Author: Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

Rebecca Cuneo Keenan is a writer who lives in Toronto with her husband and three children.

Categories
Uncategorized

Mom Guilt: Winter Play Edition

Hello, my name is Rebecca, and I suffer from “seasonal-affective, indoor mom guilt.”

I know my kids don’t get enough outdoor winter play — or at least some of them don’t, some of the time. I guess Colum gets recess at school, which is plenty on a cold day. But Irene is in half days and doesn’t always get recess and then I tend to think the one and a half year old gets plenty of exercise just running around the house. Between naptime restrictions, school, extra curriculars, early sundown and the fact that it is just so damn hard bundling up three kids for 20 minutes of outdoor play, I know we’re not outside as much as we should be.

Compound that with the “I need to cook more from scratch,” “my house is a pig sty,” and “I need to work more to make ends meet” flavours of mom guilt and taking the time and energy to go outside in February feels like an impossible task. So when nature dumps a boatload of pure white, fluffy snow on our fair city and then follows it up with the most glorious, sunny and mild day, I know I have to take advantage.

“Okay, guys. Why don’t we just pick up the toys and books off the living room and dining room floors and then we can go tobogganing!”

“Nnno!”

“I’m too TIIIRRRED. I don’t know hooooowww to clean up!”

“Buh, buh, buh.” Eats playdoh, picks nose.

I pretty much lost it, replete with threats and yelling and hair pulling. Where have I gone wrong?! How are these my children?! Then Ed kind of lost it on me with the classic, “Maybe we need to teach them how to clean up,” line. Because I’ve never tried that. I ended up slamming the door to my bedroom like some emo tweenager (PMS much?) and picking laundry up off the floor and hurling into the hamper until the rage settled. (That is the best and most efficient way to tidy a room, by the way. Highly recommended.)

At least we all got a good cry out early in the day? We did eventually make it out of the house.

IMAG1069_1_1

That’s the way, baby girl. Nice and slow on your bum. Isn’t that fun?

IMAG1071_1

Oh no. Please don’t take the baby down on the toboggan. Really, I mean it. Don’t do it. Really.

IMAG1065_1_1

I command so much respect and authority. She LOVED IT, by the way.

IMAG1073_1_1

See you, suckers!

We all had a blast and the only person who got remotely injured was me when I wiped out freaking walking down the hill on the way to the car. I’m fine.

So I’m good now until March Break, right? Are we supposed to do this every day?

Categories
Contests

Stuff I’m Digging: Netflix

Hey, psst. This one’s a giveaway, too. (Contest closed.)

Marriage is hard. Just when you think you have a handle on things another issue crops up that threatens the very core of your relationship. It’s my own personal policy that when the going gets tough, you take it to Twitter.

This generated A LOT of discussion. The general consensus was pretty much, “Sux, but yeah. You gotta wait.” There was some talk about watching it and then pretending you didn’t. (But then you have to sit through it again without giving away any spoilers.) One person had been given permission to watch the next episode without her husband but then he was annoyed when she went ahead with it. Bottom line:  You start a show together, you finish it together. 

So Netflix is tearing my marriage apart and then bringing it back together again. (All that TV watching. We’ve never spent this much time together.) What else is it doing for my family?

Right now, at this very moment, my children are enjoying a snow day off school by watching Sesame Street Classics on Netflix. I still love those old shows. It’s also our go-to source for family movie nights; Elf was a big hit over the Christmas season. It has a great selection of children’s movies and shows and I like that I can let one kid watch a hockey game and give another one the tablet to stream a show if I need a few minutes of quiet.

Personally, though, I love the great selection of high quality series on Netflix. (I love it and I hate it because when will I ever find the time?!) My favourite way to watch TV now is to start at the beginning of a series and slowly work my way through. I lost track of Mad Men after the first season so now I’m catching up on my own right before bed. I’m also enjoying Community if I want something shorter and lighter. And, of course, there’s the marital House of Cards requirement. And that is more than enough for me.

