This = That

The Mean Mom's

Chart of Everyday Equivalents

3 tsp.......................................1 Tbsp

2 Tbsp.....................................1 ounce

1 ounce...................................you're kidding, right?

2 ounces..................................yes, please

4 ounces..................................five winter weekdays

16 ounces................................five summer weekdays

___ ounces...............................a weekend

1 week.....................................8 loads of laundry

2 loads of laundry......................oh yeah, I forgot about the sheets

3 kids......................................1 minivan

1 minivan.................................I'm a dork

waiting in the minivan................slice of hell

1 - 13 year old..........................25 daily eye rolls

Ten eye rolls.............................1 smack on the head

1 game of Monopoly...................a suicidal mom

shoveling the driveway................2 shots of vodka

mowing the lawn........................2 Corona Lights

sitting in a lawn chair..................4 Coronas, and 2 shots of vodka

4 tennis lessons.........................2 forgotten water bottles

3 science projects......................5 trips to JoAnn, 17 swear words

shopping at Target.....................not shopping at WalMart

happy hour with best friend.........1 visit to the psychiatrist

1-week vacation.........................25 visits to the psychiatrist

4 texts to/from kid......................15 second phone conversation

phone conversation with kid.........hahahahahaha, that's a good one

3 "shoots".................................1 "shit"

3 "shits"....................................1 "fuck"

2 "fucks"...................................1 hour at the grocery store

1 - five year old.........................7 daily debates

7 daily debates..........................7 ounces

1 clean house............................fantasy/fiction

Sunday - Friday.........................6 dinners cooked

Saturday.................................."Check, please"

Leave The Old Man Alone

Much to my surprise our geriatric, smelly, old, stinky, and getting-older-by-the-day dog Cosmo is surviving the winter. He sleeps most of the time, doesn't play with toys very much any more and is mostly deaf and blind, but he is still eating normal dog food, drinking and, judging by the appearance of our deck, making it outside to crap. Most of the time anyway.

Zoe loves Cosmo, and considers him her own personal playmate when she is acting like a dog. Fortunately, Cosmo still has a lot of patience and manages to avoid her by jogging around the house at a steady pace while she chases after him on her hands and knees, panting and barking. Occasionally she'll try to surprise him by leaping out from behind the couch and grabbing onto his back, or will try to hold onto him as he attempts to escape her insanity. This, I am sure, will eventually piss him off. But instead of him being able to say: "What the fuck is wrong with you? I am deaf. I am blind. I am old. I don't like surprises. I just want to give you a mint, take a nap and then go to bed. Get away from me!" he'll have to get his point across by biting her.

In an attempt to avoid this situation, she has been told by me no fewer than 297 times to "leave the dog alone." Yesterday was no different and, for extra emphasis, Doug told her, "Listen to your mom and leave the dog alone." While I am accustomed to her not doing what I say, she normally always listens to dad because if she doesn't, the repercussions are not pretty.

Maybe it's that her short-term memory was malfunctioning even more than usual, but within one minute after her chat with dad, she came within two inches of body slamming the dog. Sure enough, this resulted in angry dad, a swat on the butt and a few minutes of sitting on the stupidly-named "naughty step."

After the tears came to a halt and the snot was wiped up we explained, for the 298th time, that the dog is really, really old and can't hear or see very well. He doesn't like to be grabbed, poked, shoved, or body-slammed, and he definitely doesn't like surprises. She finally seemed to understand and, after apologizing, went to her room to play with Mr. Potato Head. Thinking it was a perfect time to start dinner since she was upstairs and wouldn't be crawling through the kitchen, I was a little frustrated when she reappeared less than three minutes later:

Now I know why she didn't listen to Doug the first time: she didn't have her ears on.

Drowning, Anyone?

Why do I keep subjecting myself to the hellacious surroundings of an indoor pool every weekend? All it does is make my skin itchy, my hair scummy, my mood cranky and no matter how many showers I take, I smell like chlorine for days afterward. Oh yeah, I do it because Zoe loves to swim. And despite my best efforts to make their lives miserable, I occasionally do things that my kids enjoy, even if it does make me consider tying bricks to my ankles and heading to the deep end.

