Here’s the thing about families. My theory is that most of them exist in completely chaotic insanity 94% of the time while simultaneously trying to pretend to other families that they have it all together, and then those other families pretend the same thing right back, and then everyone retreats back to their own filthy holes of honesty where they take their pants off and scream at each other.

This is my fundamental problem with social media – it’s just a constant barrage of everyone else’s momentary all-togetherness which you inevitably compare to your own pants-less screaming matches and think, well what the fuck…why am I also not making banana bread in the shape of the Mona Lisa that tastes like Christmas and actually helps you lose weight and gives you shiny perfect hair?! And the answer of course is that EVERYONE IS PROBABLY LYING. Alternately, I’m really really bad at all of the things which is definitely plausible.

My first concrete memories of this phenomenon in action was going to church growing up. Church was definitely my childhood social media because we spent every week in an absolute shit show of yelling and screaming and mess and a number of dead hamsters. (No I am not kidding – short version, we had a cat. Long version? I’m not sure why we kept buying hamsters honestly.) Then on Sundays we would all get dressed up and sit quietly in church and pretend to be normal. Sometimes the fighting lasted right through the drive to the church itself and we would be pulling into the parking lot with waves of rage just emanating off of the mini-van and my parents at Defcon level 1 where one wrong look from either of them was going to result in the murder-suicide version of divorce. But we all just mutually understood that if we didn’t go inside and smile and shake people’s hands and sing about Jesus then God help us all….we would be going the way of the hamsters.

Now that I am older and I have children of my own to ruin, I also play this game. It seems like a better alternative to force my children to do something creative for a single second and snap a picture to post with a cute hashtag like #sogoodatparenting or #MonaLisabananabread rather than admit that my son has been playing on an iPad in his underwear for three days straight and when I made him go outside on the porch for a minute he literally screamed that his eyes were burning.

This game gets trickier in live version. Anyone can theoretically snap a split second picture that makes them look like they are a good parent and then lock themselves in the bathroom screaming “BECAUSE I SAID I’M BUSY” at the top of their lungs while they add a cute filter and some bullshit inspiring parent commentary. The true challenge comes when the children are live action in the presence of other humans and are actively undermining your ability to pretend that everything is fine.

The most consistent form of this for me is whenever my children are around my grandmothers.  And it’s silly really because my grandmothers have both raised families of their own and they have seen a LOT OF SHIT and yet I still feel an inordinate amount of pressure to act like I’m a good mother when they are around because I respect their opinions and also I want them to keep coming over, preferably. And you would think that the children would have the capacity to hold it together for the relatively small amounts of time in their life that they are around either of my Grandmas because it’s really not that long at all…but you would be very wrong to think that. Very wrong.

My best example of this was Escher’s 6th birthday party. Where I went wrong with this particular occasion was that I had kids. And then I allowed them to live long enough to see birthdays. Birthdays are supposed to be so much fun, aren’t they? It feels like a guarantee that at least on a birthday – kids are going to be in great moods. On their own birthdays anyways. On their sibling’s birthdays they throw a fit that it isn’t their birthday because obviously.

I remember Escher was tired. I do not remember why. I imagine it had something to do with the fact that he was being shitty at bedtime and I just couldn’t be bothered to fight it anymore because hopefully I was drunk. Escher being tired and being in literally any social situation is the human equivalent to carrying lit dynamite in your mouth at all times. Grandma came over for dinner and presents and I would like to point out that I just said PRESENTS. And I’m not sure how I raised the most ungrateful wretches on the planet but when I was little – presents were a big deal. Not a set up for a goddamn apocalypse. But, I digress.

We made it through dinner and cake and Escher opened all of his presents and everything was mostly fine. He was cranky, but nothing that I couldn’t manage with a few well timed looks that implied that I would happily murder him the second Grandma left the house. One of his presents was a card from Grandma which contained the standard $100 birthday cheque. And I guess this was the first year that he was able to fully comprehend that a cheque equated to money that belonged to him, personally, because as this realization dawned on him he started physically vibrating as he asked increasingly excited questions… “What is this? Is this money? Is this MY MONEY? IS THIS ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS?” and then started SHAKING HIS ASS around the room and fanning himself with the cheque saying “Oooh yeah” while my Grandmother looked mildly alarmed.

Have you ever tried to laugh something off as if you think it’s funny but you definitely do not think it’s funny but you are hoping that your awkward nodding and somewhat strangled “isn’t this hilarious” sounds will somehow freeze time so you can escape? That’s where we were. And Grandma, in her infinite wisdom, interrupted the moment by saying – “Careful Escher, you don’t want to lose that.” Cue me – ecstatic to have a move to make, saying “Oh yes honey, give Mommy the cheque so she can put it in the bank for you”. And he looked mildly suspicious but to his credit – he came over and gave me the cheque, which I promptly deposited via my phone – cause it’s the future – as slowly as possible so as to delay the inevitable return to him booty dancing all over my living room. And then, without even thinking, I did what I do with every cheque that I deposit, which is I rip a teeny, tiny, tear in the right corner of the cheque.

Here’s what happens next. Escher immediately DROPS TO THE GROUND as if I have dropkicked him in the face (for the record – I should have) and starts full bore shrieking and rolling around on the floor. So much so that he actually tricked me for a split second and I thought something might be physically wrong. So I am now on the ground beside him, ever the concerned mother saying “Honey? Honey are you okay?? What’s happened?” And in between his shrieks which are now punctuated by funeral procession wailing he chokes out “You’ve……ru…ined……my….MOOONEEEYYYYYYYYYYY”.  And now I can feel Grandma’s level of alarm palpably rising in the room, matched only by my warring emotions which were “I can’t believe this is happening” and “I will literally kill you”.  I did try reasoning with him and I explained that the money was fine and the cheque was also fine but this fell on literally deaf, wailing ears. Then I got seriously mad and started demanding that he calm down THIS INSTANT OR SO HELP ME HE WOULD SPEND HIS BIRTHDAY IN HIS ROOM.