But I hear there are even movies on Netflix! Of course, movies are their main raison d’être and we’ve seen a couple in the past few weeks. In Canada we have fewer choices than you lucky Americans but there is still a lot to choose from. Way more than I could possibly watch. And, really, for eight bucks a month, who could complain?

CONTEST CLOSED

But don’t take my word for it! Win a six-month subscription and try it out for yourself. (You can still use it if you already subscribe, too.)

Browse the Netflix selection and then leave a comment telling me which show or movie you are most looking forward to watching. (Or tell me what you are already enjoying.)

Contest closes Friday, February 22nd at midnight. One entry per person. CANADA and US.

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Working Parents Deserve First Dibs on Shifts

It finally happened. A court of law has ruled that caring for your children is more important than prime time TV. Earlier this week a Canadian federal court upheld a human rights tribunal’s finding that employers have an obligation to try to accommodate employee needs as they pertain to childcare.  That means if your boss can reasonably let you work the day shift so you can drop your kid at daycare, then she has to.

(UPDATE: From the Globe and Mail article linked to above, “The ruling also leaves the onus on employees to prove that they have made reasonable efforts to sort out their family obligations before requesting help from their employers, Rudner said.” This isn’t about every parent trumping every non-parent. It is designed to protect those who would otherwise be forced to leave their job.)

Before I go any further, let me fully disclose my biases. Not only am I a parent, I am also a night owl. I worked shift work in the Telus Mobility call centre for a brief stint before I had kids and I could not for the life of me understand why young, childless people made such a fuss about working until 9pm. You know that means you don’t have to be in until noon, right? And you get to skip rush hour altogether? And you can still meet friends for a drink or whatever? I just didn’t get it. I still don’t.

But I don’t have to get it to understand why it might seem unfair for one employee who does the exact same job as another to get first dibs on shifts just because she has a kid. I mean, imagine if I had to start coming in at 8am! INJUSTICE! It seems unfair, but that doesn’t mean it’s not right.

It’s common decency, for one thing. I once worked lunches as a server with a woman who had to pick her daughter up from school at 3:30. This meant that I always had to put in the grunt hours between 3:00 and 5:00 when you clean and prep and make next to no tips and she never did. Not once did it ever even occur to me (or to anyone else) to complain. She had to leave at 3:00 just like I could only work two shifts a week because I was in school and the owner had to yell at everyone because he was an asshole. It’s life. You deal with it.

Having children may be a choice, but taking care of them is not. Juggling work and childcare is hard enough for working parents on a typical schedule. (Sick days and PA days and doctor’s appointments and school breaks all have to be covered somehow.) But how would a single parent even go about finding child care to cover shift work? Daycares have set hours and round-the-clock nanny care is absurdly expensive. A parent’s need to work around child care limitations does trump someone else’s desire for a 9 to 5 lifestyle.

Okay, I lied. It’s not a choice. I mean, even if I employ my power of hypothetical thought to its utmost and imagine that I could have opted to ignore my own biological imperative to procreate — even if I, personally, could have chosen otherwise — somebody has to have the children. Reproduction is necessary for our political, economic and cultural continuation. Who is going to write all the TV shows when you get old if people stop having children?! God, think about it. (Oh yeah, there’s that social security problem too. That would have been smart to bring up.)

One more thing. What is the primary factor holding women back from equal footing in the workforce? Motherhood, that’s what. This is not to say there aren’t other factors (like blatant sexism in the tech industry, for example), but this is the biggest. Women take more time off from their career when their children are young, they work shorter hours and they choose less demanding career paths so they can be there for their families. For some women this is a choice they want to make. For many others, this is a choice they have to make.

So bravo, Canadian federal court! Bravo Justice Mandamin! This is a huge step forward for Canadian families and an even bigger one for women everywhere.

Categories
Uncategorized

Growing Up Too Fast

IMG_20121221_161640_1_1

Mary toddled over to the book shelf and came back with one of her favourites. Maybe it was Everywhere Babies or maybe it was  The Pokey Little Puppy  or Sandra Boyton’s Belly Button Book. She climbed up onto my lap and I reluctantly put my phone down and opened the book.

