We already know this, but let’s say it again just for funsies: toddlers are lunatics.

Beyond pooping on themselves and attempting to grab it, waking up ready to party at 5am no matter what time you put them down the night before, and seeking out their own physical demise on a pretty much hourly basis, they have some seriously warped social behaviors.

For example, the grabbing stage.  Also known as the biting stage, whacking stage, or pinching stage.

I have a grabber.

Oh yeah. That Georgia. She’s a mean one these days.

A couple days ago we were at Little League practice (holy hell it’s started AGAIN), and there was this super sweet little girl around 13 months toddling around, kind of following Georgia, who was of course sprinting around the bleachers like a bat outta hell while yelling “apple” [which is odd, considering none of us had an apple].

So this little munchkin walks up to my 19-month-old (looking rather calm and innocuous I might add), Georgia’s looking at her like she fears she might knife her, or steal her imaginary apple (oh I don’t know I’M GUESSING).

And just as this little girl gets close, Georgia stares her down with the toddler death eyes and just gives it to her. BOOM! Grabs her little cheek like a little hellion.

My heart jumps. I immediately hold Georgia’s arm down, telling her “no” and “gentle.” She’s looking at me like “Whatevs, mom. That kid was all up in my business.” I tentatively release her arm and BOOM! She does it again. I move her. I apologize profusely.

So yeah. I have the evil grabber kid.

Usually mothers are pretty understanding, well, if they have a kid who’s been through this stage. The Little League mom was way cool – apparently her innocent-looking toddler assaulted some unsuspecting newborn at a recent playdate. Score. Real mothers. LOVE THEM.

But most of the first-time mothers whose kids haven’t reached this jewel of a phase look at me like I’m some sort of trash-dwelling creature with trash-dwelling creature offspring. I wonder if they think we all walk around the house grabbing each other’s faces when we’re mad.

You know, they’re still all smug and shit, basking in the infinite goodness and purity of their little bundle. Sure it’s never going to change.

Pshht.

Just wait, lady. Your little beam of sunshine will soon be gnawing the nose off her friend’s face.

And you’ll feel bad. Soooo bad. And you’ll get embarrassed. And you’ll look up quickly at the eyes of the mother, wondering what you’re gonna get: “Oh, no worries. My baby does that too!” — or that face. That furrowed brow and quick sweep picking up her baby and moving away – the face and body and gesture all saying “come on, honey, let’s get away from this obviously deranged toddler and her obviously subpar mother.”

When those women, those “If you were a better parent your kids wouldn’t be such assholes” women (I stole that from Sara, a commenter on this blog, because it so perfectly summarizes The Attitude. You know the one.) look at me with that face of disdain, I like to imagine the day when they get the call from the school informing them that their little Johnny bit Sally on her forehead during Circle Time.

Buahahahaha!

Payback’s a bitch.

Cause now Johnny’s an ass-kicker too, and you better hope that other mama isn’t as smug as you were…or you’ll be getting The Face. Oh yeah, The FACE.

Then we come home and Georgia does THIS, and I feel it again: Freaking nutjub toddlers. All of ‘em.

Face-grabbing to monkey-towel grinning in 2 hours flat.

And I’ll take her as she is.

So a few minutes ago I Googled “Occupy Wall Street Official Statement” because, well, I was curious about the Occupy Wall Street official statement. I found this. While reading it, because there’s something wrong with me, I started cracking myself up by tweaking each statement [in my head] to address the annoying things kids do. About halfway through, I realized perhaps I should share this, just in case some of you had any remaining doubt regarding my insanity. Also because I love you. So here you go.

The Official Statement of the “Occupy Single Family Homes with Children” movement.

We are the 99%.

We are older, have more experience, and earn more money than them, and YET, they continue to control our lives, treat us like butlers, seize our time and lives without a shred of concern for our well-being, mental health, pocketbooks, or civil rights.

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all parents who feel wronged by Offspring Forces can know that we are your allies.