This made the wailing increase. So, ever the calm cool collected mom that I am – I nodded graciously at my Grandma and explained “Too much excitement, he’s tired – haha!” and then hauled his wailing, shrieking flailing body up and dragged his ass to his room while he screamed and clutched the walls as we went. I dropped him into his room, demanded he get his butt into bed and thought that I had successfully, mostly silently, communicated that his life was on the line if he didn’t cut the shit.

Spoiler alert – he did not cut the shit. I left him there and went back out to Grandma, who to her credit had neither left, nor changed her will. And then I played the whole “everything-is-totally-fine-and-I am-definitely-a-good-mother-with-excellent-children-and I’m-as-shocked-as-you-are-would-you-like-some-tea?” Now I am in the kitchen making tea and thinking to myself that this cannot possibly get any worse because I NEVER LEARN. And I suddenly hear a smashing noise coming from somewhere in the house and I know this because I can hear the pictures on the wall rattling like it’s a fucking earthquake. 

Now for a moment, I was legitimately confused about what was happening. Truth be told I was probably hoping it was an actual earthquake. Preferably the one where the entire west coast just shelves off into the ocean. And then I suddenly realized that the smashing was accompanied by what remains the loudest screaming that I have ever heard in my life. So now I rush out of the kitchen and see that Grandma is having an actual facial aneurysm in her chair while Escher is just full bore screeching through the house over and over “I WAS GOING TO BE RICHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”. Now I am in full mom panic and I sprint down the hall at full speed and burst into Escher’s room to find that he has removed the metal ladder off of his bunk bed and is SMASHING IT AGAINST THE WALL repeating “I WAS GOING TO BE RICH AND YOU RUINED IT” punctuated by shuddering, shrieking, wails.

And I’m not sure if what happened next surprised Escher, me or Grandma more. Cause I’m certain she heard every word. But I lost my ever loving shit and I remember word for word what I said and will until the end of time and probably it should go on my tombstone. Mid-smash I just freaked the fuck out and screamed “ESCHER!!!! Are. you. fucking. kidding. me. SO HELP ME GOD YOU THINK THAT I AM NICE BUT THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD THAT KNOW THAT I AM NOT NICE and if you don’t stop this fucking racket THIS INSTANT I swear to you that I am going to show you why those people KNOW THAT I AM NOT NICE and you will spend the rest of your goddamn life TERRIFIED THAT I AM IN YOUR HOUSE because you will KNOW WHAT THOSE PEOPLE KNOW!!!!!!”

And then there was dead, DEAD silence. Through the whole house…and the whole neighbourhood. I belatedly noticed that the bedroom window was open and the next door neighbours definitely turned their music off at that moment. Probably cause they didn’t want to know what those people know either. And then I just gave that kid the most mom look I’ve ever managed to summon in my life and slammed the door.

It was at this point that my senses returned (such as they were) and I realized I was now going to have to gather up the torn remains of my shredded dignity and walk back into the living room to the family and Grandma and somehow try and infuse some level of everything is fine back into the room but honestly, I was fully aware that the gig was up. The only small mercy was that there was not a peep coming from the other side of Escher’s door. Not. a. peep.

Grandma was really great about it – as of course she would be, because I think being in those situations as a grandmother and realizing that you just get to leave is definitely the best feeling in the world. Truth be told, if my kids survive to adulthood and have kids of their own, I’m going to need to be there for every one of those moments just so I can feel some level of vindication, and then leave.

Alternately, I’m just going to get really good at social media so that when my son is grown up and has children of his own I can just take hundreds of peaceful, child-free, clean-house, magic banana bread pictures and tag him in every.single.one. Also, I think I’ll buy my grand-kids hamsters.

Look. There is literally no getting around that this is not a happy post. So if you are going to get upset, please for the love of god don’t read it. I’ve titled it in such a way that you are automatically giving up the right to be offended if you keep reading. So let’s just all agree that if we are going to move on from here that somewhere along the line there’s probably going to be at least one dead cat. It’s not a surprise ending is all I’m saying.

Against my better judgment, I bought my daughter a cat. The argument was somewhere along the lines of the reason I had a second kid in that it seemed like a really clever idea at the time until I realized that I had just created way more work for myself with no tangible benefits and by then I had a fucking cat. Technically I had two cats but one of them got hit by a car and died (dead cat #1…what did I tell you). This event was even sadder than you think it was because she was the best cat of the two. She was really beautiful and cuddly as far as cats go and really, really intelligent. Her brother on the other hand, was without a doubt the worst cat in the history of cats. He was boring orange, and he walked into walls (I am not kidding), and if you looked into his eyes you could actually see that he was processing life at the speed of broccoli. Slow broccoli.

In and of itself, a stupid cat is not the end of the world. If all the cat did was walk into walls and generally vegetable around the house I could have dealt with it. However, life decided that this particular cat should *also* get chronic bladder infections. And I would read into this and think, this cat must have done something pretty terrible in his past life to be coming back as a routinely incontinent, vegetable cat but then I remember that I am the one who has to deal with him and that the sum total of my current existence with the cats and the weird children and all of the ways that bodily functions that are not mine seem to go wrong in my life means I was probably Hitler last time I was here.

The first time he got a bladder infection, we discovered it when he started leaving Hansel and Gretel trails of blood drops that left multiple criss-crossing treasure maps from the litter box into various points on the wall. We took him to the vet who charged us $400 to confirm that a) he had a bladder infection b) he seemed a bit confused and c) he was in need of copious amounts of expensive medicine that would be an additional charge (obviously).

We ended up having to lock the cat in the downstairs bathroom for three days in order to contain the bleeding. We gave him lots of clean towels and fresh water and pain killers and antibiotics and a small vial of some kind of drops or another that I can only conclude were concentrated virgin unicorn tears mixed with conflict-free diamond dust because there was approximately one baby fingernail’s worth in the bottle and it cost $174 by itself.

After three days the cat was back to normal. Which isn’t really saying much. And everything was fine until about 6 weeks later when I went to pour myself a glass of wine and came upon the children playing pirates in the kitchen following a red “treasure” trail that led directly into the porch door. FFS.

