toilet.” Or “Mommy, I need help gluing all these pieces back together.”

So when I heard that dreaded opening statement, I took a deep breath and asked,

“Help with what, Zeke?”

“I need help getting a Perler Bead out of my nose!”

“Aaaaahhhh! Uh, I mean, it’s OK, don’t worry…we’ll get it.”

I held his right nostril closed and said, “Blow!”

Note to self: Hold tissue in front of nostril to catch Perler Bead and everything else that comes flying out onto my chest. 

(Sigh…)

 

Playing dress-up…

Mark and I were invited to a dear friend’s wedding last night. My Mom came over to watch the kids so it was a rare night out for us.

The invitation said, “Semi-formal” so we got to dress up! I only wish I had read that part days before the event instead of minutes before I was supposed to get dressed. The only “special” dresses I had in my closet were ones I had worn for TV appearances. That would be awkward. I did have one I wore on a Just for Laughs special that only aired in Canada…I’m playing the odds and wearing it.” I thought.

 

 

 

 

“Nate, Zeke…we’re leaving!”

The kids ran into the kitchen to say goodbye and stopped short when they saw us.

“Daddy, you look handsome! Mommy you look so pretty…are you going to tell jokes?”

“No, not tonight Nate. Daddy and I are going to a special friend’s wedding. What do you think, Zeke?”

“I’ve never seen Daddy in that costume before…awkward!”

 

PS The wedding was wonderful, until the very end…

“Maryellen, I’d like you to meet my friends…they flew in all the way from Canada!”

“That’s a beautiful dress, I feel like I’ve seen it before somewhere…”

(Sigh…)

 

 

 

 

 

When fantasies turn creepy…

 

It all started many, many moons ago. I was 18 and on a date.The date took me to Medieval Times, so really it was his fault. It was completely his idea to bring me to a place where handsome young guys dressed as knights ride white stallions (in slow motion) out of my dreams and into an arena right in front of me. So, I am not to blame for what happened that night. I was just sitting there, eating my wench-served food with my hands, pretending that was the reason I was drooling. It had nothing to do with the long-haired guy riding up to me in armor and handing me a rose he had won in the last joust. I will admit to a small head tilt and a few seconds of eye-batting…but that’s it! It was a show and I was just playing my role, I argued. My date was not happy. He was completely out shined by a Medieval, role-playing geek. Someone who, I’m guessing, spends his days off “in character” wondering why his only friend is a horse. But fantasies are powerful, my friend and very hard to resist.

I’ve revisited that fantasy many times over the years. Like an old friend, it’s served me well.

Until last night.

Nate’s new mania is Falconry. Who knows how it happens. They see something and latch on to it. As a doting Mom, I try to support and encourage my sons’ hobbies by any means in my power. Having said that, do you have any idea how hard it is to find a Peregrine Falcon? During a late-night google search, I found that there’s a Falconry demonstration in the local Medieval Times show. Score! I’m the best mom ever! Focusing on what a perfect Father’s Day / stay-cation / supporting-son’s-hobby I has just found, I completely forgot about my last visit to “Medieval Fantasy Island”.

The night was going perfectly. We entered the castle and turned the corner to see the actual Falconry guy standing there with the Peregrine Falcon on his arm! I heard my son gasp. The kind of gasp that says, “I will remember this the rest of my life…” I teared up.

 

Nate exclaimed, “I’m so excited I’m actually shaking!” It was a glorious “I-did-good ” moment I will never forget.

The page called us into the arena. As we walked to our seats, I still hadn’t made the connection that I had been here before. I was in Mom-mode. But when the lights went down, the fog rose with the music. A spotlight shone on the fog and right out of my dreams galloped the beautiful white horse again.

I gasped.

Mark said, “Are you alright?”  I grunted back, “Uh, huh”, not taking my eyes off the horse. Then he emerged from the fog. My fantasy knight was out of my head and riding right in front of me again. How do they ride in slow motion like that? I hadn’t exhaled since my gasp. His horse stopped in front of me like it was remembering too. My knight tossed his long hair off his face and pulled out the rose. “He’s come back for me!” I fantasized. As he looked right into my eyes, I couldn’t stop myself…my head tilted down and I smiled a shy smile while batting my eyes.

(Cue the needle scratching off the record)

This young, handsome guy scrunched up his face and gave me a disgusted,  “EW…YOU’RE AS OLD AS MY MOM!” look that burned a hole into my retina.

I gasped in horror this time, sucking saliva down my windpipe. Lots of gross coughing / choking ensued. I scared the horse.

And just that fast…I’m the creepy cougar lady making goo-goo eyes at young guys.