“Dat?” she asked.

“Baby. Baaabeee. Baby!” I answered.

“Dat?”

“That’s another baby. Yes, other baby. That’s right. Baby.”

“Dat?”

“Doggy. Do you see the doggy? That’s a dog.”

“Dat?”

“Bear.”

“Dat? Dat? Dat? DAT? DAT DAT DAT DAT!”

“Bunny rabbit, stroller, baby’s nose, baby’s daddy, tree, bird, moon, sun, flower.”

It went on like that for about six months or so. I mean, sure, we took breaks to eat and sleep and to schlep the other two kids around. Sometimes she’d go to the baby sitter and sometimes she’d do other things. But the ages ten to sixteen months mostly featured a lot of asking about “dat”. There were some other words, yes, but not very many and not very often.

It was starting to wear thin. I found myself increasingly wishing she would just grow up a little already. “When can I read you the actual story?” I thought. “When can you read to yourself? Or will you at least sit and watch tv for fifteen minutes so I can get the bloody dinner on in peace?”

In two and a half years she will be in kindergarten, full day kindergarten. In two and a half years all my kids will be in school and I couldn’t wait. Intellectually, of course, I knew that I would miss her when she’s gone. I would miss having babies and I really shouldn’t wish away these early years. But this was my third time playing the “Dat? Dat? Dat?” game and I was tired of it. I wanted to spend more time working and less time nurturing. It’s horrible, I know, but that’s how I felt.

Then on Friday morning I managed to misplace my bank card, thus putting the kibosh on our weekly shopping trip. I sat down with a coffee and she climbed up onto my lap with a book instead.

“Dat?” she asked.

“Bear.” I answered.

“Buh!” she said.

“Yes! Yes, Mary! That’s very good talking!”

And it went on. There was buh for bear and beh for bird. Duh for dog and muh for moon. She pointed and repeated and she must have said a dozen new words. It continued throughout the day and beyond. She pushed herself to try new sounds, even landing that pesky “f.” She babbled and sang and delighted her brother and sister with her nonsense. She laughed along with them; it was a full and hearty, decidedly un-baby-like laugh. She played games with her sister and even forgot to ask to nurse one morning.

So of course I’m in shambles. My baby is growing up too fast, yes, but it’s not just her. Colum, a couple months shy of seven, is all gangling limbs and Star Wars trivia. He has his own life at school and hockey and then comes home and entertains himself mostly. He’s still a little boy but barely. How many more years, months or days before my mere presence at the edge of the school yard is enough to make him feel utterly humiliated? How long before good night cuddles are no longer welcome?

And Irene! My poor middle child always gets lost in the shuffle. It’s easy to track those first milestones into uncharted big kid territory or those last teetering baby steps into toddlerhood. But she just seamlessly grows from toddler to kindergartner,  from little sister to big sister, without anyone much noticing. I don’t know when she started to be able to reach the light switch or the bathroom faucet without a stool. I don’t know how her hair got so long or how she learned how to get her own coat and boots on without any fuss.

They are all growing right before my eyes and I am somehow missing it. And if I’m not missing it I’m wishing it away. This is the most obvious and natural thing, but it still somehow surprises me. It catches me off guard and brings tears to my eyes. I don’t want to turn back time, but if I could find a way to hold onto the present, all these fleeting presents, just a little bit longer, that would be so good.

You know?

Categories
Uncategorized

Sandwich It! From Leftovers to Lunch

Last night was so wonderful. I bathed the girls, put on their pajamas, brushed their teeth, read them a book, sang them a lullaby and put them to bed. I repeated as needed until they both stopped screaming at me. Then I got Colum a post hockey-practice snack, checked  his homework and sent him up to bed.

THEN I emptied and loaded the dishwasher, washed all the pots and pans, swept the floor, tidied the cupboards and set about making inspired and delicious school lunches. It’s the best part of my day!

