The List

Today was utterly magnificent. The sun shone, the air smelled like blooming flowers and at least four neighbors fired up their grills for the season.
I came dangerously close to beginning what could be considered “spring cleaning” when I ran across this list tucked into the side pocket of a scrapbook on my shelf.
My middle son made it three or four years ago and stapled it together, forgetting about its exsistence entirely.
So since today was a day that was spent primarily chasing other pursuits I’d like to post it to spread the impish glee that clearly went into making it.
I’ll interpret for you as his handwriting looked as if a crooked chicken with arthritic claws helped him get it on paper.

There is no way you can skydive while mommy is still alive

 Things I want to do before I die. 

1. hug Obama

2. kiss a dolphin

3. Go to top of Empire State building (take stairs)

4. punch Chuck Norris

5. Find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie pop

6. Lean on the leaning tower of Pisa

7. See all USA state licence plates

8. collect all USA quarters

9. Sit in the back of a Nascar racecar during a race

10. drive a Zamboni

11. jump on a tempurpedic mattress and make a wine glass spill

12. fly on the zero gravity plane

13. SKYDIVE!!!!

14. sleep on the ground (outside)

15. sit on the roof of a moving car

16. make a wig of body hair

17. have 25 mice pets in one cage

18. get my name on a video game, billboard, book etc.

19. ride on an angry bull

20. pet a lion

This Is The Speech I Want To Hear Someday

 

Like I’ve said before, there are times when doing the emperors bidding wears you down and makes you long for a two week vacation to Tahiti.

Il Duce was especially demanding today when his needs were not getting met within milliseconds of the request going out so it should  come as  no surprise that I’m wrapped up tightly  in a blanket on the second floor of my house typing quietly so he cannot find me using the powers of his super human ears.

Nobody told me there would be days like these. Strange days indeed.

Okay, so I’m being melodramatic but every once in a while I imagine that all the backbreaking work yields spectacular results and he goes supernova during adulthood.

Supernova enough to get mommy a beach house and a jet.

So it is with this in mind that I let myself pretend that I’m sitting in the back of a lavishly furnished hall filled to capacity while my son gives his retirement speech at 25 years of age after selling his gazillion dollar company to some shmuck who REALLY  wanted it.

*Tap* *Tap*

“Is this thing on?”

(muffled laughter)

 

Wow thank you Bill , for those kind words.

It was indeed four years ago that I came into this building through the creaky industrial metal front door. If I had known then what a roller coaster ride we were in for I might have turned tail and run my motherfucking ass RIGHT back out into the street but thankfully for all of us, I did NOT.

 Ignorance was bliss in those days and we forged ahead with this radical new plan, completely chuffed that we were getting a chance to spread this new groundbreaking technology throughout the world.

I’ll keep it brief but I do want to tell you how much I have appreciated some of the things that make this company so special – not just the business end of things but the people as well.

Comrades, I am leaving but I will be watching your mind-blowing progress with interest from afar. And by “afar” I mean the beach of an uncharted tropical island I’ve purchased.  I am certain you will all go on to achieve far better things than I did. If my legacy to you was time spent building this place up, your legacy to me is one of friendship, loyalty and promise.

I have just one final point to make – that is to thank the only person who is 100% responsible for everything I have achieved in my life, my beloved mother.

There were times that I drove her completely insane, screamed, yelled demanded of her and she never gave up on me. It is by some kind of divine intervention that she did not leave me on a highway overpass after four mind melding hours in traffic that I spent loudly mimicking  the noise  made by the creepy dead child from The Grudge.

I consider myself lucky to never have tasted the punishing tang of soap for the string of jaw dropping profanities that came so fast and furious out of my small mouth from the moment I could speak and the fact that I was never tied up outside on a dog leash to work off excess energy is a testament to her superior parenting.

Those threats I made to throw my siblings into a lava pit that I would purchase when I grew up and got rich were clearly never acted upon and I send my love to my sister and brother who couldn’t be here today.

