I Heart My Little A-Holes (6 page)

So if you’re one of those mommies whose baby isn’t walking yet and some other mom comes up to you and rubs it in your face that her rug rat is, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to say, “I am so sorry, your life must totally suck now.” And then I want you to tell them that Baby Sideburns told them to F off.

8. Reading

Okay, so I’m finally seeing a positive side to illiteracy. Here’s what one of Zoey’s books says: Once upon a time Rapunzel lived in the tallest tower of Mother Gothel’s castle. And here’s what I read to her: Once Rapunzel lived.

My kid has no idea what really happens in the story because I basically paraphrase every single page. Which means I’m totally F’ed when she can finally read and she’s like, “Mommy, you skipped that paragraph.”

Okay, so I know I promised ten milestones that suck and I’ve only done eight, but guess who just woke up early from his nap. Numero doso. And I’ve already left him crying in his crib for like fifteen minutes. God help me when he graduates to a bed and can get up whenever he wants, which was going to be milestone #9 in this post. And #10 was “being able to open doors.” This is how it was all supposed to end:

So now he can open doorknobs. And that’s when my kiddo walked in on me having sex. With myself. Ruh-roh.

ME: Hey Zoey, where do you want to go for your birthday dinner? Noodles and Company? P.F. Chang’s?

ZOEY: Rainforest Café!

WTF WTF WTF was I thinking?! It’s not WHERE do you want to go. It’s do you want to go HERE or HERE.

ME: What about McDonald’s? Or Go Roma, honey?

ZOEY: No, Rainforest Café.

Are you kidding me, seriously kid? Yeah, let’s pay like $8,000 for a stupid grilled cheese you’re not gonna eat and a tall brown dessert that looks like a pile of shit with sparkler candles. Not to mention there are only like two Rainforest Cafés that aren’t even remotely close to our house. One is in the city where people get shot like all the time and we’d have to sit in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic to get there (I lovvvve breathing in exhaust on the way to getting murdered, don’t you?). And the other is in totally the opposite direction in the middle of nowhere in this suburban mall I can’t stand with stores with names like Too Cool. No, I did not make that up. It’s there and it sells a lot of shit that’s Too Crappy.

But it’s her birthday so who the F am I to make her pick something else?

ME: Okie-dokie, Rainforest it is.

ZOEY: Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

She screams and runs around like the Tasmanian Devil for like five minutes so I’m feeling a little better now. Like this much (imagine me holding my fingers a millimeter apart). But seriously, how bad can it be? Awww shit, if you have to ask that, you’re screwed. Yeah, I’ll take out the glitter and glue for you because how bad can it be? Sure, I’ll get a free haircut from the hairdressing school because how bad can it be? Yeah, I’ll volunteer to go on the school field trip because how bad can it be taking 9 kids to a public restroom that looks like it’s been splatter-painted with fecal matter? So yes, it can be bad. Very bad. Like you’ll be in therapy for this for a lonnnngggg time.

So the big night comes and the hubster gets off work early for the birthday dinner and we shoehorn ourselves with the grandmas into the minivan and drive like forty minutes in crazy traffic to the stupid, uhhh I mean magical, restaurant.

SAFARI GUY: (chipper) Welcome to Rainforest Café. Follow me to your table.

ZOEY: I want to sit by the gorillas!

ME: Can we sit by the gorillas?

SAFARI GUY: Sure.

ME: But not too close to them.

SAFARI GUY: Uhhh, which one is it, lady? (he doesn’t actually say this but I can tell he’s thinking it)

ME: (gesturing to my toddler) I’m scared he’s going to be scared of the gorillas.

So Safari Guy puts us at a table facing the gorillas but not too close to them and nowhere near the fish tank I was hoping we would sit by to put Holden in a trance and make him magically eat his food and not bother me so I could actually eat dinner for the first time in twenty months. But that’s okay, I’ll just starve to death so my daughter can sit by some of Jane Goodall’s taxidermied friends.

And then just as we’re sitting down, the magic of the rainforest comes alive. Wowwww, it’s amazing. The pitter-patter of rain is building, the lights start to flicker, thunder starts to boom, and the entire jungle comes alive. The birds are chirping, the gorillas are oooh-oooh-ahhhing, and both of my kids are shitting their pants. Holden is vice-gripping my flabby neck skin and Zoey is screaming her head off.

ZOEY: Agggggh, I don’t like thunderrrrr! Make it stopppppp!!!

WTF, seriously kid? You picked the Rainforest Café and you don’t like thunder?! It’s not Forest Café. It’s RAINforest Café. Yeah, I’ll just go ask them if they can stop their main attraction. I’m sure none of the other customers will mind if we just skip the rainforest part tonight.

ME: Zoey, it’s okay, it’s just pretend. Holden, honey, they’re not real.

But neither of them can hear jack shit over the sounds of the thunder and their deafening screams.

And then just as suddenly as the rainstorm started, it stops.

HUBBY: Will anyone eat the spinach and artichoke dip if I order one?

MIL: I will.

Oh thank F’ing God that’s over and everything’s back to normal. Only it’s not because like every five minutes some elephant’s trumpeting or the gorillas are shaking their fists or the thunder’s booming or a butterfly’s flapping its wings and my kids are having heart attacks and I’m pulling the defibrillator out of the diaper bag to revive them. Every. Five. Minutes.

