* CHAPTER 1 *
Finding Your Lost Kids and Other Practical Spring Break Advice
If you are looking for advice about how to plan a flawless vacation with your kids, the Internet is your spring break G-spot. The World Wide Web is packed with superIFFIC ideas about the perfect towns to visit, the best places to eat with kids, and the hottest apps for jumping lines at the amusement park. Like most exciting things on the Internet, however, these ideas are also dirty fantasies. There's no such thing as a vacation with kids, and everyone knows that.
But even if you call it "a trip," the fact remains that perfect trips with kids are like vaginal orgasms: Good luck with that. Wouldn't spring break travel be easier if we got advice that was less like zesty Internet porn and more like the sex life of a middle-aged married couple? The theme of that spring break trip would be founded on three simple ideas: Lower your expectations. Minimize the surprises. Manage the dysfunction.
PROJECTILE VOMIT IN THE RENTAL CAR
Maybe it was a GI thing he picked up on the plane. Maybe she was playing a video game when the mountain road got unexpectedly curvy. Maybe he was enjoying a box of Whoppers when he discovered that a movie theater–size box of sugarcoated malt balls do not, in fact, go down like water.
It's not their fault. Actually, it's your fault. Before kids blow chunks, they almost always try to warn you. They grunt. They groan. They complain of a tummy problem, prompting you to instruct them, "Open a window." Real talk, parents. Fresh air? If fresh air cured vomiting, hospitals would have crank-open windows and the Ebola virus wouldn't be that big of a deal. Telling your carsick kids to open the window is roughly as effective as telling them to drink curdled chocolate milk and stare at the hood ornament.
So there you are—speeding to a Mexican airport that you just realized is in a different time zone—when one of the twins yaks onto his lap, his brother's lap, the back of your head, and the entire backseat. Why? Because kids never puke up a tiny bit. They puke up, like, two gallons. They puke up way more by volume than they have actually eaten in weeks, if not months. For reasons unexplained in the Bible, their puke flies out like Satan's spew.
How to fix it. The smell of puke is contagious, so you need to triage this shit. First, slam on the brakes, jump out of the car, and open the puke-side door. Next, strip the clothes off everyone who isn't already naked. Now open your husband's luggage and pull out all the large, absorbent undershirts you can find, unless you stole some towels from the hotel; don't waste time worrying about ethics—the hotel doesn't want them back now anyway.
After heavy wiping, take hand sanitizer or a water bottle and dump liquid all over the seats and your kids. Dry the seats with dirty socks, underwear, and any stuffed animals your kids may have won at local carnivals. Those toys are probably made out of toxic waste, anyway, and should be buried. When you can't do any more, find a nearby trash can. If there's no trash can nearby, leave the entire pile of puke-soaked fabric by the side of the road. Sorry, volunteer cleanup crew. But this is no time to be a good citizen.
LOST CHILDREN
The second most common spring break experience is the temporary misplacing of one's children. This one is not your fault. What are you gonna do—walk your kid on a leash? If kids were meant to be tethered like farm animals, they would sleep outside in the barn like you asked, without complaint. The problem with unleashing them is that when kids get lost, they go invisible. They disappear like magical wizards. That is because kids have no sense of direction. Or anything else, for that matter. They wander off like airheads with no memory and no plan for the future. And since they are roughly half the size of regular people—and 98 percent of them are wearing T-shirts—they can't be easily spotted in a crowd.
How to fix it. For the first five minutes, DON'T PANIC. Your child hasn't drowned in the fake waterpark river or been abducted by a serial killer. When kids go MIA, they're almost always doing something stupid, like hiding inside the whale belly at the playground or standing in front of a store window, staring at the flashing LED lights on a plastic replica of the Statue of Liberty. Spend a few minutes calmly looking around. He'll probably see you and charge over, scratching his head.
After five to ten minutes, you may instinctively start checking your phone to see whether your child has called you. Don't bother, Ma Bell. If your child is under ten—or is particularly bad at listening, even for a boy—he forgot every digit of your phone number the second you told him. He also forgot to ask a trustworthy adult for help, because to kids, trustworthy is a meaningless descriptor. To kids, all adults look the exact same amount of creepy and weird. Besides, none of this matters. The moment your kid realized he was lost in the Mall of America, he stopped short in the middle of the walkway and began bawling his eyes out, which is the official kid way to "ask a trustworthy adult for help." And it totally works. Within seconds, a nice mommy—paranoid that the mall is full of predators, and possibly correct—will take your kid to the security booth.
If ten to fifteen minutes have gone by and you've checked the general area, your phone, and the security booth to no avail: PANIC! Start running through the mall and screaming out your child's name at the top of your lungs. JUNIOR! JUNIOR! OH MY GOD, I CAN'T FIND JUNIOR! Your goal should be to interrupt whatever everyone is doing so that they prioritize your lost child over their pre-shopping pretzel dogs. You may feel bad when Junior saunters out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on his pants. (But sidebar, low talkers: If you can't even imagine yelling that loud in a mall, because you're afraid people will get mad and/or think you're crazy, then, by all means, keep quiet. Being reunited with your child is definitely not worth embarrassing yourself in front of a bunch of strangers. It will probably work out.)
FAMILY VACATIONS INVOLVING CULTURE, EDUCATION, OR PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT
You may think you're being a good parent by forcing your kids to learn something on vacation. Maybe your college friend runs a travel agency that specializes in eco-holidays, and for the same price as a trip to Disney, your whole family can sleep in a Canadian yurt and forage for edible weeds. You think this sounds almost as fabulous as the trip your colleague took to China, when she hiked alongside the Great Wall. Think your kids will love that? Wake up, Chairman Mao. You're taking your kids away for spring break, not cultural reprogramming. If people liked being sent away to the Chinese countryside to improve themselves, China wouldn't be making all our iPhones now. Here are a few reasons why kids and culture don't mix.
Kids don't like to walk. Or listen. Or stand. They can run ten miles in a soccer game, swim a thousand meters at practice, and dance under a disco ball for hours wearing a polyester hot dog costume. But tell them you're going hiking—for no other reason than peace of mind—and their bodies go limp. Most kids would rather jog on a treadmill with a thyroid disorder than spend the morning in an art museum shuffling slowly through galleries and talking about the Renaissance. Unless you and your partner want to get extra buff carrying the kids piggyback alongside the Great Wall, cancel the trip.