Oh, it gets worse…Mark unknowingly added insult to injury:

“Hey Nate…that Falconry guy and all the knights are only about 9 or 10 years older than you! Wouldn’t it be fun to work here in a few years when you’re in High School?”

Someone just kill me now, please.

(sigh…)

 

“Monsters University”…

I posted my latest “Mommy & Me” comedy review over at ComedyFilmNerds.com 

Tell me what you think.

 

 

PS This was Nate & Zeke in front of Mark’s design for EPCOT’s Flower & Garden Show. Very cool.

 

We let Willow go…

And to all my naysayers I say, “HA!” Didn’t think I could do it, huh? Who am I kidding…I didn’t think I could do it.

When the perspective new “parents” came over to meet Willow, she started barking at the husband like he was a mass murderer. “Uh, oh…” I thought, “she’s gonna have to live with us forever. Either that or she’s right and we’ll all be dead by morning.” I gave the man some food and watched as he skillfully lured her in with it. Before too long, Willow was sitting on his lap snuggling up to him like a long-lost lover. “Traitor!” I thought to myself. Part of me jealous, the other part relieved. This couple had just lost their dog of 17 years. They needed to be healed just as much as Willow did. Just as we needed it a year ago when we lost Dublin and adopted Wickette.

We filled out the paper work, told them Willow’s likes, dislikes and warnings (Don’t even THINK about trying to take her Greenie away!) then got ready to say our goodbyes.

“Nate, Zeke…Willow’s leaving, come say goodbye.”

“BYYYYYE!”

“Thanks, Zeke. Next time put down the Legos and don’t scream across the whole house, please.”

“Nate? Nate? Are you crying? Oh, my goodness…come here, Sweetie…”

“I’M VERY SAD THAT WILLOW IS LEAVING!!!”

“I am too. It’s sad AND happy, don’t you think? Look how happy her new Mom and Dad are!”

“Yeah. But how come they get to be happy and we have to be sad?”

“Well, I’m happy that we helped save Willow and I’m happy we helped her find her new forever home and I’m happy….”

“Why don’t you help ME be happy?”

“I’m trying Nate…really, really trying…Hey! I have an idea…do you want to take a photo with Willow so you can look at it whenever you miss her?”

“Uh, huh, OK…ZEKE! Come here and take a photo with Willow!”

“WHY? I’m not sad…you are!”

“Zeke, can you please come take a photo with Nate and Willow? Thank you.”

We all (except Zeke, of course) watched the new family drive off with Willow. I heard Nate sniffling as he buried his head into my stomach. I started to cry, too. My sweet, sensitive Nate. I flashed to all the heartbreaks he would feel in his lifetime. I hugged him a little tighter, hoping it would somehow help him though this one and all the others to come.

“Mommy?”

He looked up at me with his big, beautiful, brown eyes and through his tears said,

“I think I just figured out (sniff) how to make myself feel better…”

“You did? I’m so glad, Nate. What is it?”

“I would feel soooo much better (sniff) if I could play the Wii game for a couple of hours.”

“Hmmm…imagine that.”

(Sigh…)

 

 

I hired a “smell guy”…

“Mark, what is that smell?!!”

“I didn’t do it!”

“No! Not that kind of smell…it’s coming from the laundry room…it smells like when the Diaper Genie was full and needed to be emptied.”

“That’s pretty specific. Let me smell it. (sniff) Ugh! It smells like a dead something. Something died.”

“In my laundry room!? What would die in my laundry room?”

“Something that was done being alive.”

“Great. Thanks. Got any leads, Dick?”

“Excuse me?!!!”

“Dick. Short for Detective.”

“Uh huh. Nice. Hey! Look at the time… I gotta go to work, (smooch) have a nice day.”

“MARK! You can’t leave me with that smell! What am I supposed to do?”

“Call me when you find it.”

“My hero.”

I did have a theory: Last week I hired an awesome company, Dryer Vent Wizard to come out and clean my vents. (Ha! That sounded waaay more fun than it actually was.) I thought maybe since all the lint was gone, an animal/critter/monster was able to crawl down the vent. I probably “cooked” it with the dryer heat! Ewwww.

I called the lovely people at DVW and told them the situation. They informed me (much to my dismay) that it was a definite possibility and had happened several times before. Double ewwwww. He promised to come out within the hour.

Robert (you get to call the man who cleans your vents by his first name) walked into the laundry room and stopped short like he had hit a brick wall. “That’s a rat! I’d know that smell anywhere!” Really? Oh, come on!!! I have a rat in my house? I would’ve jumped out the window, but rarely can you kill yourself out a first-floor window. Besides…I didn’t want to add to the smell.