So here’s to you mom and that sparkling new glass and steel structure I built you overlooking the clear crystal blue sea.

I now raise my glass to you and say farewell.

Get in! I'll drive you to my lava pit!

 

 

Epiphany

This week many things took place in this household.

For starters, I kept casting long sullen glances at my blog after coming to the sudden realization that I was better at the disjointed nonsensical ramblings of twitter than I was posting here.

Well, if I could ever figure out the maze of deceptive and confusing caverns that Twitter is made up of anyway.

I DO tend to run out of characters in the middle of a thought and I never check the @replies to my chatter.

Like I said over there; I’m the equivalent of a Twitter hit and run artist. I fire a shot over the bow and walk away never staying to clean up the aftermath.

Last night I got a disciplinary email from the administrators at the mighty Club Penguin. For those of you not familiar, I won’t go into brain numbing details but suffice to say it’s a kids online world made up of penguins and igloos and games for kids to play.

Each one of my kids has an account and my five-year old takes it VERY seriously.

When one of his penguins “puffles” (this is a penguin pet) died from neglect (he did not feed, walk, wash or play with it) he would spontaneously burst into tears during the week he was sitting Shiva and aim his balled up fists at the sky and yell “WHY GOD, WHY?!”

I knew the guilty party was my daughter who was off site participating in the usually forbidden school day sleepover at her best friends house. When confronted with the evidence this morning in the car, both girls turned white as a ghost while offering protests too weak to be considered seriously.

I muddled past my annoyance and disapproval and enjoyed making them squirm for the five minutes we had together in transit.

The following is my correspondence with the support team. Notice I make a lame attempt to exonerate them by claiming they were not near a computer and could never have done this. This is a blatant lie and a last-ditch attempt at saving “Arty Artica”.

Hello Kelly,

Thanks for taking the time to contact us at Club Penguin Support.

Looking into the account ‘Arty Artica’ I am able to see that it was recently banned for continued use of Inappropriate Language. If you would like a more detailed description of the ban history I can provide you with exactly what was said on the account.   

**Please be aware that these messages may contain explicit language which may not be suitable for all eyes.

I would like to assure you that it is not possible for someone to ‘hack’ into a penguin account that does not belong to them.  We have many security features in place to prevent this from happening.  

All passwords in Club Penguin are protected by 128-bit encryption.  This is the same type of security that banks use.  This type of security makes it literally impossible for anyone to decipher a penguin password. It would actually take years for this to be done and it would not be worthwhile for anyone interested in accessing a penguin account.

The only possible way that a penguin account can be accessed is with the exact account password that is attached to the penguin. The following are the only ways that someone could access a penguin account:

1. If the password is shared with someone.

2. If the ‘Remember Me’ and/or ‘Remember my Password’ option is selected on a public or shared computer.

3. If the password is simply too easy to figure out.

For more information about how we handle information passed through and collected by Club Penguin, we welcome you to view our Privacy Policy at the following link: 

http://www.clubpenguin.com/privacy.htm

If you have any other questions, please feel free to let us know.

Kindest Regards,

Andrew

Club Penguin Support 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>> 

  ORIGINAL MESSAGE – do not edit below this line  

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>> 

> From: kduffy@id**************

> Date: May 13, 2010 – 08:31 PM

> To: kduffy@i*****************

>

> Dear Club Penguin Membership,

> 

> I find this a little suspect as my kids haven’t played Club Penguin in  

> months .

> I suppose someone may have hacked an account, so I suppose it’s better  

> to have it deleted.

> 

> Thank you,

> Kelly Duffy

> 

> Sent from my iPhone

> 

> On May 13, 2010, at 7:03 PM, “billing@clubpenguin.com“

> <billing@clubpenguin.com  > wrote:

> 

> >

> > Dear Kelly Duffy

> >

> > Thank you for your continued Club Penguin membership, however the  

> > penguin account Arty Artica has been banned forever and the  

> > membership has been cancelled.