You can't make butter noodles in a yurt. Even if your kids learn how to trap rabbits in Canada, they won't eat any rabbit. In fact, none of the things you can cook in a yurt are on the carbo-loaded white-food list. Yurts may be an extreme example, but it really doesn't matter where you go. Take them to Nashville for barbecue, and they'll scream for the frozen chicken tenders they get at their local suburban roller rink. Take them to Spain because their favorite food is ham, and they will suddenly become vegetarian. If you need a foodie experience, order tapas on date night.
Kids are better suited to fake adventure than real adventure. Remember when you missed that flight in Mexico and you had to stay overnight in an airport hotel? That was so hard. But not as hard as when your kid vomits inside the Great Pyramid, and it's 130 degrees, and you have to recon-crawl back through the narrow tunnel past dozens of angry sightseers. Remember the neon-blue diarrhea she got at Disneyland? That will seem like nothing when she gets bitten by a poisonous snake in the Amazon and you have to drive a hundred miles to the nearest shaman. You want to teach her about the environmental perils of monocultural farming? Buy a book about the rainforest ecosystem and read it to her on a first-world beach. She'll have plenty of time to risk her life when she's a moronic teenager.
Reminder! Excessive sun exposure can lead to skin cancer. More important, if your kids get burned on their first day at the beach, you'll have to stay inside with them all week long. You didn't travel three thousand miles to take a staycation. Use sunscreen!
Why Moms Should Boycott the Word Staycation
1. The bank bailout, bitches. Staycation has become especially popular since 2008. There's a good reason for that, and it's not that President Obama is a secret Muslim. You know a word's a problem when you can trace it back to an economic depression.
2. French bullshit. Staycation is a portmanteau, which is a fancy French word for "a combination." But defining it in French doesn't make it any better. In fact, a more accurate French phrase might be, c'est des conneries, which roughly translates to "this is fucking bullshit."
3. Not an actual fucking vacation. Moms who have taken a staycation know the truth. You are either taking a vacation or you are staying home. One of them involves a change of scenery, rest, better weather, and/or fun sightseeing. The other involves catching up on household chores, letting your kids watch extra TV, and maybe sneaking in a nap before dinner. Don't lose perspective on what you truly deserve: a vacation.
4. Other stupid words. For purposes of comparison, here are some other portmanteau terms that have either already become obsolete, or should.
* Bennifer
* newscast
* frenemies
* Tofurky
* Reaganomics
* affluenza
* feminazi
* jeggings
* CHAPTER 2 *
The Coolest Birthday Party Ideas Ever for Moms Who Really, Really Love Their Kids!
Are you one of those moms who really, really love their kids? If not, skip this chapter and check back in at chapter 68: "Moms Who Love Their Kids, but Not Enough to Give Them Everything They Want." If you are one of those then you know what it means to throw your kids the coolest birthday party ever. You've done it every year since your princess was five and you made the hideously embarrassing mistake of inviting three friends over for a sweet little tea party in the backyard. You heard about it. All. Day.
"You don't have a deluxe Blast Zone bouncy castle?!"
"Where is the crafting table for children on the visual-learning spectrum?!"
"What about the boys? Aren't there BOYS in the class?!"
"Were those gummy worms made with gelatin, cuz we are fair-trade vegans?!"
And those were just the moms!
After that debacle, you figured out that the only people who have small house parties for children these days are Europeans and art professors. Moms who really love their kids know what kid birthday parties today are really about.
AT LEAST 35 KIDS, IF NOT 100!
Sometime between 1992 and 2003, moms who really love their kids raised the birthday attendance bar. They started inviting the entire class to every single party. Not only was this idea supremely fun and prohibitively expensive, but also, once the precedent was set, people who refused to do it looked like total assholes. It doesn't matter if your kid was traumatized by the class bully. The bully is invited to the party too. Of course she is. The bully LOVES Morty the Magician. So get over to the grocery store, Mom. The whole class needs lunch, and they all hate your food!
ATHLETIC FACILITIES!
Once the bar was raised, all hell broke loose. Almost nobody has a home big enough to accommodate a bunch of kids who don't even like each other. How do you entertain an entire class? By outsourcing the party to an off-site fun place! It used to be cool to decorate a cupcake and take a few whacks at a pi?ata. Now, you have to reserve an indoor play space where all the "friends" can whack a pi?ata, THEN choose between four different sports, tumbling equipment, trampolines, and a sunken ball pit. Those on a tighter budget can try a gymnasium. These places keep costs down by literally never cleaning their equipment. If this all seems like too much to do, consider hiring an event planner. Someone who is professionally trained to plan a wedding can put together a birthday party that today's schoolchildren just might enjoy.
BIRTHDAY THRONES!
What is the point of treating your children like royalty if they can't sit their spoiled asses on an actual throne? Thrones aren't a new thing, but in today's birthday landscape, they're totally de rigueur. Though the birthday kid doesn't have to wear a crown, it's imperative that his friends sit around him on the floor like submissive plebian manservants. If your birthday boy-king doesn't get a special seat from which to summon his gifts, fire the event planner. Because that is bullshit. Kids sit in regular, ignoble chairs every other day of the year. They don't need to be discriminated against on their special day.
BIRTHDAYPALOOZA!
Another best practice is to extend the celebration for as long as possible. Invite kids over for two hours? Who can learn how to ride a bucking bronco in that time frame? Make clear in the Evite that parents should send pajamas with their children's riding crops. A sleepover dude-ranch party will be a little extra work because you'll have to pack s'mores for thirty-five. But as with Burning Man, a kid's birthday party is only radically inclusive if you sleep with dirty strangers in a pup tent. If that sounds tiring, or communicable, just remember: You're only going to be able to host these extravagant parties for about ten more years before it's time to start funding their cocaine addiction.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!
If you really want to raise the roof (and your mortgage), take the mini-mes on a birthday junket. It's not just celebrities and selfish people who force everyone to fly to Aruba for not-their-own vacation. Can't fly the whole fourth-grade class to Aruba? OK, cheapskate. Then Las Vegas it is! Children aren't allowed to gamble or hire escorts there … yet. But there's so much for kids to do in a city built on greed, hedonism, and axis-2 psychological problems. Ferris wheels! Zip lines! Volcanoes! Circuses! Gokarts! Ice skating! Pick your cultural poison—Las Vegas has it all.
