Sometimes, I know my kids are being really annoying. It’s like totally clear. For example, running in restaurants. Screaming in libraries. Beating on other children. Flailing in chairs at somebody else’s dinner table. Not saying “hello” when somebody walks in the room.

Et Cetera.

In these instances, it’s clear that I must engage, and I do so. I’ve heard of parents who never say “no” to their children, but instead find ways to lovingly accept whatever horrifying shit their kids are currently engaged in.

Yeah, I don’t do that. Maybe someday, after I’ve reached enlightenment, I will become one of those parents. Then again, maybe not.

I also know when my kids are not being annoying. Well, not THAT annoying (cause let’s be honest, they’re pretty much always somewhere on the spectrum). You know, those moments when they’re just hanging out, kids being kids. And maybe there’s volume and mess and chaos, and my delicate sensibilities are being assaulted, but nobody’s getting pummeled or maimed and they are clearly within the bounds of civility.

However, things are often not that simple, because, of course, there is the GRAY AREA.

To illustrate, I made a graph:

I hope that helped.

As you can see, my kids’ behavior generally falls into the Gray Area. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to parent in the gray area. I’m confused by the behavior that falls between acceptable and totally fucking unacceptable. For example, sitting at a table in a restaurant talking and eating is acceptable. Making straw wrapper spit wads and using your spoon to launch them at strangers is totally fucking unacceptable. However, what about making straw wrapper spit wads and launching them a few inches? Is that acceptable?

GRAY AREA.

Running in a park is acceptable. Running in restaurants is totally fucking unacceptable. But what about running down hotel halls in the middle of the day?

GRAY AREA.

Final example: Playing with toys in a friend’s living room is acceptable. Throwing those toys at their toddler’s head is totally fucking unacceptable. But what about rolling around on the living room floor loudly repeating Phineas and Ferb lines and squealing? Irritating, but perhaps acceptable. Clearly annoying people a little, but perhaps within the bounds of being a kid. Perhaps those adults need to mellow the hell out and realize kids are annoying.

Goddamn gray area.

You see, here’s the thing. I am not a parent who lets her kid do whatever he or she wants because I don’t want to squelch their inner child and creativity. Though I appreciate those sentiments, I don’t have the patience. Just keepin’ it real.

So I sometimes direct their behavior. I do. However, I am not a Nazi controller parent either, and well, yes, I guess it’s true, I don’t want to beat their inner child into subservience and eerily good-behavior. Perfectly behaved children scare me. I wonder how they got so contained, being that curiosity and exploration and messy discovery are the hallmarks of a kid being a kid. And perhaps, of all learning. I want my kids to push boundaries. Fuck the system. Rage against the machine.

HOWEVER.

Where the hell is the line? There is no line. There is only one giant obscure GRAY AREA with no discernible lines.

I think I need lines.

But there are none, and every time people attempt to draw them for me I get irritated and combative, like “who the fuck are you to tell me how to parent my kids?” I reject your lines!

It’s complicated being me.

And so I parent in the gray area. I kick it in the borderlands. The frontier.

Wondering.

Always wondering…

Do I act? Do I redirect? Do I engage?

Or

Do I step back and breathe, realizing I’m being impatient and intolerant and controlling?

Am I shoving my grown-up limitations and old-person tendencies on these children, blocking them from the freedom to learn and create and explore?

Or am I teaching them how to behave? How to be citizens? How to be sensitive to others?

Oh whatever. I don’t fucking know.

We watched a play about Tom Edison. In one of his childhood explorations he inadvertently burned down his family’s barn. Totally fucking unacceptable behavior.

And yet, he was learning about light, which eventually evolved into the invention of the light bulb.

Guess in that case, he illuminated the gray area.

Ha.

I do things on a somewhat regular basis that cause me to question my qualifications for parenthood.

For example, I sometimes contribute to the truancy of my children. I’ll take them out of school early or bring them late or have them miss a day or two for last-minute beach trips or jaunts to San Francisco or pretty much no compelling reason at all.

It’s not that I think school is unimportant. Obviously not. I mean shit, I’m a grad student, clearly I don’t think it’s a complete waste of time.

It’s just that I have a hard time convincing myself that sitting in a classroom with 20 other 4^th-graders is more important than a trip to the ocean with your family.

This week I pulled Ava out of school for 3 days because it was my Spring break and I felt like cruising down South to visit my best friend Claire, who I’ve known since 2^nd grade. She lives in Central California, near San Luis Obispo, and we went. The husband had to work, so I took all three kids by myself, knowing that I’d be hanging with another mother, who would help me.

I felt a little guilty for taking Ava out. But I’ll be honest, it was worth it. At least I think it was. Maybe she’ll end up in therapy because her mother was a flake, but alas, nobody’s perfect.

There is something remarkable about a best friend since childhood. There is something sacred and wonderful about a person who isn’t “family” but has known you longer than most people on the planet. Family HAS to love you (well, at least in my family), but a best friend? Ah, they’re there because they want to be with you. They chose you. They don’t have to be there. But they are.

