Happy Birthday To Mothers

This past weekend was a big one for us in that we celebrated both our wedding anniversary and Mother's Day. Friday - our 11th anniversary - was great. We got a sitter for the kids and went to a nice dinner where I drank a mess of Tanqueray and tonics with a splash of Cointreau and cranberry (try it. Now.) and spent 3 hours alternating between me telling JHP how awesome I am and then making him tell me how awesome I am. This is something I endeavor to build into our daily schedule, but unless it's a holiday or I have a child exiting my body at that moment it's rarely tolerated for more than a few minutes. It was an excellent evening.

 

No, you are mistaken, these were not professionally done! Chosen and arranged by AD. With thanks to the Ways and Means Committee, aka JHP

Mother's Day - or as a younger AD called it, Happy Birthday to Mothers, was also largely kickass and started with me sleeping in. Since we retired the crib and installed the Red Menace in a big girl bed mornings have been glorious. Instead of hollering her fool head off for MOMMY PIPER TURN ON THE LIGHT AND TAKE ME OUT, she gets up whenever she wants and goes about her day while we get some extra sleep. Sure, that might mean she climbs all over the kitchen counters to get to the "raisin brain" or maybe staples her nightgown to the couch, but I am so much better equipped to deal with that shit after a decent night's rest. I might even remember to preemptively put the cereal on the counter or hide the stapler. So anyway, I slept in while JHP supervised the production of breakfast in bed which was mostly a huge Diet Coke. Perfect! After a fantastic day that included a surprise fancy lunch and afternoon at the pool we came home and tackled some presents. And I discovered that my children neither like nor know me.

The RM presented me with a precious finger painting she'd done at school along with a questionnaire her teachers had given her about me. Stuff like "My Mommy is __ years old" that they'd filled in based on conversations with her. Turns out I'm 2. My eyes are white and black, my favorite food is spaghetti, my favorite thing to do is to play with toys (didn't know she'd gotten into my bedside drawer), and the thing she loves most about me is nothing. The RM left that part completely blank. I asked her teacher about that and she very sheepishly told me that they'd asked her over and over, but she couldn't come up with one single thing. As if that wasn't a sharp enough serpent's tooth, she also said my hair was brown; I told that kid in no uncertain terms that I've got a couple of hundy a month earmarked for Barron's Salon that insist otherwise. The teachers seemed a little embarrassed, probably because she's always on really good behavior at school and they don't see her inner Baal. I think since she goes to school at a church she's somehow neutralized; not as much moved by the spirit as fettered.

                                                                               

Here we are at her birthday party. Kidding! We didn't give her a birthday party!

 





Considering this is the same kid who thinks rice can talk and a pinchy blue lobster lives under her bed I can't take anything she says seriously, so I moved on to AD's offerings of motherly adoration. Which turned out to be a card with this acrostic poem:

 

E - Extraordinary

L - Lovable

I - Ill-tempered

S - Sleeps a lot

E -

 

Starts off strong but damn if the wheels don't just come right off and then she just plain says screw it, this unpleasant layabout has taken up enough of my time. Maybe she felt a little guilty because underneath that she wrote "Elise is responsible and clean!" as if she's a parole officer approving me for a halfway house. She also played a movie she made at school where she says I'm a good mom because I make really good macaroni and cheese. Touching, yes? Because I like you I'll share my secret recipe with you: take the Trader Joe's carton out of your freezer and microwave that bitch for 6 minutes.

 

So. Fuck the hundreds of hours of Goodnight Moon or all the times I bleached the tub after my small people pooped in it; the secret to good parenting apparently lies within a frozen box. This is more than this two-year-old can take, so I'll just grab something with Cointreau and say happy birthday to all of you mothers out there.

Especially mine. Love you, Mom.