Back to the vet, who refused to just give us the same expensive medication without first “examining” the cat. Near as I can tell, this involved a stethoscope, a thoughtful look into old broccoli eyes and $149. This time he gave us all the same medications and also explained that the cat was evidently prone to *chronic* bladder infections (obviously deduced through his exhaustive and cost-effective “examination”). And that if we wanted to avoid this happening on the regular, that from then on we should *only* feed him a specialized urinary tract food that would cause him to drink more water and us to take out a second mortgage.

So now we are spending $100 a month on special cat food, for a cat I don’t even like, all for the sake of the stupid children, who I *also* mostly don’t like. Parenting for the win.

The next thing that happens is that the cat gets ANOTHER bladder infection despite being on the special food, and the unicorn tears, and me threatening no one in particular that if he gets another bladder infection that so HELP ME GOD I WILL GIVE HIM AWAY. Back we go to the vet, who now has a framed picture of broccoli cat on the wall, presumably because he’s singled-handedly responsible for the vet’s new vacation condo in Boca.

Now it’s very important for me to convey how very much I am NOT KIDDING about this next part of the story. While I was “calmly” venting to the vet about the fact that the bladder infections had not stopped despite copious amounts of expensive treatments the vet suggested that the only reasonable thing to do at this point was to….and stay with me here….GIVE THE CAT A SEX CHANGE OPERATION.

………..

Okay so listen. I would like it on record at this point in the narrative that I killed neither the cat nor the vet when he raised this like it was a viable option. He even went on to explain his rationale behind it, which basically was that if the cat no longer had to go to the effort of sending the pee all the way through the entire length of a penis, that maybe there would be less complications and that he would get less infections. And also probably the condo needed a new deck and we were dumb enough to be buying unicorn tears on the regular so what the hell, he might as well go for broke. Literally.

And as much as I would have loved to spend FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS (actual price) giving the worst cat in the world a brand new vagina since he couldn’t be bothered to figure out how to pee with the equipment Satan gave him in the first place… visions of how the cat would proceed to fuck up a new in-hole on his stupid cat body that would cost me even more money to fix, prevented me from even considering this as a legitimate option. To be perfectly honest, this may have been the point where I started wondering if this guy was an actual vet.

Sex-change operation declined, we continued to fight the good fight by buying the fancy food and trying to force feed him water as often as possible. (This resulted in exactly the same amount of bladder infections.)

This went on for two years. Then, we bought a very pretty new house that had pretty carpets and pretty walls and did not smell like dried cat blood. I was VERY excited. And then one night about a week before we moved in, bam. Bladder infection. For the still-intact-penis-broccoli cat. Again. And at this point I was already fairly maxed out on stress what with packing and panicking and planning to move into a haunted ghost hotel for three weeks before we took possession of the pretty new house. (True story, probably its own blog).

Essentially I was out of patience for the whole goddamn thing. And while we were having dinner that night I started vocalizing my displeasure by *possibly* making disparaging comments about the cat such as “That bleeping cat better not bleep up my new bleeping house with his stupid bleeping bleep” and “I’ll walk that bleeping cat into the ocean before I let it into my new house.” and finally “You mark my bleeping words that bleeping cat is not going to make it to bleeping bleed all over my bleeping house. The bleep.” And why am I bleeping when I have a deep appreciation for copious amounts of swearing and am not afraid to drench my narratives in it? Because probably I’m slightly afraid of the power of the exact combination of words I used so I’m just going to let you fill in the blanks yourself and hopefully your cat doesn’t die. BECAUSE MINE DID. Fucking cat.

The exact sequence of events was that I tucked the cat into his blanket box with his virgin diamond meds and his water and gave him his painkillers and although I noticed that he seemed a bit lethargic I presumed we were still not on speaking terms over the whole not-giving-him-a-very-expensive-vagina thing. However, the next morning, I took the kids to school and came back to check on him and give him his morning meds and when I went into the bathroom he was bleeding much more than usual and was barely conscious. And even though I hated the little bugger I was *not* interested in having him die after I’d spent the previous evening making cat death threats until the children got so upset by it that I was forced to stop. Cue me driving like a lunatic to the vet a la Greys Anatomy screaming dramatically “DON’T YOU DIE ON ME YOU FUCKING FUCKTARD CAT”.

So the cat died. And the conversation after school with the kids may win out for worst ever. It went exactly as you would picture if you had threatened to kill someone and then that person just up and died on you like a total dick and then you spent the next four days on a rickety chair with a spotlight and two intense, weepy detectives that kept calling you Mommy while you are desperately trying to differentiate between wishing the cat was dead and actually killing it. According to my two detectives, it’s the same thing. And you would think they would REMEMBER that I have this power when they are being total ASSHOLES and maybe smarten up a tad…except this shit never seems to work out in my favour. (Probably on account of me having been Hitler and all.)

Like a year later we were picking up a family friend that the kids hadn’t seen since before I realized I was an actual witch, and he got in the car and said “Hi guys!” and my daughter immediately says “Mommy killed our cat!!” and I turn in shock to look in the back seat and just see the 6 year old solemnly nodding. Not even a hello. Just right under the bus. Boom. And take it from me…that is not an easy thing to just explain away to people. For the record, this is exactly why I can’t ever use my children as accomplices in anything because they will literally give me up as we are doing whatever the fuck it is. So now I’m stuck with these narc kids who have branded me as a cat murderer but are still not scared enough of me to do anything I say.

Just get a fucking fish okay? Do everyone a favour and get a fucking fish.

Fuck.

One time, we thought it would be a good idea to take both of my kids, and my step-kids, and my step-daughter’s boyfriend on a ten day cruise to the Caribbean. We set it up 15 months in advance, paid it all off, (Adulting. Woo.) and managed to keep it a surprise despite the fact that my partner and I kept accidentally talking about it all the time, and then would make these brilliant saves like: “Wow, I am so excited about going on a cruise………is what Paul at the office said today. Lucky Paul. We would never go on a cruise because cruises are expensive and we don’t love you guys enough…in fact you are constant disappointments…go do your homework…dinner is over.” Followed by elaborate winks and high fives, cause we are just that good at parenting.

How we finally told them was by wrapping up old suitcases for Christmas and then a bunch of random junk like olives and a life preserver and allowing the children to trade up until we finally revealed that we would be leaving on a cruise in two weeks. And it was great. And everyone was so excited. Counting down sleeps and planning what we would pack….the most fun ever. And I can confidently say the most fun ever, because it was WAY more fun than the actual cruise itself.