> >

> > The penguin account Arty Artica was banned forever on May 13, 2010.  

> > The membership associated with this account has been cancelled and  

> > you will no longer be billed.

> >

> > Everyone on Club Penguin must play within the rules agreed to when  

> > an account is created. To keep our site safe, accounts that break  

> > the rules are banned.  The Club Penguin Rules are listed at the end  

> > of this email.

> >

> > If you would like more information, or have questions about the bans  

> > on this account please contact support@clubpenguin.com. Please  

> > include the transaction number from your membership email for  

> > verification.

> >

> > Sincerely,

> >

> > The Club Penguin Team

> >

> >

> > Club Penguin Rules

> > 1) Respect other penguins – Club Penguin does not tolerate any  

> > swearing, bullying or mean behavior toward other penguins.  

> > Disciplinary action will be taken should any one of these occur  

> > while playing.

> > 2) Never reveal your personal information – The best way to stay  

> > safe online is to NEVER share your real name, phone number, address,  

> > email or passwords.

> > 3) No inappropriate talk – References to drugs and alcohol related  

> > activities, and sexual, racial or otherwise inappropriate talk are  

> > not permitted.

> > 4) No Cheating – Any use of third party programs to cheat is not  

> > allowed. Players who use any third party programs while playing risk  

> > being permanently banned.

> >

>  

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>> 

  Ticket ID: 10973135-54128 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>> 

Good job kids.

They moved from calling my friends and I whores (or hores as they like to spell it) on Facebook to destroying the lives of small children on Club Penguin.  That grinding noise you hear is what remains of my teeth after having to clench my jaw no less than a thousand times this week.

I’d also like to add that the WordPress spellcheck insists that the Club Penguin email is riddled with spelling and grammar errors but I could not compromise my journalistic integrity by altering them.

I know you are impressed.

So anyway, after all that hurly burly things are somewhat back to normal and the weekend schedule is packed.

I promise to  return to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow morning!

I Suspect the Kids Might Actually Be Doing These Things On Purpose

 

Probably the last thing I'll ever see.

Sometimes I get the unnerving feeling that my kids are out to get me.

Not the usual my kids are sucking the marrow from my bones and I have not one iota of energy or sense of self left to keep me alive type of getting me.

This is malice aforethought.

I’ll site you some random examples from the last few days.

1) When a pollster for Adrian Fenty arrived at my door to ask me if he could count on my support during the upcoming election, I felt a gentle shove from behind pushing me over the threshold onto the front porch. Then I heard the distinct dreaded sound of the door locking behind me. No matter how hard I smashed on the windows or how loud I screamed, I wasn’t getting in.

2) They spent the better part of an hour-long road trip  throwing dangerous projectiles inside the car. Several times I thought they had enough velocity to smash out the front windshield. After a dressing down they decided to make the sound of the little boy from The Grudge for the rest of the ride fraying what was left of my two very unstable nerves.

3) My boys were playing whack a mole with bowling pins and various household objects until we refocused them on something less destructive where they sent a small furry stuffed animal back and forth on the floor. Much better right?

Wrong.

They decided this furry mammal was a beaver and kept smashing it with the bowling pins screaming “BEAVER SHOT!” at the top of their lungs. My husband and I were paralyzed with fear unsure if we were being baited or if it really was an innocent mistake.

A Trip Through Your Wires

Please turn out normal, please turn out normal.

Sit down, shut up, sit still, stop fidgeting, we will stop the class if you continue making that noise.

We are going to spend so much time and energy trying to break and tame you that we will be too exhausted to take a real look at what you have to offer.

Welcome to the machine.

It’s a big angry monster that takes kids in and molds them and then spits them out ready to take on the menial tasks of everyday life with all the fun, joy and physicality wrung out of them.

Take this pill, it will make you big/small/calm/quiet/ easier to stomach/ invisible.

This one will make you far more palatable for us and this one will take the edge off and deaden those senses a bit just in case you were thinking of making some mischief.