Reminder! With a remote desert climate that's 100 percent ill-suited for human overpopulation, Las Vegas sends the best birthday message ever, from a mom who really, really loves her kid. Screw everyone else on the planet. It's ALL ABOUT YOU.
* CHAPTER 3 *
Beat Your Rugs, Not Your Relatives: Spring-Cleaning Your Way to Personal Happiness
A few generations ago, people did something called "spring cleaning," an annual family ritual that involved picking up everything—comforters, carpets, mattresses, curtains—and moving them outside to give them a beat down. Were people especially dirty back then? Obviously, yes. But they couldn't help being scummy. They were cooped up all winter with wood fireplaces, farm animals, home-cooked meals, gunpowder, sheepdogs, and fleas. Come the warmer weather, those dirtbags must have been desperate to beat the crap out of their household furnishings.
We don't spring-clean this way in the twenty-first century. For one thing, spring cleaning isn't a family affair anymore. Kids today can't devote an entire day to chores; they're way too busy with playdates. Also, we have vacuums now. And electric dryers, natural-gas fireplaces, fast-food restaurants, microwaves, chlorine bleach, and sinus medication. Because of that technology-driven hyper-cleanliness, our immune systems are shutting down, and we're all dying of superbugs. Thanks, Benjamin Franklin.
There are people who still choose to do the big annual cleaning for catharsis. Cleaning is a good metaphor for emotional purging and purification. But then, why stop at metaphor? How about if we actually took our negative feelings out on the annoying, dysfunctional objects/people we live with?
BEAT THE RUG FROM THE GUEST ROOM, OR WHEREVER YOU PUT YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW WHEN SHE COMES TO VISIT/COMPLAIN.
Every holiday, you drive several hours to her house so you can sleep on a pullout couch of nails. You tolerate this because your husband insists his mother has delicate feelings. Her visits, on the other hand, are a semi-annual reenactment of "The Princess and the Pea"—in reverse. You clean that guest room for hours. You wash the bedding. You vacuum. You cut fresh flowers. You stack up several folded towels and washcloths. And still, she finds something intolerable about it every time. The facial soap gave her a rash. The room is too stuffy. There must be a stray dog hair on the carpet that is making her sneeze. Wildflowers are THE WORST.
You know what you have to do, Mom. You have to spring-clean the shit out of this problem. First, have your husband remove the area rug and hang it outside. Next, get an old-fashioned metal rug beater—the kind that looks like a cross between a heavy-cream whisk and a canoe paddle—and visualize your mother-in-law standing on it, complaining. Every time you think about her fragile feelings, whack the rug as hard as you can. Take that sisal bitch down, girl! You can't remove every miscellaneous speck of dust, hair, soap, and mold. But you can feel a LOT better trying.
STRETCH THE DRAPES IN THE LIVING ROOM.
Your drapes look like they used to be an outdoor rug. That's because your kids like to smear their hands on them right after they've applied sunscreen and eaten chocolate chip cookies. But the kids are by no means the only problem here. Last year, after the cats chased a mouse into the curtains, your dad—fancying himself an amateur exterminator—took several swings at it with a dirty broom. Now the drapes are smeared with chocolate, zinc oxide, mouse droppings, and oil from the floor of the garage. The drapes need to be washed. But because they're made of heavy fabrics, they also need to be stretched.
This is your chance to practice some old-school corporal punishment, just like the British did with old Guy Fawkes. It's torture time, daddy! Stretch that fabric apart until the drapes/your dad is ready to concede that dirty brooms don't belong inside the house. You do love the guy. More important, he's too big to push over and put in a half nelson. But it's high time for someone to acknowledge that he'll never be handy. Torture the drapes until you can almost hear them screaming for mercy: "I'm no Tim Allen!"
PUT WINTER CLOTHES IN A SEASONAL TIME-OUT.
Kids are constantly being rude and disrespectful. They tell us we're weird and roll their eyes if we express an authentic emotion in front of their friends. Well, guess who's in charge of rotating your clothing, meanies? Yes, it's the weepy fatso with the wrinkly lips! Not only does she get to decide what stays or goes, but she's also free to verbally abuse your wardrobe. Remember that day in February when your kid played a bad hockey game and had the audacity to tell you that you were bad luck? That hockey jersey is going down. (Up, actually. Into the attic.) Then there was the time you told your other kid to finish her math homework, but she insisted on going ice-skating. This is your moment to say "I told you so." But don't bother saying it to her. She won't listen anyway. Just take it out on her favorite fuzzy fleece leggings. Squish that shit into a tiny ball and banish it to the back of the drawer. Then give it the finger. Skate on this, ice pants!
GET RID OF OLD APPLIANCES YOU NEVER USE, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR YOUNGER BROTHER WANTS ANY OF THEM.
Recycling is good eco-behavior. The thing is, your brother wasn't too kind last summer when poor little Snickers got blocked. Catheterizing a dog is too expensive, he said. Little bro—biased against dogs ever since a pit bull bit off part of his cheek—offered to put Snickers out of his misery by snapping his neck and burying him in the backyard. You still have nightmares. Does broham really need that juicer? If you gave him your old wok, would he start eating some healthy meals? Hmmm. Maybe. Or maybe he'll just develop heart disease from his unhealthy diet and end up having his chest sawed open for quadruple bypass surgery. Human life. So expensive. Put the appliances and your brother out of their misery and dump them in the motherfucking garbage.
CLEAN THE WINDOWS AND SCREENS.
Clean the windows? Yourself? Hell, no. Hire someone to do this! Your husband told you that window cleaning wasn't "in the spring budget." But baseball season has already started, and your husband hasn't gotten it done, and you're getting tired of looking at the backyard through a layer of bird shit. Get a personal recommendation for a window company. If possible, find one that employs hot young men. Like graduate students. Or baseball coaches. Nothing says fuck baseball season like staring out at the naked torso of Adonis as he stands on a ladder, soaping up your bedroom window. If your husband gets mad at you for gawking, all the better. Maybe next spring, he'll decide to put that pitching arm on ice for a few days, and help with the cleaning. Cha-ching.