We are the 99% and we will not relent.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the continued existence of children; and therefore, we can’t mow them down completely, rather, we must protect them, feed them, nurture them, but it’s up to each of us to protect our own rights, as parents, because this system is seriously corrupt.

This ain’t no democracy. This is like a dictatorship in reverse, only there’s more than one dictator and they’re all under 5 feet tall and watch The Backyardigans.

We are the parents. We are the 99%. And we demand change.

We come together at a time when children, who place fun over reason, disarray over order, ceaseless racket over quiet, flipping out over sleeping, pooping in diapers over the use of toilets, run our houses. We have peaceably assembled here, in the front and back yards of our Single Family American Homes, as is our right, to let these facts be known:

1. They have taken over our houses with their goddamn toys, despite our continued trips to the Goodwill.

2. They have taken bailouts from grandparents with impunity, and continue to do pretty much nothing to earn their weekly allowances.

3. They have poisoned the food supply with their incessant pickiness and undermined grocery store trips with nonstop whining, complaining and finagling.

4. They have continuously sought to strip us of our right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions, mostly by making us so damn busy and tired we no longer care that our jobs suck ass. Well that and we need the paycheck.

5. They have held us hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt toward their education, extra-curricular activities, clothing, food, and toys made in China.

6. They have consistently outsourced labor by manipulating younger siblings into doing their chores.

7. They have sold our privacy by telling inappropriate facts about our family to their friends’ parents, mostly in the form of what mommy said to daddy last night, without concern for what that behavior may do to our future as respectable figures in the eyes of the community.

8. They have used military and police force in the form of small, plastic, surprisingly sharp figurines that stab us in the soles of our feet repeatedly, break our vacuums and pollute our floors.

9. They have threatened our health by deliberately declining to engage in simple hygienic activities, despite our pleas for decency. They won’t wash their hands. They whine when they have to bathe. They pee on the back porch. Through this behavior they bring every form of viral illness into our homes. They are unrepentant snot spreaders.

10. They determine economic policy without concern for our savings, selfishly eating obscene quantities of food every.freaking.day, outgrowing their clothes on a regular basis, and demanding character-building activities such as sports, music, and social events, which they enjoy for 3 weeks and then refuse to attend.

11. They continue to block alternate forms of transportation by requiring 40 pounds of gear per 10 pounds of human, keeping us dependent upon SUVs and mini-vans.

12. They control our minds and torture us in the form of sleep-deprivation and voodoo guilt tactics.

13. They have purposely covered up food spills, stains, broken household items, and other disasters in pursuit of not getting in trouble.

14. They keep tight control of the media by demanding the same freaking book every single freaking night and requiring us to watch shows that don’t say “fuck.”

15. They continue to create weapons of mass destruction, mostly in the form of their own bodies, which fly through the house like tornadoes, destroying without remorse all things in their path, treating the precious Single Family American Home like a twisted personal playground, forgetting they are the 1%, forgetting we have rights, forgetting OTHER PEOPLE LIVE HERE.*

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

To the mothers and fathers of the world,

We, the Parents of America occupying Single Family Homes with Children, urge you to assert your power, if you have any left.

Scrape your exhausted ass up off the floor. Get a fucking babysitter. Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy front yards; occupy back yards; create a process to address the problems we face (and yes, we’ve already thought of birth control), and generate solutions accessible to everyone (Duct tape? Chicken Wire? Ear plugs? WHISKEY?).

Get creative people. The Offspring Forces are plotting as we speak, gathering in the sandbox during playdates, contriving ways to continue their dominance in the sacred territory of the Single Family American Home.

Join us and make your voices heard!

I know. I KNOW. I have too much time on my hands. But the Offspring Forces MUST BE STOPPED.

We are the 99%, people.

Never forget it.

So occasionally I come across some little quiz or whatever “helping” people determine if they’re ready to become a parent. This is, of course, totally ridiculous, because there is no possible way anybody could ever be “ready” for the train wreck that is New Parenthood.