Are you buying this at all? Not even a little bit? Of course not. We are halfway through the school year and, let’s face it, if we can pull clean underwear out of the dryer in the morning, that’s a pretty big win for the whole day. I’m not sure how my life turned into a revolving door of, “I can’t wait until the next school break!” and “Omfg, when are these kids going back to school?” But there you have it.

And that is why this idea is pure genius.

You know those few bites of leftovers you have at the end of a meal? The little bit that’s not enough for another dinner but your husband puts in a Tupperware container in the back of the fridge anyway so you can clean out the moldy mess two weeks later? Yes, I think you do know. Why not take whatever’s left over and instead make a tasty sandwich or two out of it for tomorrow’s lunch? I CAN’T BELIEVE I DIDN’T THINK OF THIS MYSELF.

photo.JPG

First I made a wonderful chicken caesar salad from scratch and then put it in this plastic take-out container. There was some left over.

photo.JPG

I opted for the Ancient Grains bread because it’s my kids’ favourite. Ha!

photo.JPG

Caesar salad dressing on both pieces of bread, top with leftover chicken caesar salad.

finished sandwich

Ta da! That actually looks better than the dinner did.

Pure genius, I tell you.

Categories
Uncategorized

Sweet Surrender

Marshmallows
“This no sugar diet is going really well,” I said to my brother. “I think I’m going to keep it up past January. Maybe I’ll do no sugar from Monday to Friday but allow myself a treat on the weekend.”

“If you eat sugar on weekends then you might as well just move to sugartown and marry the marshmallow man. It’s all or nothing,” he said.

“IS THE MARSHMALLOW MAN AVAILABLE?!”

I was joking, but deep inside I was hurt. As if I’m not able to have the occasional piece of pie without falling into some sugar-coated downward spiral. As if I don’t have a modicum of self control. As if.

So, to recap, I gave up all sugar (except for the naturally occurring sugar in fruit and the small amount found in things like bread) for a limited time as a New Year’s resolution. I didn’t have a single dessert, candy or treat after January 1st. I didn’t have a muffin, pancake or piece of toast with jam. I didn’t have a cup of yogurt or honey-sweetened granola, for fuck’s sake. AND IT WAS FINE.

Until.

We were celebrating my father-in-law’s birthday on Saturday night and my mother-in-law made his mother’s “famous coffee cake.” It’s just a simple coffee cake, but she hasn’t made it for well over a decade and I’ve never tried it. I supposed a small bite wouldn’t hurt; just a taste, really, of my husband’s heritage. There’s nothing more important than family, right?

So I did. I cut off the smallest corner and popped it my mouth. It was good: light, moist, not too sweet. No harm done. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

The next thing I knew, I was clearing the remainder of Irene’s giant slice of coffee cake into the kitchen and popping just one more small taste into my mouth. Then I was standing at the kitchen counter and that’s when things got a little fuzzy. I seemed to have gone into some sort of coffee cake inhaling trance and when I came to the plate was empty and there were crumbs down my shirt.

I pulled myself together. It was okay. I was going to start allowing a bit of sugar on weekends anyway. It was Saturday, after all, and January was practically over. I could recover from this. No big deal.

And then yesterday. Oh, the shame. It was still the weekend, you see, so I might as well start the day with some granola and vanilla yogurt.  I’m not sure exactly what happened after that but it involved granola bars and stale-ass peanut butter cookies, and ended with me buying marshmallows to go with the Rice Krispies that were on sale.

Less than 24 hours after my first taste of sugar in almost four weeks, I was whipping up Rice Krispie squares for only the second time ever in my life. I married the marshmallow man, basically.

But it was still the weekend!

Never mind. I just scarfed down a banana chocolate chip muffin. Oh god.

Image credit.

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Here’s The Thing About Strollers on Buses

“There are too many strollers on buses.” “These mothers today and their SUV strollers.” “That kid shouldn’t even be in a stroller.” There’s been a lot of that kind of sentiment going around since a citizen issued a complaint at a Toronto Transit Commission meeting on Monday about strollers obstructing the aisle on TTC buses. Transit staff will look into the issue and report on whether there is, indeed, a need for guidelines. (Note that TTC CEO Andy Byford says they have no plans to start charging an extra fare for strollers.)