Reminder! An effective way to get rid of those old toys your kids are sentimentally attached to is to "disappear" them behind furniture. By the time you pull out the dresser to vacuum behind it next spring, the kids won't care about the stuff anymore. Suck it, toys.
* CHAPTER 4 *
Matzo Balls, Lambs, and Locusts, Oh My! Whatever You Do This Holiday Season, Don't Get on the Neighborhood Listserv
A lot of people believe that playing violent video games has a negative effect on behavior. With all the scientific research devoted to kids and gaming, it seems odd that nobody has bothered to study the behavior of moms who participate in a neighborhood Listserv.
Moms often join these groups for good reasons. One person has bunk beds to sell. Another needs a hotel recommendation. The old woman on the corner started a little free library and people are stealing the books. This thievery upsets her until someone points out that the criminals probably need the books more than anyone. Bleeding-heart generosity wins. Crisis averted.
The problem with the neighborhood Listserv is that, eventually, the bunk beds and free library will give way to a more controversial topic. Reasonable people will disagree. Feelings will be hurt. This is especially true around the holidays, when Sh*tty Moms—from all perspectives and walks of life—come together to drive one another absolutely fucking nuts.
ALTERNATIVE-FOOD MOM
While every mom in the world gets stressed around holidays, Alternative-Food Mom is MORE STRESSED than everyone else. That's because she has to make all the traditional foods with nontraditional ingredients. She's so unconventional that she barely has time to post this question: Anyone know where I can get some gluten-free KFP cereal around here? She definitely doesn't have time to explain her high maintenance food requirements to "traditional eaters." But she'll do it anyway. I'm staying gluten-free for Lent. If I don't use sweet potato flour, we will all be doubled over on the floor for the Resurrection! After reading her missive on fair-trade organic gluten-free ethnic food, everyone else in the neighborhood feels ignorant, cheap, and bloated.
HOLIDAY-DIETING MOM
Most of us gain weight over holidays because of some combination of stress and butter. Not Holiday-Dieting Mom! She uses the religious dietary restrictions as an excuse to stop eating. Holiday-Dieting Mom has a lot of facts at her disposal, particularly about calories. Hey, everyone—there's a gluten-free matzo now. I don't eat it. It's obnoxiously expensive, and also, why bother? Matzo is already low-carb. Passover got my people out of Egypt, and it's getting me ready for swimsuit season! Holiday-Dieting Mom can be a touch insensitive. Like when she announces to the group, "I wish I had celiac disease so I couldn't sneak bread!" Or "I'm giving up dessert for Lent, so I can be skinnier than my sister, who is diabetic." Six long weeks with nothing for dinner but red wine. How will she do it?! Tune in to the Anorexia Holiday Listserv to find out.
ANGRY-SHOPPER MOM
Over the holidays, grocery store aisles are crowded, carts are overstuffed, and stock is low. Nobody is more aggravated about this than Angry-Shopper Mom. She insists on serving the same meal every year and if the grocery store can't accommodate her, she'll take them down. The price per pound for lamb this year was outrageous, they were almost out of red potatoes, and their cabbage looked like shriveled human heads! While she's pretty sure the deli guy had his thumb on the scale, she's not half as outraged as the mom who needed Passover sardines and accidentally picked up regular sardines because they were stocked in the wrong place. She'll take them back to the store to exchange them. But first, she needs to tell everyone about the store's transgression. What if she hadn't noticed? What if she had served them? What if Nanna had actually put one in her MOUTH? The consequences are dire, and the venting is endless.
STICKLER-FOR-DETAILS MOM
If this woman were British, you'd call her a scold. In America, we have a different word for her. She's that pain in the ass who's superficially nice but talks with a clenched jaw, and you can hear it in her writing every time she weighs in. Which is often. Dear neighbors: You may wish to know that lamb meat is not necessarily the meat of baby sheep. Like mutton, it happens to be the correct term for the meat of adult sheep. Thank you. Sometimes, Stickler-for-Details Mom doesn't raise actual topics but, instead, focuses on the process. Please stick to matters relevant to our entire community. Thank you. No, Stickler Mom, thank you.
RANDOM-ACTIVIST MOM
This mom doesn't really hear your anxiety about holiday shopping. Because whatever you said—blah, blah, blah—reminded her of a political issue she feels strongly about. Folks: I don't know about cereal or sheep meat. But I did read an article recently about the newly protected status of sardines. How about tuna fish this holiday season? Random-Activist Mom is a close cousin of Stickler-for-Details Mom. Indeed, they share a common goal: taking people down with a bounty of unsolicited and judgmental suggestions. Let's all try to be better stewards of the earth, OK?
OVERLY POSITIVE MOM
Sometimes, when people get irrationally upset, other people should probably just stay out of it. Wait until the storm passes. But because they're too positive to shut the fuck up, they instead make it worse. With the Listserv equivalent of "turn that frown upside down," Overly Positive Mom will remind everyone not to be angry and critical and judgmental, because really, ladies, Passover and Easter should focus on happiness, gratitude, and fun! And then, as the self-appointed spiritual leader of the Listserv, she'll sign off with an interdenominational non-saying. Namaste, happy Ramadan, save the sardines, and God bless America!
COMICALLY OVERWHELMED MOM
She's not so much overwhelmed as she's a caricature of someone who is overwhelmed. Did someone just say the holidays are about happiness? Thank you for that respectful blessing, but what the HELL are you talking about? Comically Overwhelmed Mom cleans the whole house, top to bottom. Unlike Overly Positive Mom, however, she doesn't let her personal beliefs get in the way of kvetching. On Easter: Why do I have to plan an Easter egg hunt? Why the fuck would a bunny hide chicken eggs for children? On Passover: Not only is the actual meal the most boring thing EVER, but after eating nothing but matzo for a week, my kids are just beyond constipated. They can't poop at all! When Alternative-Food Mom talks about gluten-free matzo, Comically Overwhelmed Mom responds with a humorous request for high-fiber matzo. If she didn't laugh, she would cry.