We left for the cruise in the wee hours of the morning and geared up for a 4 hour drive to the airport. Which, all things considered, went fine. My bar for what I consider to be a successful car trip has been greatly lowered since Adventure Day. As long as 3 out of 4 children survive, and no one has a bodily function on anyone else – it’s a win.

We decided we would have lunch on the 5 hour flight. This was both convenient and clever in that it involved all of the children pinned down while eating, as well as providing a distraction for an extra 11 minutes during the flight. This was fine until we actually got on the plane, where we were seated at the very back, so that when the flight attendant finally got to us during meal service she was able to cheerfully inform us that they were out of food. Which is good because…….sorry what do you mean you are out of food?

Turns out that United Airlines plays food roulette with all their flights, meaning that they put 21 meals somewhere amongst 3284 flights in a day and none of them are the one that my kids are on. So now I am 41 minutes into a 5 hour flight to Miami and I am trying to cobble together lunch for 5 children and a diabetic partner using gum from my purse, a bag of popcorn I found, and the power of persuasion. Like parenting MacGyver. Only the bad guys always win.

By the time we landed, no one was speaking to each other. On the whole plane. We stumbled off and managed to find some food in an effort to ward off a diabetic coma and somehow made our way through the following 9 hours of line ups, heat and whining….dear GOD the whining…..finally getting ourselves onto the cruise ship and settled. 

This part was a little bit exciting while everyone was getting settled in their rooms, just happy to have successfully arrived. It lasted all of three minutes, at which point we lost Escher. And by three minutes, I mean – this is when I sent him with his older brother, into a hallway that is comprised of 4800 identical doors and the same painting every three feet, without making it expressly clear that they were to stick together. So obviously the teenager just ran back to his room and Escher was left wandering in an increased panic through a Groundhog Day-esque maze of rooms on a boat where I have paid copious amounts of money to basically take us directly to the child trafficking capital of the world. Because I am the best mom ever.

Twenty-one minutes later, Rhyme came back to our room with Escher, because she had found him crying with a nice couple who were wandering through the hall and asking everyone they found if he belonged to them. This created a ripple effect of actually good parents who were all becoming increasingly alarmed that someone had lost their child and was apparently unconcerned. But it’s not that we weren’t concerned…..it’s just that we didn’t realize he was missing until Rhyme brought him back.  (Please refer to the end of the previous paragraph.)

Here’s something I’ve learned. There is no such thing as a vacation with children. Don’t get me wrong…you can go places with your kids and lie to yourself that you are on vacation. But all you are actually doing is paying for the pleasure of giving your children a new environment to misbehave in. And if you think the excitement of wherever you are going will be enough to distract them….you are giving every element in the situation way too much credit. The place you are going, yourself and definitely your children.

It doesn’t matter where it is, the children will get any combination of hot, tired, hungry, cranky and/or bored. And they don’t have the mental capacity to think to themselves, well obviously being up late and doing all this awesome stuff that the parents have paid a literal ransom for is getting a bit much for me, so I should calmly and rationally go take a nap or a small break so that I can continue enjoying this amazing childhood memory with all of the intention and youthful exuberance that a situation like this deserves. Instead, this all computes into: this place sucks….it’s obviously mom’s fault and I would clearly be remiss in my duties not to make sure she knows this at maximum volume until she breaks.

Alternately, they will just decide to embarrass you in the most public setting possible. Like the outdoor pool on the main deck of your cruise, in the middle of a sail-away party where there are approximately 7000 people celebrating the fact that they are not stupid enough to be on vacation with kids.

On one such day on the trip, we had bought Escher and Rhyme each an inflatable pool toy. Escher’s was a two foot long Spiderman, and Rhyme’s was Minnie Mouse. During the sail-away from port we decided that we would all head up to the pool and the kids brought their inflatables to play with until they got bored of them (which obviously means on the elevator ride up) at which point they pawned them off on James and I and ran off.

Shortly thereafter, James and I decided to go for a swim in the pool and we realized that these annoying inflatables were quite handy for straddling and floating around in the pool because they brought us just high enough in the water to facilitate the consumption of alcohol. For a while we floated around quite happily, James on Minnie Mouse and myself on Spiderman. Then Escher decided that there was an emergency and he needed Spiderman back. This set in motion the following series of events:

1. Escher comes running up to the side of the pool and starts to panic, demanding to know where Spiderman is.
2. Before I can say anything, he looks down, sees Spiderman between my legs and instantly gets a look of abject horror on his face.
3. Escher SCREAMS at maximum volume from the side of the pool “GET HIM OUT OF YOUR STINKY PARTS!!!!!!!!! GET HIM OUT OF YOUR STINKY PARTS …….RIGHT…….. NOW!!!!!!!!!!”
4. All 7000 people surrounding and in the pool stop talking and look directly at me and I’m virtually certain the DJ turns the music down.
5. Escher stands poolside with his arms out while I try and prioritize which accusation I most wish to deny (it’s not stinky….? It’s not in anything…?).
6. Meanwhile I am now reaching between my legs under the water in an attempt to return the offending object as quickly as possible …and when I bring up the toy, my best friend science kicks in and the surface tension of the water combined with an inflatable Spiderman means that I basically birth-eject the fucking thing out from between my legs and into Escher’s waiting arms while 7000 tourists all stare open-mouthed at me. (Several of them no doubt recognizing me as the woman who loses her children without realizing it….probably because she is too busy doing obscene things with Marvel comic characters.)
7. Escher grabs Spiderman, holds him close in an attempt to comfort him from the horrors he has just endured, gives a mortally offended snort in my general direction and stomps away from the pool.
8. I drown myself. Oh wait no that was unsuccessful. Damnit.

…I don’t remember any other really specific cruise memories, they all blend together into a mass of terror and regret, however I do remember the flight home. This is because we were flying United again and through some miracle of God I went to the bathroom at the exact right moment so as to overhear the flight attendants whispering to themselves behind the curtain at the back of the plane… “Well how many meals do we have….?”