Here’s the thing.

Sure, it’s a pain to fit a stroller on a bus. The newer (I guess they’re not even that new anymore, are they? I’m showing my age again!) wheelchair accessible buses that ride closer to the ground make it much easier to get a stroller onto a bus than ever before. Once you are on the bus, however, seats need to fit around the protruding wheel humps. (I’m quite sure that’s the official word for them: wheel humps.) This causes a bit of a bottleneck about one third into the vehicle that’s annoying during rush hour even without any strollers. Throw a couple Gracos into the mix and your transit commute becomes a live action Tetris game. I get that. Do you know who else gets that? The parents or caregivers who are trying to take up as little space as possible while placating a baby or toddler on a crowded bus ride and apologizing to every person squeezing past, that’s who.

That brings me to my next point. Nobody brings a stroller on the TTC during rush hour unless they have to. I live in the city and have three children under seven years old. We didn’t own a car at all until the second baby was born. I know what I’m talking about. For the most part, parents do try to coordinate their travel to avoid rush hour. We’re not all masochists! But sometimes you have no choice. Child care is hard to come by in this city and some people do need to lug their kids to and from daycare on buses and streetcars. Is that not punishment enough? Or you could bring a five year old and two year old downtown for a rally supporting pay equity for midwives when you are heavily pregnant with a third baby and accidentally find yourself boarding the subway with a giant belly and a sit-and-stand stroller in the heart of rush hour and have to contend with scowls and sideways glances because how dare you impinge on that guys right to a child-free commute!? Ahem, you know, for example.

If there’s a stroller on a bus during rush hour, basically, it’s because it has to be there. More commonly, you will get a stroller traffic jam mid-morning or mid-afternoon. That can also be a hassle for anyone else trying to squeeze by, but it usually works itself out. In those cases, there is plenty of room on the bus if you don’t mind moving back a bit.

And I’d just like to point out that the so-called SUV strollers people like to complain about tend to be economy models. It’s actually quite expensive to buy a nice, sleek, light-weight and transit-friendly stroller. Contrary to popular belief, the SUV models are not a sign of exorbitant indulgence. They’re simply the only affordable options for many people until their kid is big enough for a $15 umbrella stroller (but that’s another story).

But why do these kids need to be in strollers anyway, you ask. Babies, for one, can’t walk and while some sort of baby carrier is always an option it’s not always the best choice for everyone. (If I was going to be out all day, I would want both a stroller and a carrier, for example.) The thing that most people seem to be completely unaware of is that while toddlers can walk, they really do need to be strapped down for their own safety. Children under 3 or even 4 years old have the impulse control of Rob Ford at a football game and I would never feel safe taking the TTC unless they were harnessed into a stroller, especially if I have more than one child with me.

Just remember that it’s public transportation, people. That means you’ll occasionally have to squeeze past a stroller or two and I’ll have to bite my tongue when I miss my connection because there’s an old lady taking her sweet time on the stairs. I’ll try not to begrudge the perfectly able-bodied person who took my stroller’s spot on the elevator and we will all pretend we can’t smell that guy over there.

Can we all just agree to leave young families alone and instead focus on that pervert masturbating over there? Because that still happens.

 

Categories
Uncategorized

How to Get Kids to Clean Up

I spent the better part of the Christmas holidays overhauling the playroom. I moved all the toddler and preschooler toys closer to the bottom of the staircase leading from the kitchen so I could keep an eye on Mary from there. I moved an old couch and armchair into the basement and set up a craft table and shelves for Lego and sports cards and board games. I sorted and sifted. I even purged a little.

We kept it up fairly well for a little while. Until last week. 

IMAG0849

My kids most favourite way to play is to pull out ALL OF THE TOYS and spend hours setting them up just so. All of the play food in the play kitchen is okay, but you know what’s even better? Making a salad out of Monopoly money and broken crayons and Lego heads and game pieces! So this right here was just them getting set up. “We can’t clean up! We haven’t even played yet! Tomorrow! We promise!” they sang out in unison. Or something like that.