TALKS-ONLY-ABOUT-CATS MOM
This mom doesn't have human children. Her cats are enough for her. At holiday time, though—when her cats typically forget to give her anything—she gets a little lonely and spends extra time on the Listserv. And naturally, the only thing she ever wants to discuss is the problem of outdoor cats. If someone asks where to buy outdoor icicle lights, cat mom will segue to the hyper-dominant ginger tomcat that visits her yard every day. Wonder if anyone else is struggling with his unannounced and most unwelcome visits? Talks-Only-About-Cats Mom doesn't want to throw her dirty laundry into the "cloud" (she uses quotation marks like it's a made-up thing), but the outdoor-cat problem has frayed her nerves. Both she and her cat started taking anxiety medication in order to cope.
DRUNK, FEISTY MOM
This mom is a contrarian by nature, who only logs on late at night when she's already had a few cocktails. She doesn't hate alternative diets, or holidays, or indoor cats. But when she reads all the comments together, she does want everyone to shut the fuck up. How does she communicate this? First she claims to have an outdoor tomcat that eats nothing but kosher-for-Passover sardines and baby sheep. Then she tells everyone that she's dating the local butcher, who's really good with his thumbs. Before logging off, she announces to everyone that her house is completely ready for the holiday, her children are pooping regularly, and she's never been skinnier in her entire life. HAPPY HOLIDAYS, BITCHES! SEND.
Reminder! Listservs are the leading cause of reply-all disasters. If Liposuction Mom posts about her latest surgery, and you mock her in a "private" email to your husband, there's a good chance it wasn't private after all. Just apologize, avoid her at the grocery store, and never, ever log on again.
* CHAPTER 5 *
Mean Girls Yoga: Signs Your Spring Exercise Regimen Isn't Right for You
You've heard the nightmarish spiel. Maybe you first heard it following your fortieth birthday, when you went in for an annual physical and the nurse made you step on the electronic scale. Whoa, you thought, wishing you'd taken off more jewelry, that is an accurate fucking machine. You know, the evil nurse pointed out, every year over forty, if you don't decrease the amount you eat, you will gain a pound. Whatever, you thought, yanking on a chin whisker. I've got this. I can totally give up cheesecake.
With the benefit of time, however, you accept that you need to turn this around. You fucking love cheesecake, so you're going to have to exercise. You crowd-source Facebook to find an affordable gym. Some are running spring membership specials and offer BodyPump classes that friends describe as "fun." When you sign up for a trial class, it becomes apparent that this means the instructor says the word fun over and over into her wireless headset while you do a hundred push-ups. By the end of class, all you want to do is drown that headset bitch in the gym hot tub.
At the height of your epic self-hatred, your unrealistically fit friend gives you a free pass to yoga. This strikes you as an excellent development. Yoga chicks are strong and skinny. Yoga doesn't require running. Yoga teachers are too Zen to wear headsets. But listen up, Groupon. Yoga isn't for everyone. Pull the trigger on that drishti too soon, and you may find yourself in a really bad position.
MILITANT MOANERS
People who do yoga for fringe spiritual reasons are different from those who exercise for cheesecake. Before you commit to the class, survey the neighborhood. Is your friend's yoga studio on the hipster side of town, where none of the women shave their armpits, all the men wear skinny jeans, and people drink water only from recycled cardboard boxes? Sure, boxed water is better. Says so right on the box: "Boxed Water Is Better." But for all you know, it was just siphoned out of a rain barrel. Also, when you put down your mat at the start of class, you notice the woman next to you is already breathing like most people moan. She's in her own world. And she's there for reasons you can't possibly understand. Stay alert.
CODED LANGUAGE/TERMINOLOGY
There's weird terminology even in normal yoga classes. The teacher will say, We are firing up Core right now, because Yoga is about Strong Core. But if, after a few statements like these, you realize the teacher is referring to body parts as proper nouns—put Tailbone firmly on the floor, then ask Pelvic Bone to turn up toward Belly Button—you may be in too deep. A pelvic bone should never be addressed like it's capable of answering a question. Period.
A TEACHER WHO'S LIKE REGINA FROM MEAN GIRLS AND/OR AN ALCOHOLIC PARENT
The best kind of yoga for a cheesecake practitioner is one that encourages relaxation. If you hear a phrase like You're not victims BECAUSE you're weak; you're weak because you're VICTIMS, then your class is being led by a Regina. Worse yet, he's a man. After fifteen minutes of core work, Regina reminds you to do Ujjayi breathing. Since the woman next to you is still moaning, and your inner victim is distracted, you turn to your fit friend and ask what the fuck that means. Suddenly, like a scary drunk mom, Regina appears next to you. Stop talking! Be in your own body! A few minutes later, he circles back to squeeze your big toe and apologize. You're fine, he says. I just want you to focus. You smile. Big toe smiles. But all you can think about is cheesecake.
ANYTHING TOO SEXUAL
People who practice yoga are generally accepting of the human form. But bodily acceptance has its limits. At the end of your core work, for example, if Regina announces, It's time to use Props, look around you. Make sure the moaning lady isn't masturbating with one of those scratchy rolled blankets. Then ask yourself why Regina never uses precise nouns. Take Prop, he yells. Put it in between Thighs and squeeze. Squeeze it! Squeeze that hot dog as hard as you can! You ignore the odd choice of food words, because this is intense work for Core. Core is already shaking and now, with Hot Dog squeezed by Legs, Core is starting to feel like a victim. But Regina doesn't stop. Groin should be zinging right now, he says. Isn't that exciting? Hmmm. Probably possibly no.
IT'S BASICALLY A CULT
Before the standing series, Regina lets you have a drink of water. This is the part of yoga, he says, in a shaming tone of voice, when people want to quit. But they need to push through it. Because on the other side, they will be a new person. Yes, you think, I want to be a new person. I want to be more like Regina. When I'm more like Regina, I'm going to use slogans like "victim face" and "happy place" and tell people how they need to feel. When I'm more like Regina, I'll never finish a whole sandwich. I'm going to stop eating victim food altogether and instead take in a steady diet of low-carb protein bars and—only when it really hurts—a little bit of water. Congratulations. You have just cured your addiction to cheesecake—by joining a fucking cult.