When we were 7, Claire and I played dolls and “restaurant” and Barbies in my bedroom. We had a pet bug named “Shiloh” who lived under a Monopoly hotel.

When we were 10, we busted into the neighbor’s house one boring summer afternoon, until we realized we had just done something illegal and we freaked out and bolted. When we got home we sprayed hairspray on the stucco wall of her house and lit it on fire. Both of those activities were my idea.

When we were 12, we went roller skating every Saturday and contemplated boys from afar.

When we were 13, we got dressed up and Waltzed with her younger twin cousins in her grandma’s living room, while she drank bourbon and smoked cigarettes and instructed our dance moves.

When we were 15, we stole her grandma’s Cadillac in Santa Clara and drove around.

When we were 17, we did the same but added beer.

When we were 18, we gazed into the eyes of Claire’s newborn baby and wondered what the hell had happened.

When we were 21, we drank Bloody Mary’s at 7am in Vegas.

When we were 25, we didn’t talk much, because I was drunk and lost and too full of self-hatred to reach out to the people who knew me before I was a failure.

When we were 29, I got sober and drove to her house 5 hours away and asked her to forgive me and love me again. And it became clear she had never stopped.

And now, at 32, we get together and take care of kids and talk until 2 in the morning and laugh like we did when we were 10 years old, giggling in the back of our parents’ cars, sisters who chose one another.

I guess this week I just needed my friend. Maybe Ava should have gone to school.

Then again, maybe not.

We went to Morro Bay

and Georgia contemplated god, err, I mean the ocean.

we missed daddy

We went to Avila and it was 73 degrees and glory.

Georgie wore her new bathing suit and we all died from the cuteness.

Rocket dug "the biggest hole pretty much in the world"

And made this face, which kills me.

doing what big sister does...

Still a little girl...

Yep, it was definitely worth it.

Claire and Georgia.

Gonna be honest, I enjoy reading the vandalism in bathroom stalls. I mean when the hell else do you have that much entertainment while peeing?

Well, unless you consider watching a toddler remove the contents of a bathroom vanity entertaining. If that’s entertaining, I get entertained daily. But I find it more annoying than entertaining.

And there’s always a lovely variety of little bathroom memos, depending on where you are, of course. Dive bars and music halls always provide some super riveting stuff involving penises and who loves whom (I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself with the “whom” thing) and all that nasty dirty stuff. My favorites though are the I’m-hammered-and-weepy-because-I-just-found-my-boyfriend-kissing-some-slut-so-now-I’m-going-to-write-horrible-things-about-him vandalism. You know, like “Johnny Smitherman gets it on with farm animals.” And then his phone number.

At my college, there’s like cultured vandalism. You know, English majors getting all deep and shit, quoting Whitman and whatnot: “And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”

I’m sure old Walt is elated. “I sound my barbaric yawp over the pissers of the world.”

And the Jesus people. “Jesus loves you.” I always want to write back “Jesus wants you to stop defacing other people’s property you fucking dumbass.”

But I don’t.

Actually, there are all kinds of things I’d like to tell the general, young, female idiot population in bars and music halls [how do I know they’re idiots, you ask? Because they’re writing in bathroom stalls]. You know, I’d like to just write a few words of wisdom and little tidbits of awesome.

I wish I wouldn’t say things like “little tidbits of awesome.” I mean shit. Not only is it meaningless, but I sound like a geeky old person when saying it.

Oh well. The cool ship sailed a Long.Time.Ago, as I have demonstrated for you folks on more than one occasion.

Anyway, here are a few things I’d write on a bathroom stall, were I the type of person to write on bathroom stalls:

1. Ladies, someday you will stop being so competitive with each other, because you will realize other women are not the problem. MEN are the fucking problem.
2. Oh come ON, admit it. You love it when Cyndi Lauper comes on the radio. You also love “Born in the U.S.A.” by Springsteen. So stop trying to be so cool.
3. Speaking of cool, that hipster guy you’re with? Yeah, he’s totally boning your best friend.
4. No, honey. No. He is never going to leave his wife for you.
5. You think you’re hiding it, but we all know how drunk you are. And we think you’re an idiot. And no, you can’t dance. You are not smooth. Not smooth at all. You do not have moves like Jagger.
6. Even when you’re doing that super-slinky I’m so hot don’t you wanna nail me dance? Yeah, it’s still bad and we still think you’re an idiot.
7. I realize you’re 21 years old and easily excited, but really sweetheart, there’s no need to squeal EVERY SINGLE TIME you see your friend across the room or OMG THAT ONE SONG comes on.
8. Less perfume. Less make-up. Less hair-flipping. Fewer fake tans. Fewer lower-back tattoos. Fewer walks of shame. Better world.
9. This will suck tomorrow.
10. Most importantly, if you flirt with my oddly attractive husband one more time because I’m older and less hot than you, my stretch marks and I will kick your teeth in. And then, I will write about it in the bathroom stall.

And with that, lil’ ladies at the bar, I bid you “goodnight!”

Haha. That was fun.

 
And please vote for me…would ya? I won’t write about it on any bathroom stalls, I promise.

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.