Last weekend, for reasons I won't bore you with, I made the mistake of taking Zoe to the pool at the club that is closer to our house. The pool that we usually go to is a boring square, rarely has more than ten people in it, is quiet and as far as icky pools go, I love it. The closer-to-us pool is zero-entry, has a water slide and swinging ropes, is complete mayhem and I hate it. As soon as I walked in, I wanted to run away. At least a hundred people were stewing in the chlorine, and unless Zoe wanted to scream with her mouth two inches away from my face (which I strongly discourage), there was no way I would be able to hear her over the deafening sound of chaos.

I followed Zoe into the pool, trying not to step on any of the moms who were sitting in the water and talking. How anyone could have a conversation was a mystery to me, but there were two women in particular (let's call them "Clueless" and "Selfish") that somehow pulled this off. I don't know what they were talking about, but Clueless and Selfish were so absorbed in their chatter that Selfish completely lost track of one of her kids.

While Zoe was doing her best shark impression around my ankles, I saw a lifeguard walk from the deep end with a sobbing, disoriented four-year-old boy. I instantly knew who this kid belonged to, and sure enough saw Clueless nudge Selfish in the arm and say, "Hey, I think Billy needs you."

Selfish slowly turned around, saw her crying kid standing there with the lifeguard and was instantly pissed. Then she said, in an accusatory tone: "Where was he? Why do you have him?"

"He was lost, and in an area of the pool that was almost over his head." hollered the lifeguard, as she gestured toward the deep end.

"Billy! You're not supposed to go that far! I had no idea where you were! Shame on you!" said Selfish as she slowly got off her butt and crawled toward the kid. (I won't bother to describe what Selfish looked like, since this story is about her incompetence, not her poorly tattooed, McDonald's-is-my-favorite-food-group appearance.) The lifeguard insisted that the little boy have a checkup in the office, so Selfish reluctantly emerged from the pool and went with them.

While she continued to yell at Billy for wandering away and almost drowning, I just stood there in disbelief. It wasn't until I looked back toward Clueless, who was looking right at me, that I realized I had been making a "What a stupid moron" face. Clueless gave me a "You're a stuck up bitch, mind your own business" face, and I didn't care, because she was obviously a stupid moron, too.

At some point everyone, and I mean everyone, has lost sight of their kid in a public place for a few seconds. Most of the time it's because they're hiding behind a bookshelf or in a circular rack of clothes at Target, or in Zoe's case, felt a little too comfortable at a tennis tournament and decided to go check out a match on a different court, by herself. In these situations, where a drowning hazard isn't present and the noise and screams aren't deafening, a normal parent feels an instant, sickening twinge of fear. I watched Clueless and Selfish sit on their asses for at least five minutes at a busy pool and would have never thought that either of them even had a little boy. They never looked around, never wondered where he was and never showed any concern.

When Selfish came back from the lifeguard's office, Clueless said something to her and then they both turned and looked right at me. At least now I knew what they were talking about.

Whatcha Gonna Buy Me?

A couple days ago Charlie asked me if I was planning on getting him anything for Valentine's Day. I will admit that in years past (when I was much nicer) I have wrapped up a book or DVD and pawned it off as a Valentine's Day present. But I was seriously thinking that this would be a good year to phase out that form of overindulgence, if phase means "to bring to an abrupt halt, immediately end."

Surprisingly enough, I didn't automatically think "greedy little shit" when he asked me this question. Since Valentine's Day is still a week away I was actually kind of impressed by the fact that he seemed to be planning ahead, maybe even taking the shipping time from Amazon into consideration. I asked him if there was something specific that he wanted and was prepared for him to pull a list of video games out of his pocket. Instead, he said, "Well, there is a Lord of the Rings book of violin music that I thought would be kind of cool. Maybe you could get that for me. I'll bet dad would like it if I learned some music from that movie."