And then they’re fine again. And then they’re shitting bricks again. And then they’re fine again. And then they’re shitting bricks again. And then it’s back to normal again and we’re taking bites of our practically inedible food, and by we I mean everyone else because I’m constantly walking Holden around to look at the fish tank we didn’t get to sit next to.

And finally we finish our shitty food and four men come out and sing some weird version of happy birthday to Zoey and then the bill arrives for $19,000 and we pay it. But before we can get the hell out of there, we have to stop and listen to a talking tree because Zoey insists and it’s her birthday. Side note, trees should NOT have faces because all trees with faces are scary as shit. And then we have to buy Zoey a $2,000 princess hat on the way out because it’s her birthday and you know, because there are so many princesses in the rainforest. WTF?

So there you go. And we will never ever go back to the Rainforest Café. Well, not until one of the kids wants to go again for one of their birthdays.

Holy shit, I just heard a giant bang in the next room. What the F was that? Here’s what goes through my head:
1. Dear God I hope that wasn’t someone’s head.
2. Where’s the cry? The longer the pause is before the cry, the worse it’s going to be. Unless there’s no cry at all and then we’re F’ed because I don’t remember jack shit from the CPR class I took when I was preggers with numero uno.
3. What if it was someone’s head and I didn’t see it? Then I have no idea how bad it was and whether I gotta schlep the kids to the ER. And by schlep of course I mean cradle in my arms and transport them there as gently as possible.
4. I hear laughter so WTF was that, a toy hitting the floor? Where the hell was it dropped from? The Empire State Building?
5. Did the toy break and if so can we throw that shit away? Dear God please let it be that annoying alphabet caterpillar.
6. You know what, never mind. Ignorance is bliss. And dinner ain’t gonna cook itself so I’m staying right here with my slow cooker and my glass of vino.

So the other day we’re at a restaurant and this pregnant lady with her toddler leans over from the next table and asks, “How is it having two kids?” The way I see it, I can answer her in one of three ways:

Thank God for Roe v. Wade, lady, because you still have a choice.

Here take one of mine for the day and you can see. And I get to choose which one.

It’s nice.

Being the lazy person that I am, I go with number three, when really in my head I’m thinking, “You really want to know how it is going from one kid to two?” Read’m and weep:

1. Going anywhere sucks ass. Remember all the crap you had to carry when you had your first baby? Now multiply that times two and add another poop machine to the mix. This is when you’re gonna wish you were one of those Third World country chicks who can balance baskets on her head. Yeah, you’d look like a total whack job, but who gives a shit?

2. Feeding two kids is a bitch. Just when you’re all stoked because your firstborn can finally feed herself and you can go back to eating with two hands, an adorable little piranha comes along to chomp his way up your once again bleeding nips. And then when he can finally eat solids he’s like, “I don’t give a rat’s ass if that’s what my sister liked. I’m going to pick totally different shit and make you figure it out all over again.” The only good news is you know how you used to cut blueberries in 16ths so your baby wouldn’t choke to death? When it comes to #2, you’ll slap a whole rib-eye in front of him and let him go to town.

3. Awwww, remember how nice and quiet bedtime was when you just had one child? Lying on the floor together as a family reading bedtime stories? Say adios to that shit. Because now #1 (#1 my ass) is there to help you put #2 (who #2s like a thousand times a day) to bed. Which is like putting a baby to sleep in a room full of strobe lights with a Megadeth album playing at the highest volume. ROCKABYE BABY ON THE MOTHER-F’ING TREE TOP!!!!!!!!!

4. Okay, you thought keeping one kid’s hands out of the frigging tampon trashcan in the public restroom sucked when it was just her. Now you’ve got two little a-holes to deal with. And I mean a-holes literally. One of them’s still in dipes, so you have to go back to using some nasty ass changing table that poop’s touched like a thousand times, while the other kid is on the loose sucking the toilet handle (one of those broken ones that squirts water when you flush it), and there’s nothing you can F’ing do about it because if you let go of the baby he’ll roll off and crack his head open. Are we having fun yet?

5. We have a new rule in our house. Only one kid can cry at a time. Does it work? Hell no. If it did, I’d buy a baby on the black market and stick it with pins all the time so it’d cry and my kids wouldn’t be allowed to.

6. You know how you saved all of those awesome baby toys to pass down to #2? Think again. Because as soon as #1 sees Sophie the mother-F’ing $22 giraffe that’s really just a dog toy packaged in a fancy box, she and the stupid chew toy are like two goddamned lost lovers running towards each other in a field, and your second child is more like a third wheel. Nope, from now on buy two of everything. And if you can’t afford two, buy cheaper shit and buy two.

7. When baby’s sleeping Mommy should too. Remember that shit they told you in the hospital? Well WTF does Mommy do if they never sleep at the same time? And speaking of napping, just as your arm feels like it’s going to literally fall off like you’re in a Monty Python skit because your friggin’ infant car seat weighs like a thousand pounds, your baby grows out of it and you’re like how the F is he supposed to sleep on the go if I don’t have the infant car seat anymore? So you have two choices. Stay home all day long like you’re Paris Hilton on house arrest because one of your kids is always napping, or go out and about your day as one of your kids is constantly exhausted and losing his shit in public.