You can’t prepare for that. (Neither the joys nor the horrors.)

Go ahead, read BabyCenter and Parenting Magazine, buy all the books, let them lull you into a space of confidence and security…but get ready to fall EVEN HARDER once that kid comes and you realize they sold you LIES.

I repeat: there is no preparing for this.

There are, of course, our super over-achieving types who make spreadsheets to record poops and pees and have money coming out their ears and therefore buy all the gear and DO EVERYTHING PERFECTLY – but, in my experience, those are usually the people who suffer the most, especially when their kid turns out to be the most non-spreadsheet-adaptable human on the planet. Invariably, they end up with the kid that defies all logic, routine or reason.  They have the freaking nutjob baby who sleeps like one hour a week and wails the rest of the time. (While watching Baby Einstein and doing flashcards, of course.) By the way, Baby Einstein is like the only thing my baby will watch for more than 12 seconds…SCORE!

But if a checklist actually existed that may actually help people determine whether they are ready for day-to-day, on-the-ground parenthood, it would (in my [dark, twisted] opinion) look something like this:

Are you ready to be a parent? Let’s find out! Mark all the items on the below list that are true for you. If you choose 20 or more, you’re ready for parenthood!

1. I only like to sleep when other people tell me I can sleep.
2. I enjoy using the restroom in the company of others.
3. I like poop.
4. I like poop on my hands.
5. If I were to, say, find silly putty stuck between my bed sheets, I’d think it was cute.
6. My greatest pleasure in life is driving humans around in a hurry.
7. I believe money should be spent on character-building activities of questionable value and Starbucks.
8. Quarterly sex will suffice.
9. I enjoy receiving unsolicited advice from toothless women who smell like gin.
10. I also like it when they touch my belly.
11. I seek opportunities to engage in outrageously high-stakes activities for which I am totally underprepared.
12. If I could, I would wash approximately 12,000 garments a day.
13. I like guilt.
14. I like constant talking and a low hum of irritating, indecipherable noise.
15. I prefer my tits closer to my knees.
16. When walking around my house barefoot, I throw food and small toys on the ground because I like the feel of them between my toes.
17. I prefer to work during vacations.
18. In restaurants, I like to walk around every four minutes and eat my food standing up while chasing a squirrel on crack.
19. My goal in life is to act every day exactly like my mother even though I think I’m not.
20. I’m okay with never seeing the floor of my car again.
21. I’m ready to want to stab myself in the eye with a toothpick on a sometimes hourly basis then somehow, at the end of the day, cry because I realize my life won’t always be like this.
22. In short, I’M READY FOR MADNESS.

Now why don’t they write THAT on BabyCenter?

You know what I should be doing? School work.

But, I’m not.

You know why?

Because I need to write the most important post I’ll probably ever write in my whole life.

Check it out.

In 3 years, when Georgia is just four, probably going to preschool and really not needing me quite so much, and I consequently have a relapse of the terminal disease known among medical journals as “I Really Really Really Think I Need a New Baby,” please remind me of the following few moments. No really, please.

Before we get into this, let me just say that when the time comes, you must be strong in the face of this insidious disease. I will tell you I really really need a newborn, and we can totally afford it and if I don’t have it my life will seem incomplete and I’ll regret it forever.

I will suddenly, defying all reason, only remember the most glorious moments spent with my children as infants. I will tell you I loved the toddler stage. If I hold your baby, I may get a little teary-eyed in joyful nostalgia. I will stare at pregnant women with a splash of longing in my eyes, forgetting completely that I FUCKING HATE BEING PREGNANT. Babies will appear radiant to me in their loveliness, like handfuls of sunlight woven together with silken threads of moonlight. I just threw up a little in my mouth.

So despite all this, you must look me in the eye and tell me these things. Please. I’m relying on you. You are my only hope of not having another damn kid.