YOU BARELY ESCAPE WITHOUT SERIOUS INJURY
Ultimately, the surest sign that you have chosen wrong is that the Great Leader pushes you too hard. At Regina's command, you do Arrow Lunge. You do Straddle Thing While Awkwardly Holding Calf, and Painfully Wedged Shoulder Behind Knee. This quite possibly leads to Slight Dislocation of Spine. It is a long series, and it hurts like hell. Finally, he goes too far. Right at the end, Regina tells you to stretch your eyes. Ocular Muscle is the most atrophied muscle in Body. Wait. What? When he's not teaching yoga, does Regina perform LASIK surgery? Who IS this bossy bitch? Suddenly, none of it makes sense. The fog starts to lift. Toss your box of rainwater in the trash, march Legs out of the studio, and vow never to return.
Reminder! You'll be a lot more motivated to exercise this summer when the kids are home practicing gymnastics on the furniture. See ya later!
* CHAPTER 6 *
Mommy's Running Off with the Gardener: April Fools'!
Spring holidays can be hard on busy moms. Take Saint Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo. Since this country was built by hardworking Irish and Mexican people (among others), those holidays are a great opportunity to honor their cultures and put children in green sweaters and big hats. Viva la shamrock!
The problem for moms is that in today's drunken melting pot, adults primarily use these holidays as an excuse to leave work early and get wasted. There's nothing objectively wrong with this. When you look up fun in the dictionary, the first two entries are probably beer and tequila. Hardworking immigrants know how to party; the rest of you are lucky to be invited. Unless, of course, you have small children.
Getting wasted in the middle of the workweek—like micro-minis, cigarettes, and going to sleep with your makeup on—is a younger, single girl's game. It's a game for women who don't have to get up in the middle of the night to change a diaper, get up in the morning to make chocolate chip pancakes, then eat the cold pancake bits off melamine happy-face plates because they're too fucking tired to make breakfast for themselves.
Some of you are scratching your heads. Wait—aren't moms drunk all the time? Cocktails before playgroup. Chardonnay in sippy cups. We've all read the books. For moms, Go Fish is just another drinking game. Mommy, do you have an ace? Yes, honey. Now bottoms up with the hand sanitizer. It's time for you to go to bed so Mommy can paint her face and get shitfaced for Ireland. But, no. The sad truth is that moms don't party nearly enough. Could we have a few belts while we pick up Legos? Sure, unless we have to drive for the carpool or help with math homework. Moms laugh about drunken playdates, but actually—even in the realm of going out and drinking too much—we're falling short. We'd like to blow off steam like all the fun, drunk, single people. But we can't. Fifth-grade math is HARD, dummies!
And that is exactly why we need to appropriate our own holiday: April Fools'.
MOMS ARE SICK OF GETTING PUNK'D!
Kids love to fuck with moms. They've been doing this ever since they were in utero and decided—since you weren't sleeping well anyway—to stay in there an extra fourteen days and then come out upside down. By the time they are teenagers, their funny tricks are called lies. They punk you by saying they're going to a movie and then they go have sex with their girlfriend. In your car. If moms are sick of playing Go Fish completely sober, they're also sick of getting punk'd. It's time WE got a day to punk THEM.
USE PUNKING TO TEACH THEM A LESSON.
Hands down, the best reason for moms to appropriate April Fools' Day is to whip kids into shape. Know how your ten-year-old never picks up her clothes (clean or dirty) off the floor, even though you've asked her three hundred times? On April Fools' Day, take all her clothes—from the floor, as well as the closet and dresser—and hide them in the storage ottoman. Tell her you got sick of picking up after her and tossed all her fave outfits in the garbage. When she starts to cry, extract a promise from her that going forward, she'll be tidier with her clothes. Or how about this: Do your kids always complain about fresh vegetables at dinner and, no matter what you make, ask for grilled cheese instead? Wait until they open those lunch bags at school and see they're packed with nothing but green smoothies. April Fools', suckers!
BE NASTY JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN.
Come to think of it, kids never need a "reason" to fuck with us. April Fools' is the perfect day to piss on their selfish parade. Do mean things just because. You repressed your anger when your son climbed on your bathroom vanity stool and cooked a "makeup soup" with your eye shadow. So sneak into his room, systematically dismantle every vehicle he's ever made with Legos, and throw all the pieces in the middle of the rug. When he comes in, declare with the same shit-eating grin: I made Lego soup for you, sweetie! You kept quiet the day your twins splashed you from the pool, even though you'd just had your hair done. Won't they find it JUST as hilarious when you take their favorite painting—the one they worked on for eight minutes and forced you to hang up in the kitchen—and splash it with tomato sauce? Oh my goodness, splashing! So messy! April Fucking Fools'!
MAKE UP A STORY TO JUSTIFY YOUR BEHAVIOR.
Smart kids hate April Fools' Day. Of course they do. It totally sucks to get punked. So if your kids are smart, they will question why anyone would invent a day for supposedly nice moms to act like cruel-ass bitches. Give them a believable story to explain it. A long time ago—when people still worshipped goddesses and men got their periods—a group of evil dwarves/children were tired of getting cold bagels for dinner every day. So they asked the goddesses to make women be the primary caregivers, instead of the men. Women were angered at this request because, up until that time, they'd been making a shitload of money playing professional sports while men got low-paying jobs in social work—and nobody ever questioned how unfair that was. But the evil dwarves cried so loudly that they got their way. To appease the women, goddesses gave them one day, April Fools' Day, to remind everyone else in the family how the human race survived. So now, children, if you don't let Mommy have her special day, the evil dwarves will come back, renegotiate the contract, and put Daddy in charge of brushing your hair and cleaning your hamster cage.
SPEAKING OF YOUR PARTNER …
Why should kids take all the heat? Wasn't your partner the one who went bowling with his buddies on your anniversary? Wasn't your partner the person who blithely allowed your kid to eat popcorn the day she got braces and then fell asleep on the couch, leaving you to extract the remnants with a low-flow Waterpik? Use April Fools' Day to reboot your partner's sensitivity chip. Don't be afraid to enlist the help of the kids. Hack into one of your kids' iPods and—using believable spelling errors—shoot a quick text to your partner at the bowling alley. Daddy: U might want to come home. The basement has a brown lake in it that smells like poo, and the gardener just took off Mommy's bra. Your partner may not be happy when s/he returns home and finds you laughing your ass off. Too bad. On April Fools' Day, Sh*tty Moms do not abide.