Before I knew it an entire week had passed and the playroom had been left for dead because even the kids can’t handle the filth and they’ve settled in to take over the main floor as well.

Parents, don’t let them.

1. Tell them to clean up the playroom. Hahaha. This is obviously just a preliminary step. Obviously they won’t listen, won’t care, will get distracted or otherwise not pick up a damn thing.

2. Get angry. Raise your voice a little. Speak sternly. Use their middle names. Do whatever it takes to let them know that you really mean it this time. They will still protest. “It’s too messy. I can’t do it by myself. I’m tired. Whaaaaa.” That’s okay.

3. Hold up a black plastic garbage bag and threaten to throw out all their stuff. Be specific and give them a reasonable task, though. Like, I said anything left on the carpet after fifteen minutes would be thrown out. It’s not fair if you don’t think they can actually finish the job. Then, every five minutes, I prodded them to keep at it. After fifteen minutes, I saw they were working in earnest, so I let them take some extra time to finish the task.

Ta da!

IMAG0937-1

Okay, it’s not an organizational wonder and the carpet badly needs vacuuming. But still. I can walk through the room!

While this was going down many people on Twitter were pretty insistent that I would actually have to throw out their toys. Luckily, it didn’t come to that. I was maybe going to hide them away for a time or throw out a couple junked up things I wanted to get rid of anyway and let them earn back the rest.

What do you think? Do you have to put your money where your mouth is? Would you actually throw out your kids’ toys?

Categories
Uncategorized

Spent Weekend

Weekends seem to swallow me whole and then spit out a crumpled, tired and smelly version of me on Monday mornings. I’m pretty sure that’s not how it’s supposed to go. But I look forward to my quiet weekday mornings when the kids are out of the house and I can work in peace. Weekends are great but, man, they do me in. Here’s some highlights.

On Saturday, I drove all the way to Oshawa and back with the family (a place, by the way, that my phone is always trying to autocorrect to Ottawa because, “C’mon, lady, who ever goes to Oshawa for fun?”). Then, after unloading cranky, car-napping children from the car, I rushed upstairs to get changed for a job pinch-serving for a catering friend. And it was not even bad.

Actually, it was pretty great. I skipped out on dinner and bedtime and got to walk around (burning calories and not eating) for a few hours and I was still home by 10pm, a few dollars richer. If I did this once a week, at a real bar or restaurant, I could work up a healthy sweat and cover my child-care costs for the week in one fell swoop. Twitter agreed that I am a genius for thinking up that plan. Now, if only I could land a job working only once a week (and it would have to be Sunday because Saturday is too busy and Ed’s not home early enough on the weekdays) and it would have to be the right kind of place, and not too far, but not too close and they would have to find me because I don’t have time to job hunt with all these story pitches and query letters on my “to do” list. C’mon, who doesn’t want to hire a 34-year-old mother of three to work to work in their hipster bar so she can get out of the house? I’m sure I’ll be rolling in offers by tomorrow.

Irene had a birthday party Sunday afternoon and I eagerly volunteered to take her. It was at some indoor playground a 20 minute drive away, so I would just drop her off and then find a coffee shop to work in. Okay, fine, maybe I’d take a quick peek in that Winners over there just because I’m sure there’s something I’m not thinking about that we absolutely need. Except it turned out that nearly her entire junior kindergarten class was in attendance and most of the parents were staying. I chatted with some parents, hanging out by the door with my coat on, until I decided that with 20+ four year olds running amok I might as well stay to keep an eye on my kid. It was fine, but she’s on her own when she hits five.

Oh hey, good news! I bought a new outfit for Ed’s book launch on Thursday. (All are welcome, by the way. If you’re in Toronto, please come!) The bad news is I was shopping for pot pie, so … yeah. I decided to stop at a bakery for a delicious turkey pot pie for dinner, but that meant walking right past that Winners I was talking about. And by “right past” I mean, “Want to do some fun shopping with Mommy, Irene? Just you and me?” “What are we buying?” “I don’t know.”