“Do you think it came in the newly cleared vent, Robert?”

“That’s possible, Ma’am…I’ll run the line up and check.”

“Thank you…and please don’t call me Ma’am – where I come from, that means old.”

Robert runs the line up the vent and calls me back into the stench-pit.

“It’s clean. You see that? If there was a dead bird, there’d be feathers and blood on it; if it was a squirrel, there’d be squirrel skin and blood on it; if it were a…”

“I GET IT! The vent is clear. Thanks, Robert.”

“Yes, Ma’am…uh, young lady. Maybe it’s on top of your cabinets, I’ll take a look.”

“Thanks, I’ll grab my grocery bag down out of your way…”

I pulled the bag down and a million gnats and flies flew out!

“AAAAHHHHHH!!!”

“You found it!”

“You think?”

Inside my fancy, insulated, expensive grocery bag was a week-old bag of now-unfrozen shrimp. Twenty-four, jumbo, deveined $15.99 a bag, shrimp.

(Sigh…)

“Well, thanks for coming out, Robert. How much do I owe you?”

“No problem. Don’t worry about it.”

I gave Robert 20 bucks. He earned it. Just for staying in the room with that smell for as long as he did.

I texted Mark:

“Hey…can you cancel our dinner reservations for tonight…sushi not sounding yummy anymore.”

 

Drum roll, please….

NO POOP ON MY PORCH TODAY!!!!!

HORAH!!

Either my sign worked, or they’re still plotting their next move.

I would give a thousand bucks to have seen their face when they walked up with a fist full of dog poop and read my sign.

(evil giggle)

Side note:

When Zeke was reading the sign, he read, “clog poop” because I didn’t connect my “d” very well.

“Mommy, what’s clog poop?”

“It says dog poop, Zeke.”

“No it doesn’t. That’s a ‘c l’ that makes the sound kkklllll  ooo ggg –clog.”

“Yes, you’re right. I didn’t connect the lines in my ‘d’ very well.”

“Maybe you should come to school and do the letter-writing works today, Mommy.”

“Yeah, maybe I should, Zeke.”

“Mommy?”

“Yes, Zeke?”

“You never told me what clog poop was.”

(Sigh…)

 

Passive / agressive dog poop…

Not everyone is a dog person. I get that. But what kind of sad and miserable life must you have had to become such a vindictive, curmudgeon that you feel the need to bag up dog poop and place it on someone’s doorstep?! I mean, come on!!!!

First, I should tell you that I am a militant pooper-scooper. I carry doggie poop-bags in a cute little designer poop-bag tote. I have given MANY  people lectures on what dog poop can do to our water system if left in our yards. My boys can bag a poop in 4.5 seconds flat. (Yes, we timed them…how else do you get kids to pick up poop if it’s not a game / competition?)

Having said that, I can tell you that beyond a shadow of a doubt…that dog poop was NOT left by Wickette or our new foster.

Even though I know that, it bugs me to no end that someone in my neighborhood thinks I let my dogs do a poop-n-dash.

IT WASN’T ME!!! (er…I mean…my dogs)

At least this dope left the poop in a bag. (That’s the passive part) I guess it could’ve been worse, a Texas couple was SHOT and killed by their neighbor over dog poop. Get a life, people!

I decided to just suck it up and let the poop-vigilanty get out their hostility, albeit misplaced, UNTIL…I woke up this morning to find a SECOND bag left on my porch! OK, the gauntlet has been thrown:

 

I have to tell you that was NOT my first draft. I had to rewrite it when I remembered that my sons would be reading it when they got home from school. I’m just not ready to explain what certain words mean in the grown-up world.

PS The poop is so small, I don’t even think it’s dog poop. I think this ignoramus is actually leaving raccoon poop on my porch. DUH!!!

 

We’re foster parents!

We got an email from our friends at Poodle and Pooch Rescue with this photo:

 

They were asking families that had adopted from them before, if anyone had room in their homes and hearts to foster her while they looked for her “forever family”.

Are you kidding me?!! How can you say “no” to that face? My ovaries replied to the email, “We’ll do it!” And quicker than you can say, “Estrogen-induced impulse-response”, she was here.

FOS’-TER (verb) 1. To nurture and rear a dog with full intent to be a temporary guardian. 2. To spend tons of money on new pet “stuff” 3. To convince husband, “It’ll only be for a week or two.”

From the Latin: SUCKER. To be sucked into thinking you will ever be able to give this ball of love away.

Usage: “I will foster this dog for a week…then adopt her.”

 

Will they or won’t they? Stay tuned.