Reminder! If any of your children were born on April Fools' Day, postpone your antics until the next day. Those dwarves are evil, but they deserve a happy birthday.
* CHAPTER 7 *
Moms with Girls: Psycho BFFs
As the school year winds down, and the kids finish up their final round of tests, your daughter is so happy! She has finally made some new friends. One girl in particular is always hanging around. Every night they message each other with hairstyle plans for the following day. They're even planning to sing a duet at the spring talent show, which comes as a huge surprise to you, because your daughter hates being onstage. Hmmm. Interesting. Has she been stealing her dad's lithium? Is she flirting with lesbianism? Also, if that were the case, would they spend that much time talking about their hair?
It's entirely possible that your daughter's new BFF is a psycho. Your daughter is her "friend" only in the sense that she is the emotional putty the BFF uses to fill the holes in her own psyche. Over time, friendships either deepen in respect and stability or they explode into nasty emotional messes, and someone ends up taking her shirt off on the school bus. Don't let your daughter become a middle-school Snapchat sensation. Get on top of this now.
EVERY KID ACTS LIKE A DICK SOMETIMES, INCLUDING YOURS.
Keeping this in mind will help you distinguish between normal and abnormal problems. If your fifth grader comes home in a bummed-out mood because her BFF kicked her out of the talent show, encourage her to express her feelings. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Also remember that a little rejection is good for a kid. You don't want her to love people in the same way as Lennie from Of Mice and Men, who keeps people so close he squeezes them to death. Normal friendships have ups and downs. Plus, your kid probably did the same dickish thing to another girl, like, yesterday, when the weather was cloudier and the room had a different seating arrangement.
NOBODY WANTS TO BE THE WRONG CONJOINED TWIN.
Having said that, dickish behavior is more extreme in some children. The time to start watching things carefully is when the girls become so close/bonded they're inseparable. Inseparable things almost never work out. Think about conjoined twins. Stalkers. Tongues frozen on flagpoles. Wishbones. Sitting next to the same person every day at lunch is totally awesome, unless your kid turns out to be the smaller half of the broken chicken bone.
BESTIE OR BULLY?
What does that B in BFF stand for, anyway? When people say the word bully, you typically think of boys who steal lunch money or throw short kids in the trash can. Girls, on the other hand, have "drama." This sexist assumption isn't much better than when women were diagnosed with hysteria, and their wombs were supposedly wandering around their bodies like feral cats. Women in the nineteenth century were sometimes just bored. And girls in every century are sometimes just mean. Are they really planning hairstyles together, or is the BFF threatening to take away behavior points if your kid doesn't follow orders? Are they really swapping food at lunch, or is the BFF micromanaging your kid's diet because she's a budding nutritionist/anorexic? Dig a little deeper, Dr. Ruth. The BFF may have given your kid newfound confidence for performing on stage. Or she may be a Scientologist who is blackmailing your child with a terrible family secret. Destroy your sex tapes, hide your strap-on, and give your daughter permission to quit the talent show.
INSPECT THE GENE POOL.
You know how sometimes you worry because your daughter is grumpy and cynical, her resting face is an ugly frown, and she gets all these shitty qualities from you? Well, we've all got issues. But if you're worried about your daughter's bestie, make a point of meeting the parents. Track the mom down at the next school fundraiser and introduce yourself. If she has no idea who you are and doesn't look you in the eye when you talk, don't worry. That's actually the principal. The mom is the one stealing all the bids at the silent auction table and saying her kid deserves the top prize because she "has so many behavior points at home." She's the batty bitch pushing her way to the front of the sign-up line because she is more important and talented than everyone else. Yup, the problem's in the pool. This relationship is not likely to improve with age. Ban the BFF and help your daughter find new friends. That middle-school bus is looming large.
Reminder! A lot of batshit narcissists raise perfectly nice children. If the parents are crazy but the kid is fine, don't hold it against her. In fact, give her extra empathy. She probably doesn't get much at home.
* CHAPTER 8 *
Moms with Boys: Broken Bones
Sexism is not the only reason people overlook girl bullying. The other reason is that boys are way more obvious about it. That's because boys are more obvious about everything. And thank goodness for that. Navigating the labyrinthine underworld of prepubescent girl drama is like trying to negotiate a uranium deal with Iran. As soon as you think you've got a handle on the issues, someone lies or changes the rules or drops someone else from a group text because they're jealous of her new hoodie. It's crazy and fucking exhausting. At least some people on this doomed planet know how to resolve disagreements with stupid jerks by punching them in the face.
The point of this chapter is not to promote sexist stereotypes about boys' roughhousing. The point is to prepare moms for dealing with the physical injuries that will result from their boys' inevitable roughhousing. Like when he swings wildly at a baseball going fifty miles an hour in a batting cage, because that seemed like a good idea. Or when he refuses to listen when you tell him not to climb out onto a low roof at his cousin's house—because he wants to see if he can touch the ground with a hockey stick by hanging over the edge. Surprise! He fell off. And now his hand is broken. Why does this fucking shit always happen in the spring? Woman, it doesn't. It happens all year round. But it does suck. Because now, after you've driven him to school all winter long, he can't start riding his bike. What's a pissed-off/worried mom to do?
TRY ART THERAPY.
Just because baseball season is ruined doesn't mean you have to keep your little dude at home every day. Art therapy has been shown to produce excellent results with the elderly, veterans, and people suffering from PTSD. Instead of running around outside, your guy can work through his frustrations by collaging an erupting volcano. Or making a healthy papier-maché hand. Or sketching his feelings. Does this suggestion sound completely ridiculous to you? Of course it does. Stereotypes exist for a reason.
IGNORE IT.
Kids whose parents are doctors will be familiar with this strategy. Doctor-parents, sick of listening to patients whine all day about fake chronic ailments, have no problem disregarding their children's complaints. Take a page from their playbook. Tell him that swelling is a healthy physical response. If he can get the thumb into the baseball glove, he's probably just a slow healer. Besides, the only way to know for sure is to take him to another doctor for an X-ray. That will take all morning. Hand? Pffft. He's lucky it's not an eye.