At this point all of the events of the past ten days converged into a giant mental conniption and I literally yanked open the curtain and accosted two very startled, male flight attendants while I tried to form explanatory sentences and all that managed to come out was “I NEED TO BUY ALL OF THE FOOD.”

Eventually I calmed down enough to explain myself, including the MacGyver-gum-popcorn on the flight down and the Spider-Man molestation (once someone was willing to listen to me I actually couldn’t stop myself). The flight attendants ended up being totally terrific and let me run back to my seat to get my credit card so that I could literally buy all of the food. They had three sandwiches and some type of deli boxes and some assorted something or others and all I know is it cost me ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN dollars and I would have paid twice that. 

I do really have to give a shout out to those guys, because not only did they sell me all of their food, they did it knowing they were then going to have to walk through an airplane full of people and explain why a sweaty, stressed-out, portly woman had come running from the back curtain of the plane carrying ALL of the food muttering to herself  “best money I ever spent, take that Macgyver you asshole…” and now there was no food left.  

Then, on top of selling me all of the food and cheerfully tell the rest of the plane to fuck off, as I was thanking them profusely on their way past my seat, they knelt down beside me and asked me what we needed to drink. They then proceeded to smuggle me tiny bottles of rum throughout the flight. (Here honey, you drink this…followed by pats on the arm while I wept with gratitude.)

One time, before I had children, I went to Disneyland and I remember walking through the park and there was this German man standing in the middle of the park, completely beet-red, face dripping in sweat, literally SCREAMING in German at these three kids while the wife stood there staring blankly at nothing while the baby that she was holding chewed her hair.  That was their vacation. This is what children do. And if I had known German, I maybe would have learned this by proxy that day in Disneyland and I could have avoided all of this, but apparently I’m a do-it-yourself kind of gal.

I had to share this with someone. This is basically the sole reason that I blog – so I can send this shit out into the universe.

Today Escher lost his first tooth. This was a momentous occasion for two reasons. One, I no longer have to listen at him screaming that apples are idiots because he insists on trying to eat them and two, I discovered that my daughter is apparently 9 years old going on 90.

They are at their dad’s this weekend and she texted me to let me know about it…

The thing about children is that they have a fairly limited attention span. And by limited I mean that if they have to sit quietly and wait for literally anything they assume it’s child abuse within about 8 seconds. Maybe that’s just my children. If this is just my kids don’t tell me. I’d rather just carry on thinking we are all in this together.

One of the worst places to be stuck with children is in a car. It’s a small space that usually involves them in close contact with each other which they consider to be a criminal offence despite the fact that the rest of the time they operate on a personal space principal that 1) a closed bathroom door means you should wander in and ask your mother where babies come from 2) a closed and locked bathroom door means it’s an emergency and you should punch your sister in the head and then scream “Moooooooooooooooooom are you INNNNNN there?” while kicking the door (standard emergency procedure) and 3) If it’s Christmas and you need to vomit you should immediately climb into your mother’s lap and without warning just puke into her cleavage.

Over the years I have tried various games as a distraction technique once we hit the whining portion of a car trip (aka, as we are pulling out of the driveway). We tried “I spy” for awhile until I overheard Escher explaining the “rules” to his step-brother. Namely, “You pick a colour and then you wait until Mom has given up, and then you point ‘over there’ and say ‘No, that was it’.” So essentially, I was playing “I spy” and he was playing mind games.

Recently I decided to branch out by introducing the game “Two truths and a lie”, which is quite literally what it sounds like. You make three statements, two of which are true and one of which is a lie and the other person has to guess the lie. Where I miscalculated was that I tried to provide a very simple premise for how the game worked when I explained it to Escher. So I said, “I’m wearing a green shirt, I’m wearing jeans, I’m wearing a purple hat.” This accomplished two things. 1) He got the concept immediately (mom win) and 2) I have now spent the last three months playing a game where the other player just announces two items of clothing he is actually wearing and then something totally believable like “I am a space cat”  or “I have never vomited into my mother’s breasts”.

Last week, against my better judgment, we packed up the kids to go for a drive and somehow the children tricked me into playing, probably because the other option was having Escher demand we listen to “Sound of Silence” on repeat for 47 minutes straight which accomplishes a level of irony that is physically painful.

The game went along just fine initially and when we got to Escher’s turn I started to tune out but all of a sudden he comes up with three actual sentences and none of them had to do with his clothes. Progress!!

The following round, same thing. Just enough to give me hope that we had all reached the point where we could play a successful, civilized game with each other. Because of course, I forgot that whatever game I am playing, Escher is actually playing fuck with mom.

Round 3. Escher’s turn.

“I’ve been bitten by a cat.”

“I’ve been bitten by a dog.”

“I’ve been bitten by a bear.”

Easy, right? Wrong. It’s dog. Dog is the lie. So I ask the logical follow up which is “Sorry…when exactly were you bitten by a bear?” To which Escher replies “When I was camping with Dad.”

Cue my persistently honest daughter’s complete outrage at this fabrication as a screeching exclamation from the back seat:

“Mooooooooom!!! Escher’s lying!!!! He’s NEVER been camping with DAD!!!!”

To which Escher screeches back:

“That’s how the game works you IDIOT!!” (incorrect) and then proceeds to punch his sister in the side of the head.

….Six repeats of “Sound of Silence” and one threat to throw everyone out of a moving car later and everyone has calmed down enough to continue playing. Because I never learn.

Round 4. Escher’s turn.

“I’ve eaten my pee.”

“I’ve eaten my poo.”

“I’ve eaten a truck….Guess which one is true??”

……Two things.

1. That is not how the game works AND
2. I literally cannot even.

“Escher…Jesus. That’s not how the game works. You’re supposed to say TWO things that are true and only one that’s a lie…”

“Oh. Sorry Mom. Okay……….”

“I’ve pooped in a can……..I….”

Guess how fast I cued up Sound of Silence? Faster than that.

P.S. We are back to not being on speaking terms.