What a waste of that big brain . Why can’t you calm down and show us what you can do?

Let’s rewire you.

OT,PT, behaviorist, shadows, non stop meetings and endless communication with parents. More pills.

Good bye playground hello hard wooden chair and desk.

 Stop daydreaming. What’s so interesting outside that window that you can’t keep your eyes on me?

No I don’t see any figures in those clouds, and neither should you.

This will go down on your permanent record.

You are defective, disruptive and rude.

We cannot deal with you so you must leave.

You can take your pills and shove them up your unimaginative ass.

You can take your hours of mindless worksheets and let the robots fill them out.

You couldn’t interest me less in my permanent record as my paper trail was already a mile long by the time I was three.

Put the quiet twenty-minute circle time feather in your pipe and smoke it.

I may have some issues (hey, who doesn’t?) but they will shake out after some hard work and time.

When I have destroyed  nations and taken over the world I’ll be sure to look you up so I can thank you for not listening to me.

We can walk down memory lane and talk about the trips to the office and the time outs and the fake concern.
Then I’ll blow up your house put you in jail and fulfill every prediction you had for me when I was just small and helpless and wondering how to feel about myself.

Just kidding. I’ll show you that I turned out just fine. My parents worried themselves into an early grave but things are just smashing in my neck of the woods.

Define Normal

Can somebody please let me know what type of rituals constitute a normal morning routine? We do the waking up and the shuffling around but we are lacking the meat on the bones of the morning melee.
First up, I would like to note that we are a family full of night owls who would rather stay up until all hours watching movies and snacking on bags of chips than being tucked in and kissed on the forehead at eight, so there are some tired bunnies come 6:30 a.m. However, the level of difficulty is rising with each passing year and soon they will outweigh and tower over me. How do you reason with (or threaten if you like) someone like that?
This morning I awoke abruptly from a dream where I was being stalked through my house by a giant anaconda. You might think that is a little weird, but I spent much of the day yesterday wondering what ever became of a friends recently escaped snake that disappeared into their pipes. Could those things go from house to house? What if one found its way in and got all cozy underneath a bed so it could bide it’s time until it got hungry? Worse, what if one flew up out of the toilet-while it was being used? So now you understand why my subconscious decided to go there.

Unmade beds, another recurring theme in this house.

Moments after coming out of that nightmare the alarm sounded and I was off. My kids were barely awake at this hour so I made it easy by slipping clothes over their heads and sending them toward the stairs. When I arrived seconds later both were sound asleep on separate couches and I had to shake them violently to get them to move on their own to the table to eat their Cheerios. This just continued in a bizarre cyclical pattern until it was time to leave. The third also contributed to the chaos, but at least I could pick him up to move him along.
I watched a couple of advice gurus and they had what looked like helpful hints. Make sure the kids are getting enough rest, limit TV and video games, watch the diet. Those I can do but how do you motivate these motionless beings in real-time? I’ve already been yelled at for hovering over and dressing them being told that my helicopter parenting is doing them NO favors and stripping them of the little independence they actually do have. But I refuse to let the lolly gagging make us late. Gah, what to do?

My somewhat practical husband had a system in place during the first week  of the school year that had their clothes laid out for them with the expectation that they would put them on their own bodies. The excitement and hustle and bustle of September was enough to motivate and propel them into action as we were all up running around. Now the mornings are more like floating quietly in a tube down the lazy river at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Vegas-serene and mind numbing but with sleepiness instead of alcohol.

So, I will set the alarm in hopes that tomorrow I will see fresh-faced self starters hop out of bed, bathe themselves and put clothes on their uncovered parts without my help or encouragement (also called yelling). This followed by smiles and thought-provoking breakfast chit chat around our kitchen table.  Everyone would be ready to walk out the door on time and in good spirits minus the usual skirmishes about personal space and who qualifies as the biggest pain in the ass that day. The woman from the Free Range Kids blog would award me my graduation medal and tell me I was on my way to letting my kids grow up and do their own thing.