NATURAL CONSEQUENCES.
As parents, we're always eager to find ways to demonstrate how bad choices have bad consequences. Breaking a hand by falling off a roof is a painful way to learn that only a dumbass hangs over the edge of a roof. But it doesn't matter. This object lesson is not going to teach your son a damn thing, anyway. As soon as the cast is off—like, literally, that night, and maybe even late afternoon—he'll climb back up on the roof. And this time, he'll bring a hockey stick and a bungee cord. What natural consequences? says testosterone.
BE THANKFUL IT'S NOT SUMMER.
If your son is bouncing off the walls from missing spring baseball, be thankful it's not already summer. At which time he'd miss summer baseball, fishing camp, swim lessons, robotics team, and the Boy Scout canoe trip. He's been looking forward to that trip all year because his troop leader is a great role model, knows everything about knots, and listens to fun music by the Village People. You need him to go on that trip. At this juncture, you're still five weeks out from summer break. He's hyperactive, but at least he's still in school. Suck it, teachers!
Reminder! If your kids repeatedly break bones because they drink sugary soda every day instead of milk, it might be time to get them checked for osteoporosis. After you do that, give your children to loving parents who don't let them drink sugary soda every day instead of milk. You're fucking this up.
* CHAPTER 9 *
Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Weathering the Last Month of School
For most kids, the school year ends in June. Which means that for most parents, the work year ends in May. Every year—somewhere between paying your taxes and installing the mailbox your husband got you for Mother's Day—your calendar becomes so overloaded with end-of-the-school-year celebrations that you can't even remember to do your hair in the morning. Fuck it. You don't have time to look human, anyway. You have to make an industrial-size carafe of sport tea for art gallery night, fill out the application for language immersion next year, and then run over to the bathing suit store to order swim team sweatshirts. Take some small comfort in knowing that nobody with children under the age of ten will get anything done this month. You can avoid making more serious distress calls—whether to the unemployment office, your shrink, or the neighborhood meth dealer—by following these mayday procedures.
YOU ARE THE ONLY CAPTAIN OF THIS SHIP.
If you saw that movie where Tom Hanks is in charge of a container vessel that gets hijacked by pirates, you know that ship captains don't fuck around. In times of crisis, they send everyone down to the hull, give the pirates all their cash, then get captured and thrown onto a slow-moving dinghy. Is that proper maritime protocol? No idea. But you can learn from his pirate mayhem. When the PTO sends out the schedule for Teacher Appreciation Week—which it couldn't possibly host in February, when there's nothing else on the calendar—don't get annoyed and delete the email. You need to know that Monday is Card Day, Tuesday is Blue Shirt Day, Wednesday is Another Day Off Day, and Thursday is make a vegan side dish for the teacher dinner. Since your daughter also has a ballet recital that day, and you have an off-site meeting for work, you need to take charge. Forward the ballet information to your husband, and tell him to save you a seat. Call your parents and tell them to bring flowers. On your way to the studio, call and have a cheese-free pizza delivered to the school. Vegans in the dinghy!
KEEP THE VESSEL ON COURSE.
Even without the pirates/teacher appreciation problem, ship captains still have a lot to do in May. You have to navigate the narrow straits that exist between the end-of-the-school-year activities and the start of summer ones. When you aren't attending the kids' final Glee Club performance, you're hiring a summer sitter. When you aren't showing up to the second-grade poetry reading that is conveniently held midmorning on a Tuesday, you're stopping by Kinko's to print a release form for computer camp. (How ironic. Really: Why don't they have email?) The problem is that if you get too close on either side—watch the Glee Club and put off the sitter interview, or interview the sitter and skip the concert—there will be disappointment, tears, and a very long summer of dirty dishes. If you aim for the middle—which means doing everything a little bit badly, but doing nothing completely badly—you might not run aground.
IF THINGS GET ESPECIALLY ROUGH, PUT ON YOUR LIFE VESTS.
OK, so you ran aground. You cleared your morning schedule to take your daughter to the pediatrician for her summer-camp physical, but the doctor's office got slammed by patients with a stomach virus. You ended up missing the managers' diversity luncheon, and now you're on the HR director's shit list. You'll have to leave your post to assess the damage. Call a friend. Or another mom in the neighborhood who you hardly know, whose kids are also going to the after-school birthday party. You need to drive back to the office and make nice with human resources. If it's really bad, lower the big lifeboat: your spouse. Normally hiding in the dinghy with the vegans, your partner needs to get his ass up to the poop deck. Give your spouse the basics to get through the day—where's the gift, where's the wrapping paper, where's the tape, where's the kid—and suggest some healthy options for dinner. You'll be back as soon as you can to mop up his mess.
PRIORITIZE YOUR PASSENGERS.
Remember on the Titanic how the rich people took all the lifeboats and the poor Irish people got locked in their rooms to drown? That was sad, and even Celine Dion couldn't make it better. But there's a lesson in that horrifying episode of class warfare that pertains to Mayday motherhood. And that is, your cat is basically Irish. Any other time of year, you could fit feline dentistry into your monthly juggling act. Not right now. The same goes for your weight training, your housecleaning, your Clean Parks Committee work, and your volunteer job at the retirement home. Anything that isn't directly related to your kids' finishing school and starting summer activities—so they aren't sitting at home for more than one single day—takes lower priority.
THROW SHIT OVERBOARD.
You're back on course, you have poop deck backup, and you've prioritized the kids over your cat. Still, the family boat is taking in water. Your calendar is too full. You simply can't be in three places at once. Time to get rid of the deadweight. Start with the purely social obligations. It would be nice to make caramel corn for the fifth-grade graduation party. But making caramel corn and then missing the actual graduation because your car ran out of gas might send the wrong message. Same goes for swim team. If the preseason parent information meeting is the night before the hot dog party—and you really need to get to the grocery store—the kids get hot dogs at home. Better yet, throw the hot dogs over too. Give the kids cereal and take a goddamn shower. When you get up the next morning and suddenly remember it's PTO picture day—because that couldn't fucking happen in February either—you'll be glad to look half-human.
Reminder! In parenthood, the main goal is staying afloat. After that, the main goal is getting the kids on their own damn boat. Bon voyage!