So much for phasing out the overindulgence.

I guess I'll probably manage to be nice again and buy the book while Charlie is at his violin lesson. Now if I can convince Zoe that a two-pound container of strawberries from Costco is a great gift I've got Valentine's Day for the kids covered. What will I get Zach, you wonder? Oh that's easy: I'll just tell him that he gets to say five smart-ass things to me without getting shoved into a snowbank, since I can't think of anything he'd appreciate more.

And by the way, here is a detailed list that describes how I will not be spending Valentine's Day:

1. Eating chocolate
2. Wearing red, scratchy pajamas
3. Opening heart-shaped jewelry
4. Eating heart-shaped pizza
5. Exchanging $8 greeting cards
6. Receiving flowers
7. Watching "Sleepless in Seattle"
8. Making dinner reservations
9. Acknowledging it
10. Being pissed at Doug because he's not acknowledging it, either.

Bossy? Yes. Kick ass? Yes.

After attending Zoe's kindergarten parent/teacher conference, it has come to my attention that I need to sit down with the girl, look her in the eye and apologize for the genetics that I have cursed her with.

I was told that academically she is doing fine. She's reading, writing sentences, counting buttons, writing numbers and has mastered a pair of safety scissors. Her tying skills suck, but hey, that's what velcro is for. Oh, and the flashlight that was taken away on Groundhog Day that had been sitting on the teacher's desk? Well, Zoe had grabbed it off of the desk on Wednesday and brought it home, without telling the teacher. Oops. Sincere apology, stern look, a short lecture about how "You don't take things, even if it's yours, off of the teacher's desk," a second apology, let's continue.

I knew not to get too comfortable because I had received an email from the teacher a couple days ago that said: "It will be good to talk at the conference. Zoe is having a hard time being kind to others." Ouch. I am raising a 34-pound dictator.

Turns out that if someone is annoying my daughter, she isn't very good at hiding her feelings and definitely is not passive. She has poked kids, stuck her tongue out and said something similar to "You're kind of annoying" along with some other not-very-nice phrases. While these behaviors are all unacceptable in a classroom setting, I know for a fact that I've been guilty of all-of-the-above at some point in the last six months. Oh, who the hell am I kidding, more like in the last week. The difference is that she's ballsier than me since I only manage to shove someone or stick my tongue out in my imagination. And as far as telling someone that they're annoying, I only say that after they're out of earshot.

Along with the lack of tolerance for weird children, she has also demonstrated anger when faced with a conflict, gets frustrated easily when things don't go exactly right and has a hard time waiting for others. While the teacher was explaining these issues to me, I felt a little bit of confusion because I lost track of whether she was describing me or we were still talking about Zoe. How did this woman know that if I ask someone to take out the garbage and it doesn't happen in twelve seconds I end up just doing it myself? And of course things should go exactly right! That's why we plan ahead, dammit!

So, my post-conference chats with Zoe will include praise for her being so smart, but will also stress the importance of patience, non-violent interactions and not telling every kid that picks his nose that "he's so super gross and disgusting." I will also remind her that we love her just the way she is and we always want her to stick up for herself.

As I was getting up to leave, her teacher assured me that she really likes having Zoe in class and loves her personality, and that's when I got teary. I calmly explained that while I understand that Zoe needs to be nicer to her friends and have more patience, there was no way I was going to tell her to sit in her chair, motionless and mute, if someone next to her was making her crazy because that would be sending her the message that being outspoken and having an opinion is wrong. There are a lot of people that expect little girls to be perfectly behaved and quiet, saying "sweetie" and "oh my" while they play with dolls, have tea parties, practice penmanship and adjust the bows in their hair. Zoe likes laughing at the people that fall off of ladders on America's Funniest Home Videos, loves worms and Nerf guns and gets her hair cut at a barbershop where she can dance to The Sex Pistols while she waits for her appointment. And she's not passive.

Before we left, Zoe hugged her teacher goodbye and when we got to the car, for some reason, I started to cry.