Yeah, that sounds good to me.

Prince of Id

 So here I am again. Today I sit in an office across from another set of baffled educators trying to dissect my uproariously funny but hard to understand four year old. Should I tell them that they would have a better chance of unlocking the secrets of the universe than coming up with a comprehensive plan to control and track his behavior? No, professional person I have no idea why he has all the words to the Talking Heads, “Psycho Killer” memorized (that one is actually my fault). No, learned early childhood team, we didn’t let him see that inappropriate movie, he caught three seconds of the trailer on You Tube when his sister was researching something the other day and he committed those lines to memory in an instant.

Ahhh , a day in the life of a parent with a “difficult” child. I have trouble with that moniker because it says so little about someone with so much to give. This child is as likely to warm your heart with a loving insight as to drive you to drink with stubborn defiance. Such frustrating and fascinating individuals defy explanation and description. There are times that I suspect that those around me doling out advice have no idea what they are talking about as he seems to confound even the most seasoned professionals. Solutions can’t be put into action when he’s more than aware of the game plan and tries to beat you to the punch. Or worse, he switches gears and bats his long dark eyelashes at you while letting you know you are a wonderfully patient parent to put up with his nonsense. Still, he does not suffer fools well and tells you where to go (with directions)  if you’ve gotten on his shit list.

I have often wondered if my third child is the anecdote to all those long days of deeply felt exhaustion that were mine to suffer through because of my inability to say no to a request.  A people pleaser by nature I have spent too many precious hours doing the bidding of others, sometimes even against my will. Lifetimes of undenied requests lead to pent up hostility, a terrible martyr complex and an appalling lack of personal time. I feel like my third is the end result of all that congenial wish granting blowing up in my face producing a  rebel child that refuses to please instead uttering phrases like “You need to do everything i say or I will push you into traffic” and “I don’t have to listen to you because NO ONE is the boss of me”. Most average people gasp at the sheer audacity of a four year old telling adults and children alike where to stick it, but for me it’s all in a day with id boy. Aside from the daily battles I fight to get him to comply with basic rules, I sometimes find myself sitting back and admiring the conviction and tenacity of a boy who will not give an inch. This is a child who once spent two days in a spaghetti western style showdown over the insistence that he use a red crayon to color. The perplexed early childhood expert finally called it quits and sprung him from his eternal time out but not before she gave him yet another admonishing. He responded by letting her know that next time she wanted to throw down she better bring her “A” game since he does not waste time with amateurs. Then he told her he wanted to hit her with a bowling pin, which was totally not psychotic since we had just gone to Strike Bethesda the day before. Notice though, he never used the red crayon. Victory.

What is the difference between charmingly stubborn and needing psychiatric intervention? Many people have come forward with advice and well meaning methods to get a handle on this sweet prince of id, but one simple solution seems far out of reach. No amount of finessing or manipulation remains effective for more than a day and we’ve exhausted every parenting method out there. There are some days we all throw our hands in the air in mock surrender, but deep down we will never give up. He may not be as pliable and easy to reason with as my first two but I love a challenge.

I sometimes wonder what the future holds for our lilliputian tyrant and hope that he uses his absolute power for the good of mankind.  Perhaps he’s here to teach me that saying “no” isn’t such a difficult task and standing up for yourself (no matter how crazy you appear to be) is something to be commended, not  an act  that’s punishable by fifteen minutes alone in your room.

So, I shake my head in absolute agreement with my colleagues across the big mahogany desk and I tell them “yes” and “absolutely” when we all agree on a plan of action, but behind the black out blinds I’ve hung on tiny hinges over my glazed eyes I’m  seeing an entirely different picture. No, I think I’ll keep my fingers crossed for this little guy along the way but I don’t want to see him change too much for that just wouldn’t suit him.  After everyone has finished saying their peace and we’ve all parted ways, I’ll return home  to help my little monarch off his throne to polish his tiny crown. It’s good to be the king.