Remind me of…

1. Trying to take a shower. Remind me of the fact that I have to hold the sliding shower door shut with one hand the entire time I’m showering lest the toddler enter with me, drenching herself. Remind me of the screams and wails of despair echoing in the bathroom as she bemoans her rejected state, and I try to shower with one hand.
2. Changing the diaper of a 15-month old. Remind me of the squirming. Of the hand that shoots down like lightening to grab the poop. Just outta nowhere…BOOM!!! Shit everywhere. Remind me of that.
3. The batshit crazy hour each night. Remind me of that hour each day when the toddler is too tired to do ANYTHING – even just stand there motionless – but not tired enough to sleep. Remind me of holding her on my hip while I try to do everything else for the other two kids. Cook. Eat. Laundry. Etc. Remind me of the inability to set her down for even three freaking seconds because…because why? Because who the fuck knows why. Because toddlers are lunatics. Remind me of that.
4. The toddler path of destruction. Remind me of the way she spends pretty much every waking moment destroying things – over-turning, pulling down, shoving off, shoving in, dumping, hitting. Nonstop destruction. Nonstop work for me. Not for neatness, but for life. To keep her from injuring herself. Remind me of that.
5. And finally, the perfectly timed, toddlers-must-be-in-tune-with-the-inner-workings-of-the-universe wake up moment. You know what I’m talking about, right? That moment when you are drifting off to sleep, finally. That giant cloud of relief spread out beneath you, begging you to fall, completely, into vast lovely sleep. And you’re drifting, settling down into sweet relaxation, ah bliss. And just as you’re about to fall into that bliss…you hear it. The grumble. The whine. The wahhhhhhhh. And you realize she ain’t going back to sleep and once again, you aren’t getting a decent night’s sleep and you will spend tomorrow in hazy exhaustion.  Again. You roll out of bed. Stumbling. Cursing the whole deal.

Swearing you’re never going to have another fucking baby.

Friends, remind me of that.

You see?

The most important post I’ll ever write.

Do you people think I’m kidding? Because I’m not.

Don’t fail me here guys.

Maybe we should start a support group for this. We could get together for meetings every week and invite people with toddlers. Then just watch. And REMEMBER.

Anybody interested?

When I’m not busy saving the world creating bumper stickers, I sometimes contemplate important philosophical questions, such as “Who’s more annoying, my cat or my kids?” It’s not immediately apparent, since they really are annoying in many of the same ways. For example, they both demand my attention, walk around whining, poop a lot, wake me up in the middle of night (often by jumping on my head), knock shit over, dart around the house recklessly, and require feeding and playing and cuddling.

But after careful consideration, I’ve discovered that my cat is indeed less annoying than my kids. Here’s why.

1. The cat poops in her litter box, as opposed to her diaper.
2. The cat cleans herself. Without arguing.
3. When the cat doesn’t like her dinner, she just walks away, as opposed to flailing on the ground exclaiming for 15 minutes that we never eat anything good and she’s just SOOOO starving she’s going to die.
4. When the cat knocks something over, she runs away startled rather than playing in the mess and blaming her brother.
5. I can chuck the cat off the bed in the middle of the night when she irritates me.
6. The cat will be entertained with a wadded up piece of paper for 12+ hours, unlike my kids, who have at least 75,000 toys but STILL can’t find ANYTHING to do.
7. I can punish the cat by squirting it in the head with water and not feel guilty about it.
8. The cat’s clothes are already on her and she doesn’t outgrow them, complain about them, need new ones or clean ones.
9. The cat sleeps in a ball at the foot of the bed, as opposed to horizontally across the mattress with her feet in my face.
10. The cat doesn’t talk.

AND, that brings us to the one I forgot: The cat can be left with a bowl of water, some food and a scratch post for many hours or even a day or two at a time, while I go on vacation. The last time I did that with one of my kids, I got in BIG trouble.

Which reminds me, dear friends who refer to their pets as “fur babies” or just “babies,” your cat is not your baby. Incidentally, neither is your dog.

Please stop saying that to people with actual kids. It just makes us jealous.

THE CAT IN QUESTION