I remember once upon a time (probably in my know-it-all pre-child days when I had time for shit like reading and having opinions), I read something about how important it is not to diminish or belittle a child’s efforts. So for example, when a child shows you a drawing they did and you have no idea what it is (because children are shitty artists) you should never just straight up say “What the fuck is that?” Because to them it’s TOTALLY obvious that the oblong circle with the line through it and the unrelated check mark on the other side of the page is a raccoon playing chess and now they know that you are basically an idiot who has been faking it this whole time and once they know this believe me when I say, it’s over. 

What you are supposed to say is “that’s an interesting drawing, why don’t you tell me about it?” which tricks them into telling you what it is without revealing that you have no idea whose kids they are and why they are talking to you. Spoiler alert: they are mine and they have taken to talking to strangers. We haven’t been on speaking terms since adventure day. Don’t worry though. They have been thoroughly trained not to accept any candy. They only show their shitty drawings which makes them kidnap-proof. Science.

I have successfully been employing this deciphering technique with the children for years now and so far nobody has caught on. But just recently I have come to the conclusion that somewhere along the line the problem stopped being that I didn’t know what the drawings were and became that I actually don’t want to know.

The other day, Escher came into my room with a large piece of paper on which he had drawn two connecting parallelograms with three small dots in a triangular pattern on each of them. He handed it to me and I said “Oh that’s very nice. Why don’t you tell me about it?” And he shrugged and said “it’s just a vagina.”

…………oh good.

“Ah.” I said, putting literally every ounce of effort I could into sounding as casual and unfazed as possible because I’m quite sure that absolutely anything I do at this point will be the exact moment the therapist traces back to when they are trying to talk him into giving up his hostages twenty years from now. “Well that’s very nice dear. And, um, what are these?” I asked as politely as possible as I pointed to the dots.

“Freckles.”

…..Obviously.

“Good job” I said. Because I figured that was both kind without being overly encouraging since I was hoping to avoid a world where Escher felt it was his calling to draw freckled vaginas for the rest of his life in various mediums and places. Thankfully this seemed to be all he was really looking for from me and he took his drawing back and wandered away while I looked for my emergency wine in the closet.

Then about four minutes later he came back into my room and he handed me back the picture with the following added details:

1) An exaggerated somewhat fire-hosey looking penis (this I recognized) and

2) The letters SG in a comic style angular bubble between the genitals.

So I rather lamely said, “Oh you’ve done some more work have you? What’s happening now?” Which actually had very little to do with the fucking picture and was more of a strangled general outcry to the universe as a whole.

“Now it’s fighting a penis. And that says versus” he says, pointing to the SG.

“Absolutely. Uh huh” I nodded. And now I am thinking this for sure will be the tipping point for the ministry. But before I could take the opportunity to say something clever or educational or even attempt to broach the subject that SG is not shorthand for versus he said “Oh wait. I’m going to add some boxing gloves.” And then he left again.

At this point I confess, I sort of wanted to see where this was going. Like when you back yourself into a corner in one of those choose-your-own-adventure books and you bloody well know that regardless of which decision you make the dragon is going to eat you and all of your friends but you want to read it anyways out of sheer commitment to the process.

This time when he came back he had added a girl to the vagina and a boy to the penis and there were arrows pointing to the genitals (which is assumedly the illustrated equivalent of “my eyes are up here”….except instead of trying to draw someone’s attention away from your body you are using glow sticks coupled with inappropriate gyrations to encourage them to come hither). There were also some suspicious lines coming from the genitals and no boxing gloves, which was vaguely disappointing.

“Okay…..” I said, because I was fairly sure that asking any further questions at this point made me an actual accomplice.

“This is me and Rhyme fighting.”

Jesus lord mercy.

“Okay. Um. What about this?” I said, sort of generically indicating towards the suspicious lines.

“It’s pee, mom.” This one he said ROLLING HIS EYES as if the key problem with this whole scenario is that it wasn’t immediately obvious to his mother that he had drawn a picture of him and his sister fighting naked while simultaneously peeing.

At this point, I confiscated the picture. I’m pretty sure I said some words too but there was this loud buzzing in my ears at the time and I no longer remember what they were. Thankfully, he didn’t push it and nothing more has come of it, except now I have this drawing that I am pretty sure can get me arrested.

You know how sometimes on the news there will be some terrible tragedy that befalls a family and they go around and interview all the neighbours and they are all on camera talking about how they have no idea how this could have happened and that the family was just so nice and quiet and normal and they can’t imagine what went wrong?

That is not what will happen to me. Instead, all of the neighbours will be nodding and saying things like “I always knew there was something wrong with them…..especially that little one.” And then someone will go into my house and they will find this picture and everyone will be horrified and all the news anchors will be collectively alarmed and Gary the camera guy will get his big break because he will have an inside scoop about what a bunch of weirdos we were…probably because he reads this blog.

You stay away from my fucking closet wine Gary, you asshole.

In case you thought I was kidding….

You know when you see a really great movie and when it ends you feel a sense of loss because you really wanted there to be more? And then you hear about the sequel and you get all excited and then you bribe everyone you know to find someone who will watch your kids for 3 hours so you can actually leave the house and go see it and then you spend the 20 minute drive to the theater debating whether you should just head to Mexico instead because hey, three hour head start. But then you go to the theater anyways because you basically have Stockholm syndrome from your life and P.S you really do want to see the sequel and you figure it won’t be as good in Spanish.

And then the sequel sucks and you end up driving home with the sad peanuts song playing in your head and the babysitter is sitting at the end of the driveway glaring at you as you pull up and you can vaguely hear strains of Bohemian Rhapsody mixed with maniacal laughter emanating from the house and then the babysitter yells lose my number as she literally sprints for her car? And you think jokes on you I never had your number in the first place because you found her at the gas station?

Yeah, me neither. But I imagine that the level of sheer compounded disappointment that a theoretical situation like that would generate is similar to how this blog sequel is going to go because the rest of adventure day was equally soul-suckingly terrible but probably not as funny. For YOU. Nothing about the entire day was funny for me. I still get the shakes when someone mentions lemonade.

Once we cleared past the diesel spill the children were so relieved to be actually moving again that they were pleasant for approximately 37 seconds before they regained composure and remembered whining is always a good fallback when you are bored. Harmonized versions of “We’re huuuuuuuuuuungreeeeeeeeeeee….” then ensued until I agreed to stop for food. Normally I would employ the services of a drive-thru, which, little known fact, were actually created because NO ONE WANTS MY CHILDREN LOOSE IN THEIR RESTAURANT. I’m not kidding. There was a time machine involved. It’s all very scientific.