Baby Slapper vs. Baby Ass Kicker

Picture this. You are eight hours into what should have been a three hour trip home from your beach vacation and you’ve only gone about seventy five miles. Frustration, boredom (for the kids), hunger, and straight up agony are being fed to you in heaping teaspoons. Suddenly, you hear a surprised gasp and a powerful expletive spew from the mouth of your husband who usually suffers silently on these road trips with only an occasional loud sigh. “THAT WOMAN IS WAILING ON THAT BABY!” he screams. Now that he’s got our attention everyone pipes up- “Where?” “What kind of baby?” “Which car?” “Daddy, catch up to her so we can see the baby slapper!”
As we creep closer to the alleged offender (notice I give her the benefit of the doubt by using “alleged”) we see only a woman driving with what looks to be an infant in the backseat. “Are you sure she wasn’t adjusting her car seat?” I say, hoping that in fact is the case since this is a TINY baby I’m looking at. “NO” my husband thunders, “She was slapping the shit out of that kid!”
Now, given the level of seething rage and impatience in our own car after that many hours confined, I can only imagine that someone somewhere out there is going to completely lose it with a kid. Who knows, maybe she had been crying non-stop for ten hours and throwing plastic crap toys at her beleaguered mother who simply wanted to pull over and just end it all by running into oncoming traffic. Although, on second thought no cars were moving so that’s not a good way to die. Seriously though, people sometimes lose their minds and my husband and I did feel badly but we did nothing.
Cut to several weeks later and my spouse has another story for me involving a mother losing her shit and a kid paying the price. “Today I saw a mom kick her kid in the ass right across the crosswalk and then leave him there”. I let this sink in before using my junior detective skills to ascertain the steps leading up to this event witnessed again by my husband.  There was clearly the issue of the child’s age. “Two years old, maybe three tops”. Was the mother alone or with her other kids? “She had a school aged child with her, and they were clearly walking home with the younger sibling”.  Did anything precede this ass kicking, or was it unprovoked? ” The little boy was screaming uncontrollably the whole way, and then turned and whacked her with his bag”.   That was the point that I began to sympathize with this woman’s plight.  I have been there. Anyone on the receiving end of the reign of terror  tantrum that a difficult 2-3 year old little boy can dish out knows that it is easy to snap and make a mistake. God forbid you are somewhere that makes a spectacle of you and your little demon because you do not want others judging you at your least stellar moment, and judge you they will.  I once spent an afternoon at a local park with my friend Beth and our kids where we sat on the side of the sandbox and chatted about celebrity gossip and all the recent headlines. A week prior a local foster family was all over the news for keeping some of their more difficult kids in cages and we both laughed hysterically as we said that keeping kids behind bars didn’t seem like a half bad idea. CLEARLY, we were joking but the disgust and horror of those around us made us acutely aware that these parents probably didn’t spend more than a few hours a week with their ONE child. This was confirmed as the parade of nannies came to fetch the young toddlers so their parents could have even MORE free time.  It’s easy to be an award winning breeder if you have endless hours to pamper and think about yourself, now try that when you are ankle deep in garbage you haven’t had the time to pick up because you’ve been busy breastfeeding your Irish twins simultaneously and changing their diapers while pregnant with your third. O.K. that is a bit of an exaggeration, I wasn’t pregnant with my third until my first two were older, but still…you get the idea.

Now, next time you see some poor frazzled woman going bat shit crazy on one of her kids, consider her day. Has she slept at all? Are two of her four kids down with a fever? Has she broken the world record for weeks gone by without a shower? Is her house a disaster? How many days have passed for her without a morsel of adult conversation? Is her brain ringing from all the temper tantrums she’s had to deal with? Have her children thrown bowls of food it took her hours to make right back in her face? How many diapers has she changed and how many runny noses has she wiped? You will never know the answers to these questions or the level of difficulty in her life, but you can offer a helping hand by letting her know you’ve been there, and if there’s anything she needs just give you a call.