I just wanted to browse the houseware section in case I saw a really good deal on something I forgot I needed, I swear! I didn’t really see anything but then Irene convinced me to buy her a 4.99 princess art set and a 2.99 Star Wars activity book for Colum and damned if I was going to stand in line to get the kids crap they don’t need without getting myself some crap that I don’t need too. So I got some cushions.

IMAG0938-1-1

And then I swear I was walking directly to the check out line, and I didn’t even slow down, when a super cute shift dress caught my eye on the clearance rack. $16! That’s practically free! Sure, it’s a size small, but that’s okay because it will make a nice shirt until I manage to lose a few pounds and about 15 years worth of decency. (It’s really pretty short.)

IMAG0940-1-1

Also, I see now how take out ends up being so much more expensive than you think it’s going to be.

Finally, we lined up for a coffee for the road on our way out of the mall. The middle aged woman in front of us glanced down at Irene and then turned away. She glanced down again. And again. Finally, she couldn’t resist saying something.

“Aren’t her boots on the wrong feet?”

“Yep!” I said, “That’s how we know she’s putting them on by herself.”

“But won’t that hurt her feet?”

“She hasn’t been wearing them for long. I’m not worried. Plus she has lots of room in them.”

“But her toes will start to rub.”

My smile hardened. “Well, she doesn’t always wear them on the wrong feet,” I said through clenched teeth.

She looked down again and shook her head, then moved forward with the line.

“She really didn’t want to change them,” I called out. “Sometimes we just have to pick our battles.”

This woman sure was worked up about a four year old wearing her boots on the wrong feet for someone wearing Birkenstocks with pantyhose in January.

 

 

Categories
Uncategorized

5 Reasons Parents Can’t Clock an Entire Work Week to Save Their Lives

  1. A kid is sick. If there is vomiting or a fever of some form of skin rash, you will generally concede that your kid is sick and needs to stay home. You may need to keep multiple children home because carting two kids back and forth to school or the sitter with a puke-y sib in tow isn’t fair to anyone. Alternatively, one of the babysitter’s kids could get sick.

  2. A kid could think he’s sick and then be totally fine. Like, a six-year-old boy could wake up in the morning clutching at his stomach and then proceed to eat one and a half bagels but still insist on feeling sick. You may be highly suspicious of this stomach malady but if he’s never tried to get out of school before you’ll  still believe him. By 10am even he will admits he’s perfectly fine, never felt better,  for example.

  3. A kid could claim to be sick, actually vomit all over the kitchen floor when you refuse to believe it and then STILL turn out to be totally fine. Because maybe what she was complaining about was a sore throat, by which she actually meant she had some phlegm caught in her throat, but she couldn’t actually say that because she’s only four. That phlegm, coupled with the most sensitive gag reflex in the history of the world, could cause her to actually vomit a small amount of real vomit on her way to the breakfast table. Instant win, she’ll get to stay home (as do all the others because you don’t want hurling at the side of the road), and will be totally fine, running and dancing and begging for food by 10am. Hypothetically.

  4. A kid could be perfectly healthy and still have to miss school for a doctor’s appointment. Between regular checkups, dentists appointments, emergency room visits for head injuries, and having to return to the hospital for cast removal, stitches or x-ray results it’s a wonder kids ever get to school. Or perhaps your doctor insists on seeing your perfectly healthy toddler every three months for no reason other than she’s skinny just like her brother of sister.

  5. All the kids are healthy, but you are sick. Every once in a while some little bastard of a virus will wipe you right out no matter how convincingly you tell yourself to, “Suck it up, Rebecca. You can’t get sick.” If you actually manage to get sick enough that someone else has to take care of the kids, though, it’s almost as good as a vacation.

Of course, if you have three kids like me, you can actually multiple this list times three and that makes 15 reasons why you are a professional disappointment. So cut yourself some slack.