In this case, I needed out of that car, badly. So we stopped for food at a lovely, hip, taco place that solely employs trendy young staff who definitely spend all of their time being aggressive vegans on their social media pages and are already not impressed with me because I have contributed to world hunger by spawning two children that are not even going to grow up and be part of the solution. Trust me on this.

We ordered food and I amused myself while we waited by watching the lovely young couple sitting beside us and imagining what my life would be like if I could just go to restaurants with other grown ups and have entire conversations that actually made sense and didn’t use the words mom, why, butt, stupid or stop it.

As I watched, the waiter came by and brought the woman her food, which was the same as what I had ordered. This was extremely validating because hey, if this cool, lovely, sane young woman and I had the same tastes in anything it meant that some small part of myself might still be alive and able to rebuild once the children run away from home.

Turns out, not so much. They just accidentally served her my order, which they realized after she had squeezed the limes all over the meal but before she had touched it. Her kind, generous, helpful boyfriend (who loves her very much and probably spends his time writing songs about how beautiful she is and promising that he will love her forever and will only give her nice children that use manners and never need to relieve themselves in a mobile piece of car trash) immediately rushes to her aid and jumps up to get the waitress. She arrives, there is profuse apologizing and mutual admiration all around and she whisks my food away before it contaminates their experience.

Here’s what happens next. The waitress walks away from the table long enough to basically turn around and then comes back and places the exact same plate in front of me. Lime wedges still delicately squished out. Doesn’t say a word. Just, bam. Here is some almost used food.

Okay so look. As a mom, you are basically a human compost. Meals become a hodgepodge of what your children won’t eat and whatever requires the least amount of effort to put in your body after you have alternated cooking and yelling for 45 minutes and then cut a bunch of food into acceptably small bits and then gotten 12 glasses of water and then had an argument about why broccoli smelling like farts does not mean it will taste like them. Which means, I routinely eat a handful of chicken that has imperceptible levels of fat on it, (which we know because they already tried chewing it to check), broccoli and Advil for dinner.

In any case. This woman having squeezed limes on food that I didn’t have to prepare myself was already a step up from my entire life and we all knew it. But it was still not exactly restaurant quality service. Drive-thru. Maybe. 

I debated sending it back but then I’m probably actively contributing to world hunger and I figured they could probably do a lot worse to my food so I just ate it anyways. Then I cleaned up all our dishes into a nice stack, and wrote a thank you note explaining why I didn’t tip, while my children asked a million questions about what I was doing as I hissed shut up at them so they didn’t blow my cover.

We finally made it back to the car and made our way to the park. By now, it is almost 4pm. We pull up and the children are wildly excited and almost being nice to each other. We got out, grabbed our blanket and marched up over the hill to find that the new fancy park has a grand total of three pieces of equipment jammed into 34 square feet plus a zip line with a 20 person line up. Also, it is 40 degrees out. Also, there are 1200 other people there. Even the kids were able to identify at this point that the day was a complete disaster.

We agreed to sit under a tree on the hill for a bit and all collectively pretend that this wasn’t our life until we could stomach getting back in the car again. At this point I think my brain actually left my body for a time until it was abruptly jolted back by the sound of streaming water. I looked back and Escher has his pants down around his ankles and is peeing on the tree behind me. Which is actually the most acceptable part of this whole story because 1) it wasn’t a lemonade can and 2) by this point literally nothing mattered anymore. Public nudity? Fucking check. What else ya got?

At this point the kids decided they wanted to try the zip line, so we got up to go and stand in the line up (which was OBVIOUSLY in the blazing hot sun) and all of a sudden my sundress which had been so artfully laid out around me slapped down onto the back of the legs and I realized that Escher had pissed all over my dress because WHY NOT. And after I managed to count to ten and calmly say “Escher, darling, you peed all over mommy” (this is a bold faced lie, this is in no way what I actually said) He replied “No I didn’t, I peed on the tree. But it rolled.”

So now we are DEFINITELY going to go wait in line for the zip line because I need the 40 degree heat to dry my urine-soaked dress off so that I don’t get it all over my car, although at this point I am starting to realize that my life is basically a Final Destination movie except instead of the sweet sweet release of death chasing me down, Escher is getting piss in my car one way or another.

Cue two rounds of zip line in the sweltering heat while I tried to blend in with the other parents by mimicking their “what’s that smell face” and sympathetically nodding at people when it seemed appropriate until we finally made it out of there and managed to get back to the car.

I had unfortunately promised the children ice cream back in the deliriously optimistic planning phase so we headed there next. There is a fancy ice cream place that the kids love with 238 flavours (no word of a lie, there are flavours you haven’t even dreamt of like garlic and seaweed). And of course half the fun is trying samples of all the different flavours. You buy a token for a cone, and then you wander through the store trying teeny tiny spoons of flavours until you decide. So the kids and I bought our tokens and tried about 7 samples and then suddenly the girl behind the counter who is maybe 16 years old goes “I’m sorry but did you even pay?” To which I somewhat awkwardly held up my token the way you imagine you would when someone has basically accused you of stealing $1.43 worth of ice cream.

And she replied “Ok, sorry but I had to check” in a tone that implied that she neither had to check, NOR WAS SHE SORRY. And I just thought to myself, “Did you though?” Somewhere along the line did your crack ice cream employee training include how to identify would-be sample thieves and was that identification process solely based on whether or not they did in fact smell like urine? Because if so….godspeed, obviously.

By the time we got our ice cream and made it out of the shop it was closing in on 5:30. We climbed back into the car and started it up and just then, the traffic channel, which I had left on during the trip out, announced over the radio that there had been an accident on the highway headed eastbound (the way home, of course) and that neither the highway, nor any of the feeder routes were moving.

Cut to 2.5 hours of sneaky back roads and stop and go traffic featuring non-stop crying and sulking and whining. And the kids were shitty too.

By the time we made it home it was nearly 8 o’clock, none of us were speaking to each other and I was no longer capable of conscious thought. And normally that’s a state I welcome, but in this case I couldn’t even appreciate it.

I literally cannot make this stuff up people. I actually can’t be a person. I promise you this though, next time I go to a movie, I’m taking the head start.

Every once in a while I feel a level of vague guilt when I see that other parents do fun things with their children like doing crafts or going on outings or feeding them. Normally I can just ignore it but it occasionally mixes with just enough optimism that I think it’s a feasible idea for me to try it. This is a bad idea for several reasons. 1) My creativity and my patience are equal parts non-existent. 2) All the other parents are doing this stuff with children who are not mine and 3) Literally EVERY time this happens something goes terribly, terribly wrong. And I don’t mean that we spill something on the carpet and someone “accidentally” gets paint on the dog (this is just Tuesdays). I mean the entire event goes to actual hell and I promise myself that I will never do it again. And then I don’t keep my fucking promise because someone else wins a mom of the year award on my Instagram feed and that stupid feeling kicks back in.

Case in point. Someone told me that they opened this new amazing park downtown, which is about an hour drive from my house. So I thought, awesome. Kids like parks and I have kids so this should be some quick points. It was my last day off so I figured I would head out early, couple hours at the park, home in the early afternoon. Easy. We planned to leave at 9:30am.

At noon, we made it out of the house. (I don’t want to talk about it- that’s when I was actually planning on leaving anyways so shut up). It was a nice day and we were all driving along quite happily.  Everything was going along swimmingly. Then, all of a sudden, I realized that the traffic up ahead of me was not moving. And when I say not moving, I mean several people were out of their cars craning ahead to see what was happening and someone was cooking smokies on their tailgate on the middle of the highway. Turns out the universe found out I’d had another one of my bright ideas so it flipped a semi-truck and leaked diesel all over four lanes of a five lane highway. FOUR KILOMETRES AHEAD. So now I am stuck in a vehicle with my children and there is literally no way out. We spend the next 45 minutes inching along while I try and convince the children that the inside of my car is almost as good as a park.

At the 45 minute mark we are just past the halfway point. The pattern is as follows: drive 6 feet, stop for 9 minutes, inch forward another foot, change lanes because everyone else is driving past you and laughing, come to a complete stop, repeat. Then, the unthinkable happens. If you don’t routinely hang out with 6 year olds then here’s a fun fact…their bladders don’t come with any actual sensors. I think they kick in around 26 or something. Which means, they don’t ever just have to pee…they have to pee RIGHT now. And when your 6 year old has to pee right now and you are in minute one of the 9 minute stop and there are literally no highway exits between you and Satan’s latest practical joke on your life, there are NO solutions. There isn’t even a shoulder to stop on.

So now I’m frantically trying to decide if it’s appropriate to let your child get out of the car on a 5 lane freeway and piss on a median while the cars that are going the correct way on the highway are whizzing past at 140kms an hour. Most of my life actually comes down to will the ministry finally take the children if I do this thing? As I am doing the mental math Escher starts getting quite frantic in the backseat and is announcing that he is going to pee in his hands if I don’t do something. And then he found a tall, slim empty can and was trying to argue that he could pee in the can and was using the fact that it was a lemonade can to bolster his argument. So now I am yelling “ESCHER DO NOT PEE IN THAT CAN” while I am trying not to rear-end the car in front of me because we are now in the lane-switching portion of the cycle.

I am usually good at coming up with solutions when push comes to shove. In this case, I had nothing. Absolutely nothing. And now the kid is sitting back there sobbing “It’s coming” over and over and we are out of options. Fuck it. Can it is. So now the problem solving becomes how to use the can in the most effective way possible.

I backed the passenger seat back as far as it would go, put a blanket down across the seat and on the floor and told Escher to climb over the seats and perch on the edge of the seat with his pants around his ankles and aim VERY carefully and pee in the can.

He quite gratefully maneuvers himself into place and is perching carefully on the front seat clutching the can and his non-existent hand-eye coordination is kicking in so his little hands are shaking and he keeps looking ahead to see if I’m about to slam into the cars in front of me as we are inching along and I suddenly realize that the tip of his little penis is basically the same size as the can opening and there is a very real possibility that he is going to re-circumcise himself on the edge of a lemonade can on the freeway in my car at 3kms an hour so I am screaming “LOOK AT THE CAN FOR GOD’S SAKE JUST LOOK AT THE CAN!!” And my nine year old who is eternally helpful is just sitting in the back seat with her arms crossed announcing “He’s going to cut his dick off mom” which is NOT NECESSARY because I already KNOW this. And now Escher has stage fright combined with abject terror and he can’t actually go and then we hit a straightaway where we got to drive about 40 feet straight through so I am trying to watch the road and drive as straight as possible while Escher keeps exclaiming “Here it comes!!!….Oh no it went away again…” And I am literally yelling “ESCHER FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST PEE IN THE FUCKING CAN.”

This lasted for about 3 minutes. He eventually decided that he would just never pee again, (works for me) and that he could hold it indefinitely. Cue him pulling his pants back up and climbing back into his carseat. He left the can in my cup holder though. In case you were worried.

We then proceeded in the stop and go traffic for another 23 minutes. In total, it was 1 hour and 23 minutes to go 4 kms. And the worst part is that was not the end of the day. It did actually continue to go badly for another 7 hours or so and I would tell you about it, except just reliving this portion is causing my PTSD to kick in so I’ll have to tell you another time.

P.S. If you regularly post awesome things that you do with your kids on your social media can you just unfriend me and save me from myself? That’d be so so good.

Overheard at the creek while the children were trying to catch fish….

Escher: “Rhyme, if you fart under the water then all the fish will just come over because it’s as if the king is making an underwater announcement.”

These are the moments where the number of questions I have is only slightly outweighed by my desire not to further the conversation.

Having to routinely say things out loud that shouldn’t be things is slowly causing me to lose my sense of normal…

Not only should I not ever have to say “Escher, stop putting your butt in your sister’s pizza”….I shouldn’t have to say it four times at escalating volume with accompanying threats.

I’m pretty sure the neighbours have collectively started a game of “crazy family bingo”…..